Holland America Line

Over the course of the company's long history, first as a cargo- and passenger-shipping carrier, and subsequently a leisure-cruise line, Holland America Line has carried more than 10 million passengers from Europe to the New World and to vacation destinations across the globe.

Holland America Line recently completed an unprecedented $225 million investment in unparalleled product and service enhancements to its fleet of five-star ships. Called Signature of Excellence, this initiative built on Holland America Line's renowned Tradition of Excellence™ by significantly raising the standard in premium cruising. The comprehensive enhancements focused on five areas central to the Holland America Line guest experience: spacious, elegant ships and accommodations; sophisticated five-star dining; gracious, unobtrusive service; extensive enrichment programs and activities; and compelling worldwide itineraries.

Providing Passage to the New World

Holland America Line was founded in 1873 as the Netherlands-America Steamship Company (NASM), a shipping and passenger line. Because it was headquartered in Rotterdam and provided service to the Americas, it became known as Holland America Line. The company's first ocean liner was the Rotterdam, which sailed its maiden voyage from the Netherlands to New York City on Oct. 15, 1872. The one-way voyage took 15 days. Following that first voyage, Holland America Line has seen a series of benchmark moments in its history.

• By its 25th anniversary, Holland America Line owned a fleet of six cargo and passenger ships, and also provided service between Holland and the Dutch East Indies via the newly constructed Suez Canal.
• The line was a principal carrier of immigrants from Europe to the United States until well after the turn of the century, carrying 850,000 to new lives in the New World.
• In 1895, the company offered its first vacation cruise; its second leisure cruise, from New York to the Holy Land, was in 1910.
• In 1971, Holland America Line suspended its transatlantic passenger trade and turned to offering cruise vacations full time.
• In 1989, Holland America Line Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of Carnival Corp., the largest cruise company in the world.

In 2007, Holland America Line's fleet of 13 ships offers nearly 500 cruises to more than 320 ports. Two- to 108-day itineraries visit all seven continents, including Antarctica, South America, Australia/New Zealand and Asia and Grand World Voyages; and popular sailings to ports in the Caribbean, Alaska, Mexico, Canada/New England, Europe and Panama Canal.

Guests will have more destination choices in every corner of the world that will bring them not just to new and exciting locations but into the culture and heart of each place to create a truly memorable and unique experience.

The company's Holland America Tours subsidiary, serving Alaska and Canada's Yukon, was founded in 1947 in Fairbanks as Arctic Alaska Tours. The company originally arranged tours for passengers arriving on Alaska Steamship Co. vessels at Seward and Valdez by rail and bus to the Interior and by air to the Arctic. Westours became a subsidiary of Holland America in 1979. Now known as Holland America Tours, the company also owns Gray Line of Alaska, Gray Line of Seattle and several other Gray Line franchises. The company also owns Westmark Hotels and Inns, the largest hotel group in Alaska and Yukon Territory with 11 hotels in 10 communities. In May 2006, Holland America Line completed a new 135-room lodge in Denali to service CruiseTour, Gray Line of Alaska guests and others.

Holland America Line offers cruise and CruiseTour packages ranging from adventure shore excursions to full itinerary land tours of Alaska and the Yukon. Most CruiseTour itineraries combine a land tour and a Holland America Line luxury cruise. Rail tours have been offered since 1987 on board the McKinley Explorer full-domed luxury rail cars, featuring first-class service between Anchorage, Denali National Park and Fairbanks. In 2007, Holland America Tours bought three new MCI LX coaches and retrofitted, updated and improved 36 existing vehicles to the standards set by the new coaches, creating a new fleet.

In conjunction with its cruises, Holland America Line introduced exclusive land tours to Canada's spectacular sub arctic Tombstone Territorial Park and Kluane National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site encompassing pristine wilderness and having five of the seven highest peaks in North America.

Holland America Line and Holland America Tours, its Alaska CruiseTour subsidiary, are headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

Photo courtesy of Holland America Line