hallways on deck 2 have paintings of scenes from old Dutch villages

Some ships have a theme within the décor of the ship, like the music theme in the decor of some of the public decks on Holland America Zaandam. The largest bit by far is the atrium centerpiece, a gigantic three-story high depiction of an ornate pipe organ dominating the central area of the ship. A stairway winds around it, ascending or descending around the different levels as you can’t view the entire massive structure all at once.

central part of the atrium centerpiece

On one side of the bottom of the structure a chair sits in front of an actual keyboard – roped off with a sign saying not to touch it. The rest of the sculpture doesn’t look real enough to actually make music, just the keyboard.  Besides the many depictions of organ pipes throughout the statue there are also numerous figures and embellishments.

top of the giant pipe organ

The center rises ever upward with something different to look at on every side, though always the appearance of an extremely large and ornate pipe organ. A dome tops off the structure a couple decks above its base.

old piano in a glass case

Other music decor around the ship takes up far less space whether it’s an old-time piano in a glass case or signed guitars hanging on the wall. All sorts of other instruments line hallways, bars, or lounges, encased within glass as they are for looking at rather than playing. There are functional pianos for making actual music in some of the bars.

old clothes and ornate gold things

Ornate gold works – or at least gold colored anyway – adorn hallways and other public areas. Some just look like fancy frills, others are actual shapes like dragons and things. There’s even a clock that has way more space taken up by frills than the actual clock part.

old sailing ship model on a glass box

One hallway has a whole bunch of masks that seem out-of-place with the rest of the ship’s decor. A sign identified most of them as Balinese while one was Javanese. There are a lot of old boat models and boat paintings around the ship too so not all of the decor besides those random masks is music related or ornate gold things.

horse statue with a duck riding it

There’s also plenty of statues and busts about the ship, also not related to the music theme or to each other. Statues do make great places to hide ducks. Most ducks on this ship were left in plain sight rather than actually hidden due to the lack of people onboard who knew about looking for them.

painting of an older version of the Zaandam

The front stairway has a painting of various renditions of the Zaandam on several levels, but since there are more than 3 decks on the ship and the current Zaandam is only the third a lot of the decks have paintings of older versions of some of Holland America’s other current or previous ships.

black and white bird art

The middle stairway has 3 little pictures of plants or things that resemble plants at each level. On the back stairway the theme is black and whites, with birds featuring in the artwork of more than one level.

deck 2 elevator bench

Most of the elevators have some sort of picture on the wall between sides with a bench underneath. Most of the ones on the cabin decks are fairly plain and simple, but deck 2 has a really fancy one. Often the fanciest trappings on cabin floors are found near suites, but deck 2 is just oceanview and inside cabins. The explanation was obvious one port day when the gangway disembarked on deck 2 – they had that fancy bench set up for photos with a ship’s photographer there.

elevator bay on a public deck

The elevator bay on a public deck is fancier than most of the cabin decks, but not as fancy as the one on deck 2.

deck 1 flower painting

Each stateroom deck has pictures around the hallways. Deck 1 has flower paintings. Flower art is a popular Dutch thing and has been for centuries.

black and white photo of old ship scene

Deck 2 has paintings with old time scenes of Holland. Deck 3 sports black and white photography with scenes from early Holland America ships, including earlier renditions of the Zaandam of course.

all around the hall there are paintings of different ships

Deck 6 has paintings of old-world sailing ships.

sketches for the suite deck

Deck 7 has sketches. You would think the deck with the biggest suites would have the fanciest pictures, but it doesn’t. All the colorful flower paintings and village scenes are down on decks 1 and 2 where there’s oceanview and inside cabins.

How now brightly colored cow

The most whimsical statues are found in the form of 2 brightly colored cows lounging by the seaview pool on the back deck.

dolphins at the Lido pool

The main Lido pool has far less colorful dolphins.

the elevator carpet says it’s Tuesday

If you forget what day it is, just look in an elevator. The carpet there will tell you the day of the week.

Zaandam in Vancouver

Even the outside of the Zaandam had a bit of art with a We ❤️ Alaska banner. When we got back to Vancouver at the end of the cruise we could see the crew peeling the banner off after we disembarked the ship because that was the last Alaska cruise of the season.

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