Holland America Line said its next ship due in 2018 will be named Nieuw Statendam.
HAL officials made the disclosure at the Rotterdam christening ceremony of its latest ship, Koningsdam. Nieuw Statendam will be a sister ship to the 2,650-passenger Koningsdam.
Last year, the 1,258-passenger Statendam was transferred to the fleet of P&O Cruises Australia and renamed the Pacific Eden.
Five previous ships in HAL history have carried the Statendam name.
Sketched June 1, 2015
With 192 cruises scheduled out of Seattle this year, a scene similar to what I saw recently at Pier 91 repeats almost daily throughout the summer.
Cruise ship baker Allan Isuela and his crew were rushing to make hundreds of bread rolls down in the galleys and casino manager Stoyan Stefanov was taking a final walk through the slot machines on deck eight. Earlier in the morning, 1,200 passengers had disembarked from the Statendam cruise ship, and, just hours later, a new load of passengers were boarding for another two-week journey to Alaska and back.
My whirlwind sketching tour of this Holland America boat took me through piano bars, swimming pools and multiple theaters. What surprised me the most, though, was that 95 percent of the 571 crew are from other countries. Isuela, a 23-year veteran with the cruise line, lives in the Philippines and Stefanov, who has held his job for 12 years, is from Bulgaria.
Despite being away from home for months at a time, Stefanov said the job is fun and rewarding. “People are on vacation … they are always happy.”
Seattle Sketcher Gabriel Campanario: 206.464.8795 orgcampanario@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @seattlesketcher. Gabriel Campanario illustrates life in the Puget Sound region. He has been living and drawing in Seattle since 2006. He’s a Seattle Times artist, founder of Urban Sketchers nonprofit, Spaniard, husband and father.
It’s a smart move that dovetails with an increasing emphasis on local as well as national marketing of cruise brands.
HAL won’t be advertising itself that way in Omaha or San Antonio, said President Orlando Ashford. But the greater Seattle area, with 3.6 million residents, is a top metro market with the income to cruise and HAL’s ships conveniently departing all summer from its piers.
Ashford said HAL, which has been located in Seattle for 32 years, wants to raise its profile as a corporate citizen in an area that includes names such as Microsoft, Nordstrom, Starbucks and Amazon.com.
Save for perhaps Princess Cruises in Los Angeles, it’s hard to think of another cruise line with such a strong position as a hometown cruise line.
Miami is a bit of an open city, with Carnival Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean International all having a longstanding claim.
But Norwegian made a play for New York and Miami with the introduction of its last two ships, the Norwegian Breakaway and Getaway, which were themed to those two cities.
And Carnival is making a big push to be considered the local favorite in the Texas market, where it is the official cruise line of the Dallas Cowboys, and in New Orleans where it recently struck a similar deal with the New Orleans Saints.
Who knows, maybe there’s a deal in the works to make HAL the official cruise line of the Seattle Seahawks, whose blue 12th man banner is ubiquitous in the Seattle-Tacoma area.
It might look good draped on HAL’s new downtown headquarters, which is expected to open at the end of next year.
Wetravel2u's Weblog 