Amsterdam Historical

MS Amsterdam entered service in October 2000, the fourth and final R-class ship, built by Fincantieri at a cost of four hundred million dollars. At 62,735 gross tons with room for 1,380 guests, she was not the largest ship in the Holland America fleet. She was not the newest. But she was the one they gave the Grand World Voyage to, and that told you everything about her.

Every January, Amsterdam left Fort Lauderdale and did not come back for three or four months. She circled the globe while other ships repeated weekly Caribbean loops. The passengers who boarded her for those voyages were mostly retired, mostly patient, and mostly willing to see the whole thing through — Cape Town, Mumbai, Sydney, Shanghai, Yokohama, and a hundred ports in between. They unpacked once and left their suitcases under the bed until spring.

The Grand World Voyage was not a casual trip. It was a sustained act of curiosity, and Amsterdam was built for it. Her Crow's Nest lounge sat high above the bow, and the view through those windows changed every few days. Her two-story dining room served formal dinner nightly whether she was in the Strait of Malacca or the English Channel. Her promenade deck ran the full length of the ship — teak underfoot, open sea on both sides — and the walkers who circled it each morning knew exactly how many laps made a mile.

Holland America sold her in July 2020. She was rechristened Bolette and began a new career sailing from Dover for Fred. Olsen. She is still out there, twenty-five years old now, carrying people to places they have never been. That was always what she did best.

— In the Wake editorial

My husband and I talked about the Grand World Voyage for nine years before we booked it.

We had sailed Amsterdam twice before — a ten-night Caribbean out of Fort Lauderdale and a repositioning from Barcelona — and we liked how quiet she was. Not hushed. Just steady. The kind of ship where you could sit in the Rotterdam Dining Room at half past seven and nobody rushed you and nobody tried to sell you anything afterward.

When Jim retired in 2017, I called our travel advisor before he finished his last day at the office. We booked the 2018 Grand World Voyage. One hundred and twelve days, Fort Lauderdale to Fort Lauderdale, in a verandah stateroom on Deck 7.

Everything about those months was slower than I expected. The sea days between ports stretched to three or four at a time, sometimes six crossing the Indian Ocean. I read nineteen books. Jim took watercolor classes in the Crow's Nest while I walked laps on the Promenade Deck — three and a half laps to the mile. We ate dinner every night at the same table, same waiters, same couple from Portland across from us. By week six the waiters knew what Jim wanted before he opened the menu.

Jim passed in November 2021, three years after our voyage. When I cleaned out his desk I found a cocktail napkin from the Rotterdam Dining Room folded into his passport folder. I do not know which night it was from. It does not matter. I know what he would have said: not one of those hundred and twelve days wasted.

— Linda M.