Construction
On 19 December 2014, Carnival Corporation announced it had ordered two new ships for their brands, with one being the second Pinnacle-class ship for HAL. The ship would be designed as the sister ship to MS Koningsdam, with similar dimensions and similar features that were introduced on Koningsdam.[9] On 20 May 2016, the day Koningsdam was christened, HAL announced that the second Pinnacle-class ship would be named Nieuw Statendam, in honor of the name's history within the company.[10][11] On 12 July 2016, HAL celebrated the steel cutting of Nieuw Statendam, marking the beginning of her construction.[12] The ceremony was performed in Fincantieri's Palermo shipyard, but the block being built there was subsequently re-located to the Marghera shipyard, where the rest of the ship would be constructed.[12] On 20 March 2017, the keel was laid for Nieuw Statendam in Marghera.[13] The first block of the ship to be built, it measured 11.3 m long, 34.8 m wide, and weighed approximately 260 t.[13]
On 6 December 2017, the coin ceremony was performed.[14] Anne Marie Bartels served as the Madrina for the event, in which she welded an 1898 Dutch guilder to the ship's forward mast.[14] The dry dock's gates were also briefly opened, allowing the hull to touch water for the first time.[14] Shortly after, on 21 December 2017, the ship was floated out from the shipyard, where she would begin final outfitting.[14]
Nieuw Statendam successfully completed her two sets of sea trials in August 2018.[15] She first left Marghera on 10 August for two days before arriving at Fincantieri's Trieste shipyard to review the sea trial's data and perform hull maintenance.[15] She left for her second set on 18 August and arrived in Marghera on 22 August for continued work prior to her delivery.[15] On 29 November 2018, Nieuw Statendam was delivered to HAL in Marghera.[16] She was christened by Oprah Winfrey on 2 February 2019 at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after performing a three-night sailing to Half Moon Cay hosted by Winfrey and Gayle King.[17]
