MS Volendam is a Rotterdam class (R class) cruise ship belonging to Holland America Line. There are ten decks, with passenger cabins spread across six of them. The theme aboard Volendam is flowers and the décor throughout the ship emphasizes floral patterns. She sails out of Australia, Asia and conducts cruises of the Inside Passage traversing British Columbia and Alaska.

Design and description

Volendam is a Rotterdam class (R class) cruise ship operated by Holland America Line as a subsidiary company of Carnival Cruise Lines. She has three sister ships in the fleet, Zaandam, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. She was the second of these ships to be launched (in 1999), the Rotterdam being the lead ship of the class. Volendam is 238 m (781 ft), a 32.3 m (106 ft) beam, and a 8.1 m (27 ft) draft. She has ten decks, and contains cabins for passengers (called staterooms) on six decks.

The ship's theme is flowers, and she features floral designs throughout. The atrium contains a sculpture spanning three decks which was created by Luciano Vistosi. Volendam was christened by former professional tennis player Chris Evert on 12 November 1999, who became the ship's godmother.

She was refurbished in 2006 and also in 2011 when she entered drydock in Singapore for a refit.

Ports of call

She first entered the Australian market in 2009. Volendam cancelled a visit to Batemans Bay during a trip circumnavigating Australia in 2010, only giving 48 hours notice due to "operational issues" which was interpreted by local media as a failure by the town's council to meet the requirements set out by Holland America regarding the town's wharf some twelve months prior to the expected arrival of the ship. During 2011 she was chartered to visit match relevant destinations during the 2011 Rugby World Cup, which was hosted in New Zealand.

In 2016, Volendam sailed out of Australia/New Zealand and South Pacific, and during the Northern Hemisphere summer sailed out of Vancouver BC, Canada, conducting cruises of the Inside Passage to Alaska. She hosted an Inside Passage cruise in September 2012 to celebrate a hundred years of The Vancouver Sun. In 2013 when Volendam returned to Australian waters, she visited Kangaroo Island for the first time, after a new landing pontoon was installed on the island to allow for it to become a cruise ship destination. After she left Australia for Asia, she visited a variety of Asian countries including Japan, China, South Korea and Vietnam.

On 9 March 2016 she witnessed a Total Solar Eclipse in the Makassar Straight while sailing through Indonesia as part of an extended tour of Asia, hosting a number of astronomy groups and eclipse followers.

In popular culture

In the 2005 film Into the Blue, Volendam makes a brief cameo when she was docked in the Prince George Wharf port of Nassau, Bahamas