Holland America to expand casinos and introduce non-smoking areas

Holland America Line has announced plans to expand the casinos aboard five of its ships, with 140 new slot and video poker machines, while non-smoking casino spaces will also be introduced.

The expanded casinos will be introduced aboard the line’s flagship, Rotterdam, along with Nieuw Statendam, Koningsdam, Eurodam and Nieuw Amsterdam.

The separate non-smoking areas of the casino will be added to Rotterdam, Nieuw Statendam and Koningsdam.

“Casino play is a key part of their Holland America Line cruise vacation for many of our guests, and we were able to take advantage of some extra space on our Pinnacle Class ships to add more gaming machines,” said Daniel Materassi, Senior VP, Guest Commerce and Performance Analytics, Holland America Line.

“The slots we’ve added are some of the newest in the industry, bringing exciting gameplay to our guests alongside the popular classic machines,” he added.

Expanded casinos are the latest change to onboard programming for Holland America, which earlier announced it would upgrade its “Music Walk” venues across the fleet.

Vista-class ships Zuiderdam, Oosterdam, Westerdam and Noordam will see the B.B. King’s Blues Club replaced with a new venue known as the Rolling Stone Lounge, which will offer R&B, rock and pop favorites.

Newer vessels Rotterdam, Nieuw Statendam and Koningsdam will have a similar venue known as the Rolling Stone Rock Room.

B.B. King Blues Club will continue to exist on other HAL ships, but across the fleet the Lincoln Center classical music venue will lose its dedicated lounge in favor of expanded performances in the ship’s main theater.

Beginning in February, Zuiderdam, Oosterdam, Westerdam, Noordam, Eurodam and Nieuw Amsterdam will also get a new resident band playing in the popular Ocean Bar. The band will perform top hits from the 1960’s through present day.