We recently posted an article about Holland America Line detailing some basic facts about its cruise line. However, we didn’t detail Holland America Line’s fleet of cruise ships, so in this article we take a close look at Holland America Line’s fifteen cruise ships, examining their measurements and capacities, as well as the classes into which they fit.
Like many other fleets belonging to major cruise lines, Holland America Line’s fleet is broken into different classes, of which there are five.
Let us begin by examining the “Elegant Explorer” class, which only has one ship, ms Prinsendam (“ms” stands for “motor ship”), and the smallest one at that (not that the size of a cruise ship determines the quality of its voyages). Weighing just shy of 38,000 tons, ms Prinsendam is certainly a small vessel by today’s standards. (By way of comparison, consider that Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas, both of the Royal Caribbean International fleet, weigh 225,282 tons, making them the largest cruise ships in the world.) The ship can accommodate 835 people who can enjoy any of the eight enclosed passenger decks on the vessel. Since the ship is small, its voyages are described as “intimate.”
The second smallest of the five classes is the Signature Class, which is composed of two cruise ships, ms Eurodam and ms Nieuw Amsterdam. The latter is just a hair larger than the former, with ms Nieuw Amsterdam weighing 86,700 tons, and ms Eurodam weighing 86,273 tons. Evidently, the extra weight of ms Nieuw Amsterdam enables it to have a passenger capacity of 2,106, two more than ms Eurodam. These two ships are the newest addition to the Holland America Line fleet; ms Eurodam began its service in 2008, and ms Nieuw Amsterdam began just last year, in 2010.
The Vista Class is composed of four ships of almost identical proportions. In fact, three of the four ships – ms Zuiderdam, ms Oosterdam, and ms Westerdam – have exactly the same measurements: they weigh 82,305 tons and have a passenger capacity of 1,916. The fourth ship in the Vista class, ms Noordam, is only slightly larger, weighing 82,318 tons and having a passenger capacity of 1,924.
The Rotterdam Class (also called the “R Class”) is also made up of four ships. ms Rotterdam is the largest ship of the class, with a weight of 61,849 tons and a passenger capacity of 1,404. It also happens to be the fastest ship in the entire Holland America Line fleet. Its max speed is 25 knots (about 29 mph), making it a knot faster than the ships of the Vista Class, which are the second fastest ships of the fleet. The rest of the ships in the Rotterdam Class – ms Volendam, ms Zaandam, and ms Amsterdamare – are the same size as ms Rotterdam, less a few hundred tons. Interestingly, ms Volendam and ms Zaandam, despite their smaller size, have a slightly larger passenger capacity than ms Rotterdam.
Finally, there is the Statendam Class (also known as the “S Class”). In this class, there are also four ships. ms Veendam is the largest – it weighs 57,092 tons and can carry 1,350 passengers – but the other ships are of similar size. ms Statendam and ms Ryndam are precisely the same size, weighing 55,819 and capable of carrying 1,260 passengers, and ms Maasdam is only a hair smaller, with a carrying capacity of 1,258 and a grass tonnage of 55,575.
If you would like to know more about the cruise ships of Holland American Line, please visit this page on the Holland American Line website:
The Cruise Ships of Holland American Line
