Fidelio Cruise completes “live” installation aboard Holland America Line’s Amsterdam and prepares for two more vessels

Holland America Line and Fidelio Cruise recently partnered in August to install the sixth cruise vessel in the fleet, the 2000-built 61,000-grt ‘ms Amsterdam,’ with new Fidelio Cruise Shipboard Property Management System software.  The installation occurred as the ship continued on her Alaskan cruise itinerary.  In addition, the two companies move forward with the next two installations aboard 1994-built 55,819-grt ‘ms Ryndam’ and 1997-built 59,855-grt ‘ms Rotterdam.’  These projects mean the Hamburg-headquartered cruise IT specialist will have completed the PMS/POS replacement program on more than half of the Holland America Line fleet.   

After ‘ms Rotterdam’, the installations will continue across the remainder of Holland America Line’s 13 existing vessels and its newbuild, ‘ms Eurodam,’ through 2008.

“We decided to install Fidelio Cruise software across our fleet following an IT review last year,” explains Holland America Line’s Vice President – Technology, Ron Sorozan.

“We are pleased with progress to date and have already been able to demonstrate how this innovative IT has helped to improve efficiency. We look forward to completing the remaining installations in the months ahead.”

The installations, which involve replacing Holland America Line’s own shipboard software systems with Fidelio Cruise’s Ship’s Property Management System (SPMS) and Micros® point-of-sale terminals, facilitate significantly more functionality on board the cruise line’s ships and provide the potential for improvements to both operating efficiency and passenger service levels. 

Holland America Line will also adopt Fidelio Cruise’s Comment Card application throughout the Seattle-based cruise line’s fleet. 

This additional program will integrate seamlessly with each ship’s Fidelio SPMS, and provides Holland America Line the unique opportunity to link any particular guest’s comments to his or her reservation information.

Speaking as head of the installation team, Fidelio Cruise US Operations Manager Jeff Blackwood commented: “We are particularly pleased with the Amsterdam installation. It involved close co-operation with Holland America Line’s own IT personnel and we were able to complete the project in just two weeks.” 

“It was a live installation,” he explains, “meaning that we had to set up the new systems over the first few days, run the two in parallel for about three days as one cruise voyage ended, and then sail with the ship on her next voyage to ensure that the new software was operating effectively. The fact that this took just two weeks instead of the five or six weeks on board earlier vessels bears testimony to the excellent teamwork.”  He continues, “Now we are looking forward to installing our systems on board Holland America Line’s next two vessels in late September and October.”

Both the ‘ms Ryndam’ and the ‘ms Rotterdam’ will have the new Fidelio Cruise SPMS and Micros® POS installed while Holland America Line conducts routine repairs in drydock situations.

In another move aimed at raising operating efficiency and fine-tuning marketing initiatives, Holland America Line plans to install Fidelio Cruise’s Fleet Management System (FMS) on board its ships.

This initiative, due to be completed across the fleet by mid-2008, will enable shore-based managers to receive frequent updates on all shipboard transactions including point-of-sale data, shore excursions, comment card results, spa bookings, and other shipboard activities on a fleet-wide basis. This, in turn, will enable detailed analysis, identifying the most popular products and services on board, as well as the relative performance of cruise itineraries themselves.