The Good Ship(s) Volendam

We recently signed up for a cruise on Holland America's "Volendam".  The cruise would be from Singapore to Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, India and then back again, via Malaysia, to Singapore.  But before I tell you about the cruise, I have to tell you about the ship.

Knowing that my brother, Mike, was interested in anything to do with ships, I quickly looked up the Volendam on Wikipedia and relayed a few basic facts about the Volendam to him.  Built in 1922 by Harland & Wolff in Glasgow, it had plied the Rotterdam to New York sea lanes, had been attacked in the Second World War and was now conducting cruises in Australia, Asia and Alaska.

Mike's e-mail reply was brief and to the point:

"Just looked up SS Volendam on the internet. Built 1922 as you stated. Scrapped in 1950!!  Are you sure you have a boat to go to?

Bon Voyage,
Mike"

Oh boy.  I guess I had got the wrong Volendam.  If you look up SS Volendam on Wikipedia, you will find what I now understand was the first Volendam.  (In fact, there was a second Volendam as well).  But if you look up M/S Volendam, you will find the ship that we actually sailed on which is the third Volendam.

I should probably have realized that it was unlikely that we would be cruising on a ship that was over 90 years old!  The Titanic, anyone?

Just for those of you who are interested, here are the three Volendams.  Frankly, I think Volendam 1 looks rather nice.  I found this portrait of it on the stairway to Deck 4--cruising through the fjords of Norway.

And here is a portrait of Volendam 2--an imposing vessel but not quite as romantic as the two-funneled Volendam 1 in my estimation. 

And, finally, here is the current Volendam, a vessel of about 61,000 tons and boasting nine decks, many restaurants, altogether too many bars, a casino, a huge theater, a Culinary Arts demo center and a wonderful library and espresso bar in the Explorers' Lounge.  It carries about 1,400 passengers and cruises the high seas at about 23 knots.

It was built by Fincantieri in Italy in 1999 and has three sister ships--the Zaandam, Amsterdam and Rotterdam.  I am told that the Italians build very good ships--even though they seem to have trouble keeping them afloat when they are operating them!  Well, the good ship Volendam floated from Singapore to India and back again without incident so let's hear it for the Italians!