We entered Fiordland National Park at 7:30 a.m. on January 26, 2025.

The park, established in 1952, is five percent of New Zealand land mass.  It is in the southern tip of the South Island.

Our day was spent sailing through the park with a national park employee providing commentary.

I started by watching TV in our cabin with narration and going out to our balcony on the starboard side when it seemed warranted.

We entered Dusky sound and learned that Captain Cook and his crew spent about five weeks here in 1773.

Some of the 365 islands in Dusky sound have unique ecological aspects.  One island had half of an entire bird’s population in the world.   Another has had no mice or rats since 2023!  One has the entire world’s population of a flightless parrot.

This sound is the first place where a boat was built in New Zealand and the first where beer was brewed in the country.  There is an island, named Barrell Island, where they cut the wood for the beer barrels.

The fourth largest island in NZ is in the Dusky Sound and is the site of the largest eradication effort.  Four thousand traps continue to be set to rid the island of invasive species.

The reminder in the elevator that it’s Sunday marks the halfway point of our cruise.

I went to the Crow’s Nest for coffee, croissants, commentary and view.  I was not alone!  Randy went off for a regular breakfast in the Lido.  This allowed us to be out of our cabin to give our wonderful stewards time to do their thing.

For those that don’t know, the Crow’s Nest concept is very common on cruise ships – a gathering place in a top deck at the bow with great views and opportunities for drinks and light snacks.

After the Crows Nest, I walked down from deck ten to deck three.  Along the way I saw six photographs of the Westerdam or early iterations of the Westerdam. 

Randy and I spent some time walking on the promenade deck, listening to commentary and watching the sites.  Walking around a deck, listening to an audiobook and seeing the views,  is one of my absolute favorite things to do on a cruise ship. 

The crew offered Dutch Green Pea Soup – a staple on Holland America ships.

I knew I’d like it but Randy generally does not. I thought the soup was delicious.

Randy tried it and found it OK. 

The ship had made its way to Doubtful Sound, the deepest in the national park at 443 meters in depth. 

This sound has the sixth largest island in New Zealand.

We saw exposed granite surfaces from glaciers that came through millions of years ago.

We sailed through the first half of the sound before turning around.

This was the view as we left Doubtful Sound.

Randy hung out on the Promenade Deck while I went up to the cabin to write.

We eventually joined forces again for drinks in the Ocean Bar. There, Randy learned that the bartender crew would be offering Mixology classes, something he thoroughly enjoyed on the Nieuw Statendam in 2023.

In the afternoon, we went to a presentation in the theater by the national park representative.  Almost everyone on the ship was there and we weren’t there soon enough to get good seats. (The theater seating on the Westerdam is a weak link compared to the 180 degree theater viewing on the larger Holland ships.)

We learned that sounds are flooded river valleys and fjords are long, narrow inlets of the ocean created in a valley carved by glacial activity.

The places we are visiting in Fiordland National Park are actually fjords but the people who named them in the late 1880s didn’t understand the difference and named them sounds.

There are a lot of marine mammals in the park but we did not see any.

It was time to enter our last sound (really a fjord) of the day – Milford Sound. We had actually heard of this one before!

We saw a number of waterfalls.

We crossed waters with a much smaller touring vessel.

We were told there would be more “traffic” in this sound. We even saw a small community with a few buildings and runway in Milford Sound.

This looked like a glacier but we were on our balcony, not listening to the commentary, so don’t know for sure.

Two helicopters flew right by.  The view is great from the ship but might be even better from the air! Once again, the ship did a turn around and we headed back out Milford Sound and Fiordland National Park.

In his 5:00 briefing, the captain said we were entering “weather” and asked us to stow away items in our cabins that might take flight. We weren’t worried. Randy doesn’t usually get sea sick anymore and I never have.

There were noticeable swells at dinner.  

It reminded me of when we experienced much more severe swells during our Norway cruise last winter!

There was a cocktail chat with the Cruise Director and the Head of Housekeeping.  He told us that, for 1933 passengers, he has a crew of 155.  That includes 43 cabin stewards. 

The laundry crew runs 24 hours per day with enough linen to change everything twice a day.  They clean 200-300 bags of guest laundry daily. They even have special machines and processes for linen from rooms where people have been sick.

Three tailors help with crew uniforms and minor repairs for passengers.

The final area of emphasis is cleaning public areas.

He said that turn around days, when passengers leave and new passengers come on board, are very stressful because they really only have a few hours to be ready. 

We finished our day with a program in the World Stage, vocalist Rebecca Kelly. She was pretty awesome.

Next Up: The itinerary’s first true Sea Day. Whatever will we do? (We didn’t have a port on this day, but it was pretty scripted going through the National Park.)