At 10:00 a.m. on June 20, 2025, the 1,964-passenger Westerdam formally crossed into the Arctic Circle.
Company onboard are at the moment having fun with a 28-night Alaska Arctic Circle Solstice cruise, which arrived on the Arctic Circle on the Summer season Solstice within the northern hemisphere.
Throughout the longest day of the 12 months on this explicit location, the solar doesn’t set, giving passengers the coveted alternative to expertise the midnight solar.
To commemorate the event, passengers had been invited to assemble and have fun on the bow of the ship because it entered the Arctic Circle.
Throughout this celebration, the vessel’s horn was sounded, and all the friends had been allowed to take a photograph whereas on the bow.
Past that, passengers additionally acquired an opportunity to mingle with each the crew and the ship’s officers — and even acquired a commemorative certificates to recollect the event.
“As we crossed into the Arctic Circle beneath the countless summer season sky, it wasn’t only a line on a map—we hope will probably be a reminiscence for our Holland America Line friends that shines as brightly because the midnight solar,” shared Westerdam‘s Captain, Eric van der Wal.
Navigating the ocean safely to enter the Arctic Circle comes with its fair proportion of challenges, largely as a result of excessive climate that may considerably affect ocean situations.
Captain Eric van der Wal labored carefully together with his employees, making fixed real-time choices by way of the interpretation of shifting ice patterns and cloudy satellite tv for pc pictures in an effort to make the passage potential.
Whereas issues had been trying shaky for some time, the ice situations improved sufficient at the very best time potential to permit Westerdam to proceed heading in direction of the Arctic Circle.
Having departed from Seattle again on June 8, 2025, this voyage is providing friends a possibility to witness the fantastic thing about Alaska’s wilderness whereas additionally giving passengers the possibility to see a full day of daylight on the longest day of the 12 months.
This scenic cruise additionally contains viewing alternatives of the Hubbard Glacier and Glacier Bay and calls on a number of ports in Alaska, comparable to Nome, Dutch Harbor, Kodiak, Haines, and Sitka.
Company will disembark when the vessel returns to the Pacific Northwest on July 6, 2025.
The place is Westerdam Deployed This Summer season?
Presently, the 82,348 gross-ton Westerdam is homeporting in Seattle, regularly doing 7-night itineraries round Alaska.
These voyages primarily name on Juneau, Tracy Arm Fjord, Sitka, and Ketchikan in Alaska, in addition to Victoria, Canada.
When Westerdam arrives in Seattle on July 6 to disembark friends from the present 28-night solstice crusing, it’s going to resume its shorter 7-night voyages later that very same day.
There is just one extra 28-night cruise out there on Westerdam departing from Seattle, which is scheduled to depart on August 31, 2025.
Not like the solstice crusing, this voyage is targeted on glaciers and volcanoes, first calling on ports in Alaska after which Hawaii, all earlier than heading again to Seattle one final time.
Learn Additionally: What’s the Greatest Time of 12 months to Cruise Alaska?
After that voyage concludes, Westerdam is about to depart on September 28, 2025, for a 29-night repositioning cruise which can arrive in Tokyo on October 27.
Westerdam will then spend the remainder of 2025 into early 2026 homeporting in Yokohama and Tokyo in Japan, in addition to in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Whereas the ship will return for extra Alaskan sailings out of Whittier in 2026, there are not any plans for the vessel to homeport in Seattle anytime quickly.
For these cruisers eager about happening one in every of Holland America Line’s summer season solstice cruises in 2026, Nieuw Statendam can be providing friends the chance to benefit from the solstice whereas in North Cape in Norway.
Noordam can even be doing a 2026 summer season solstice voyage departing from Seattle, the place it’s going to cross over the Arctic Circle on the day of the solstice, simply as Westerdam has accomplished this week.
Whereas Westerdam can be departing from Seattle in September, it’s clear that Holland America Line has no intention of stopping its Alaskan voyages or summer season solstice choices anytime quickly.
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