Volendam Captains

[Krazy Kruizers]

We had 2 different captains suring our 20 day cruise.

Captain Pieter Visser is an interim captain and he was our captain for the first 10 day cruise. He returned to the ship in Curacao for the last 6 days of our second segment.

Captain Visser has a wife and three grown children. His wife and he live in Maaseik, in the Belgian province of Linburg. His wife joined him on the second segment of our cruise. After completing his studies at the Dutch Naval Academy in Den Helder, he served 32 years in several functions as naval officer and in some instances as commanding officer. Resigning from the Dutch Navy, he chose to pursue a career in the Merchant Navy. After the necessary transition training he joined HAL in 2001. "He is proud to be in command of this beautiful ship, where he as Naval Reserve Officer, with permission of the Minister of Defense, is entitled to fly a very special Dutch flag with an anchor as Navy insignia."

Captain Wieger Van der Zee was on vacation until March 10th when he returned to the ship for only 4 days. But in those 4 days we got to see a lot of him.

Both captains were very entertaining and loved to talk to everyone.

On each port day, a few minutes before we were to leave, both captains would come on the address system and talk about where we would be going next, the route we would be taking, what to expect for the next day's weather, etc. It has been a long time since we had a captain on any of the other ships do that.

[sail7seas]

There was a senior officer/management conference in Florida....Usually held in Miami but I think it might have been held in FLL this year.

 

 

In order for Captains and Hotel Managers who were currently on ships to attend, there was a rotation. Some Captains and Hotel Managers etc attended while some where on the ships and then they 'swapped.' Even some who were technically on their vacations substituted for their colleagues to enable them all to attend.

[sail7seas]

Captain Schoonderbeck is one who daily goes on the PA system and tells pax 'where we have been and where we are going'. His announcements are always very interesting and we look forward to them. We find him to be a very communicative Captain.....but then again, we find most HAL Captains are great that way.