The latest ship to join the fleet of the Holland American Line (HAL) arrived in Kiel for her first visit in the early hours of Thursday morning, June 30th.
Koningsdam is the last of a string of cruise ship premieres celebrated by the port this year. To mark her Kiel debut, the Koningsdam was escorted along the fiord to her berth at the Ostseekai Cruise Terminal by a Kiel tug and given a traditional water fountain welcome. At an on-board reception, Kiel’s president Hans-Werner Tovar cordially welcomed the ship’s captain Darin Bowland to the Schleswig-Holstein state capital and presented him with the maiden visit plaque, hand-crafted by metal smith Patrick Schloßer.
“For the eighth year in a row, Kiel has been a permanent fixture in HAL’s route planning”, said Hans-Werner Tovar. “We are very proud that Kiel is one of the ports where this latest new ship is being introduced to the public”, he added. As well as Koningsdam the company’s Zuiderdam is also making repeated calls at the Ostseekai Terminal this summer. More than 15,000 cruise passengers are expected during a total of seven visits by HAL ships.
Koningsdam is on a 15-day Baltic cruise which started in Amsterdam on June 19th and has since taken the ship via Copenhagen, Tallinn, St Petersburg, Helsinki and Stockholm to Kiel. During their stay in Kiel, the ship’s mainly English-speaking passengers are undertaking day trips to Hamburg as well as to other points in Schleswig-Holstein.
Attractions range from guided tours of the Kiel Fiord, visits to the UNESCO World Heritage site Lübeck and themed excursions in the metropolis of Hamburg, to tourist panorama trips to the beach resort of Laboe and to the region known as Holstein Switzerland. Hans-Werner Tovar said: “Kiel has a lot to offer its visitors and is an ideal spring board for excursions to Hamburg and within the Schleswig-Holstein region.” The Koningsdam sets sail for Gothenburg on the Swedish west coast around 1700. The ship was named in Rotterdam on May 20th 2016 by Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. It is of 99,500 GT and is 296,6 m long and 38 m wide. It accommodates more than 2,600 passengers.