Rotterdam (VI) / Amsterdam (III)
The sixth Rotterdam and the thirth Amsterdam were built at Fincantieri in Marghera, Italy in 1996 and 2000. Rotterdam is 59.642 gross tonns and Amsterdam is slightly bigger with 60.874 gross tonns.They are 237,59 meters long, 32,35 meters wide and their draft is 7,80 meters. They can reach 25 knots and are really fast. Berlitz awarded them with 5 stars, and 1668 passengers can enjoy 12 decks.
Rotterdam was the first of the new sisters to be built. They would be slightly bigger then the Statendam-class of the mid-nineties. At first, there should only one ship be built, the Rotterdam only. This was sort of a tradition, because in the Holland-America history none of the previous five Rotterdam's had a sistership. The ship was built as a modern look-alike for the fifth Rotterdam, the ship that many people find the most attractive oceanliner ever built and now back in Rotterdam as a static museumship and learningcenter. So the expectations were very high of this new ship. In my opinion, this new ship is quite attractive, but apart from the twin-uptake funnels she does not look like the fifth Rotterdam at all. Because of that, she maybe should have been built without the uptakes as well, because the meaning of this misses the goal. But nevertheless, I like this ship. She is easily recognizable as a modern Holland America liner and doesn't look like a floating hotel in my opinion. Also inside, the traditional Holland America interiour, designed by the Dutch architect Frans Dingemans of VFD, does make her feel like a ship. Two near sisters were built after her, but they recieved only one normal funnel. These were the thirth Volendam and the thirth Zaandam in 1999. Breaking the tradition of the previous Rotterdam's, in 2000 a fourth sistership appeared with also the twin funnels. The Amsterdam floated out in januari 2000.
The two ships are not entirely the same. You can see some little diffenrences between them in the aft exteriour, and Amsterdam is a little bit bigger than her older sister. The first few months of her life, Amsterdam sailed as Amsterdam 1 because not all her paperwork was ready and therefor she could not be registered in Holland. She was instead registered in Nassau and because there already was a Bahamian-flagged ship named Amsterdam she recieved the '1' behind her name.
Amsterdam was named in Boston in october 2000 and made her first cruise on the end of that month from Fort Lauderdale to Costa Rica. Within a few months time she was ceremoniously reflagged as a Dutch ship and her homeport of Rotterdam appeared on her stern. She was struck by some norwlk-virus outbrakes throughout her carreer, but aren't most cruiseships?
In february of 2005, Amsterdam hit the news to show how the most modern cruiseliners and their passengers can still suffer from bad weather. When the ship was anchored near Port Stanley on the Falklands the weather became so bad that she had to lift anchor and seek shelter away from the storm. Because of that, some hundreds of people were not able to get back to the ship and had to stay overnight in Port Stanley. Because of the limited amount of hotelspace on the island, some passengers and crew were invited to stay at residents homes and also, the residents cared for enough food for the hungry guests. The next day, the weather was calmed down and the cruise could be continued, but it was a memory worthwile for those people.
