A captain’s log: Holland America at 150 years old

Holland America Line is in the midst of commemorating its 150th anniversary in business, prompting the popular cruise liner to celebrate with a number of events and shipboard specials, from an exclusive trans-Atlantic sailing to a gala toast by Her Royal Highness, Princess Margriet of the Netherlands.

But as the company looks back on its illustrious history and evolution, it also marks a turning point as the cruise industry makes waves to improve sustainability measures worldwide while also supporting a post-pandemic tourism boom.

Founded in 1873 (although there were some initial sailings in 1872), Holland America Line is among the oldest cruise lines in the world that is still operating, alongside the likes of Cunard and P&O Cruises. The company boasts it was the first cruise line to offer adventures to Alaska and the Yukon nearly 75 years ago—both still top destinations for the cruise liner today.

Holland America Line originally launched as the Netherlands-America Steamship Company, a shipping and passenger line. It became known as Holland America Line because it was headquartered in the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and provided service to the Americas. The line was a principal carrier of immigrants from Europe to the United States from the 1880s to the 1920s, carrying upwards of 850,000 passengers during that time.

In 1895, the company offered its first vacation cruise, which was just a relatively short journey between Rotterdam and Copenhagen, Denmark. Its second leisure cruise—from New York to the Holy Lands—was in 1910.

By its 25th anniversary, Holland America Line owned a fleet of six cargo and passenger ships, while also providing service between Holland and Indonesia via the newly constructed Suez Canal. In 1971, Holland America suspended its trans-Atlantic passenger trade and offered cruise vacations full-time. And in 1989, Holland America Line Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Carnival, the largest cruise conglomerate in the world.

When celebrating its 145th anniversary in 2018, Holland America Line said it had carried more than 11 million passengers to destinations around the world. Today, it carries more than 800,000 cruise passengers per year to nearly 400 ports in 114 countries around the world on its fleet of 11 premium ships, including its third Pinnacle-class ship, Rotterdam, which joined the fleet in July 2021 as the company’s flagship.

The current Rotterdam is not the company’s first ship to be named in honor of the Dutch city. The company’s first ocean liner was also named Rotterdam, which sailed its maiden 15-day voyage from Rotterdam to New York City on Oct. 15, 1872.

Werner Timmers, captain of the Rotterdam, first joined Holland America as a cadet in 1984. Working his way up the ranks to captainship, where he’s been for more than two decades, acknowledges the obvious in how much ship technology has evolved over the last 40 years.

“Maneuvering is completely different than with those early ships,” Timmers explains. “The propulsion now is what we call diesel electric. So we have generators, they make electricity, and then everything else is electric, from the lights to the propulsion to the kitchen to air conditioning. And by doing that, we gain tremendous efficiencies in how much power we use in the fuel economy.”

But for Timmers, the biggest change has been in communications.

“You know, if you went on an older ship, you had a radio room. And if you wanted to make a call, you had to literally go to the radio station, give the guy the phone number you wanted to call, and then he says come back in 30 to 45 minutes while he makes the connection,” Timmers says. “You cannot imagine that right? So that’s the way it used to go. And now when you pick up your own cell phone, you dial home right away.”

Holland America, like many other cruise liners, are also actively updating their wireless Internet services, which has lagged across the industry over the last few years but is quickly (and finally) catching up. Timmers notes that Holland America is having Starlink Internet systems installed on some of its ships when they dock in the United States.

“People want to upload their pictures to Facebook or Twitter or whatever it is, Instagram, Tik Tok. And they don’t understand why there shouldn’t be a difference,” Timmers says. “And we’ve finally reached the point, I think, where we can say that we are going to be very close to shoreside [in signal strength].”

A typical cruise ship will sail 20 years, Timmers notes, and the current Rotterdam is expected to sail through at least 2040. And looking out that far, a major concern for cruise operators is building more power-efficient ships. For Holland America, that is an even greater concern as many of its regular ports, especially in the Netherlands and Norway, improve support for shore power.

“Technology is moving at a very rapid pace right now,” Timmers says. “I think for the big ships, we will end up with something like a battery bank…So basically, we plug the ship in, turn the engine off. And now it’s like an electric car. So we can probably build in a battery bank that’s big enough to run to shift for the duration that we’re in port. So we said we’re running, say 10 hours on batteries. And when it’s time to leave, we start the car just like you’re going from one place to the next parked car.”

Day to day, Timmers faces a new list of responsibilities and challenges to deal with, from weather to emergency drills to the mundane—like paperwork. But each day is different, he says, and that’s what makes sailing and his job all the more exciting.

“Yes, you’re sailing, but you’re also dealing with machinery, you’re still dealing with passengers, you’re dealing with crew, you’re dealing with supplies, you’re dealing with all these things in one day,” Timmers says. “So you are constantly getting a problem thrown at you, and you have to find a solution. And the captain is responsible for everything. Yeah, so ultimately, I’m the responsible person. And ultimately, I make the decisions on that, but I’ve got great people working for me, so I leave most of that to them, but we come together in the end.”