April 20. Holland America president Gus Antorcha on Thursday revealed plans for an unprecedented 133-day voyage out of Fort Lauderdale that would allow U.S. travelers to visit both Antarctica and the Arctic in a single trip without ever getting on an international flight.
Kicking off on Jan. 25, 2025, the Grand Voyage: Pole to Pole, as the line is calling it, is essentially a world cruise that goes «up and down» instead of side to side.
Instead of traveling around the world on its horizontal axis, as is typical for a world cruise, the Holland America ship operating the voyage, the 1,432-passenger Volendam, will span a good chunk of the globe in a circular motion from its top to its bottom.
After starting in Fort Lauderdale, Volendam will first head southward through the Panama Canal to the west coast of South America and on to Antarctica — getting about as far south as a Holland America ship ever gets.
After hitting its southernmost point along the Antarctic Peninsula, Volendam will then circle northward along the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa and Europe on its way to the Arctic.
Following the visit to the Arctic (where the northernmost point reached will be Norway’s North Cape), Volendam will continue on a circular routing down the east coast of Canada and the U.S. back to Fort Lauderdale.
It’s an itinerary so out there in the world of super-long cruises that Holland America’s itinerary planning team still isn’t entirely sure if it’ll be a hit or not.
Source: The Points Guy
