MUMBAI, March 9: The world's second largest cruise liner doesn't screen the billion-dollar grossing blockbuster Titanic in its plush 167-seat mini-theatre. Nor for that matter does it show another famous marine disaster The Poseidon Adventure.Why? The sight of watching a three-hour disaster film featuring passengers freezing in the icy Atlantic would hardly be the kind of entertainment Holland America Line would want to offer on board its four-month-old five-star liner The Rotterdam VIThe sparkling white liner which arrived in Mumbai on Monday for a two-day halt is on its maiden round-the-world trip. Comparisons with the Titanic are inevitable ever since the film revived interest in ships, and The Rotterdam is nearly as big as the Titanic. Resembling a sleek skyscraper lying on its side, at 780-feet The Rotterdam is 102-feet shorter than the Titanic, but about 14,000 tonnes heavier.It costs in excess of 300 million dollars to build. ``Did you know that the Nordam whichradioed a warning to the Titanic about icebergs in the vicinity was one of our ships?'' asks Rolf Klug, HAL's sales and marketing director. This particular sequence features prominently in the film. ``But the Titanic's captain thought he knew better,'' Klug sighed. While the Titanic was essentially a glamourised passenger carrier in the days before the aircraft, The Rotterdam is a luxury liner in the jet age. It offers round-the-world holiday packages for the well-heeled starting at 16,000 US dollars (about Rs 6.4 lakh) in plain cabins going on to suites for close to 100,000 dollars.Disaster films apart, Holland America's executives would rather compare their newest luxury liner to the mother of all passenger liners in the world today, Queen Elizabeth II. ``Though we are 5,000 tonnes lighter, if you stand on our topmost deck you can look down on the QE-2 as our ship is substantially taller,'' Klug says.The line has splurged 12 million dollars on putting together an antique collection onthe ship. In fact, every attempt has been made to give the nine-deck Rotterdam the touch of luxury liners of old. From the curve of the ship's bow to teak decks and wood panelled interiors to grand sweeping staircases, three huge Venetian glass canopied atriums, outdoor tennis courts, whirlpools, health spas and swimming pools.Holland America hopes the ship will ``introduce a new era in worldwide luxury cruising.'' The level of service and amenities will surpass even that found on board their current five star fleet, raising The Rotterdam to six-star status, they claim, as they hard sell the ship to Indian clients.But Indians are nowhere to be seen aboard. Over 90 per cent of the 1300 passengers are Americans, mostly senior citizens, bounding about new ports of call.
