Kiel welcomes Holland America’s latest ship
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. In this, “Koningsdam” becomes 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.
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.
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.
The SEEHAFEN KIEL GmbH & Co. KG operates Kiel’s commercial port on behalf of the Schleswig-Holstein state capital of Kiel, of which it is a 100% subsidiary company. Kiel has three modern, high-capacity terminal facilities for ferries and cruise ships at the Ostseekai Norwegenkai and Schwedenkai – all very close to Kiel’s city centre. In addition large cruise ships can also use Berth 1 in the Ostseehafen to exchange passengers. This year the port of Kiel will be visited 144 times by 23 different cruise ships. Overall, more than two million passengers are expected to board or leave a ferry or cruise ship in the port during 2016.
