Holland America Line is one of the few companies that survived from the time of the oceanliner-era. But it is not the same company it was before. When you see their website you will find a little flag of the NASM in the corner and that's all you can find about shipping. The company now is an investment company investing in companies with international allure. Although shippingcompanies are, they are not working with HAL. 

The shipping and tourism  part of the company was bought by Carnival Corporation in 1989 and is now trading under the Holland America name while the original company is HAL Investments. In the 1980's, HAL was, like P&O and HAPAG-Lloyd also for example, a very diverse company where shipping is just a part of a much bigger venture. When Carnival made a good offer for the name and the ships, the company understood that with that sale the passengerdivision could grow in a direction where it could never go under their original owners.

It was sad when the tourism-part was sold, because the old company had always been built around the shipping-operations. But when we see what Holland America Line is now, with the ships again under Dutch flag, a new European headoffice just next to the old one in Rotterdam, more and more attention for the history of the Holland America name and ships and of course their still elegant ships remembering a time when Dutch shipping was booming, we can be proud that Carnival brought the company where it is now. The Americans did save so many old shipping names and of course, it would me much more beautiful when all these companies were still independent. But they do still exist now, and these names give us a true link to the past. Browse the next pages through the new Holland America Line ships built under the Carnival-management.