Holland America Line\u2019s favorite four-legged friend, Joska the service dog, reached a milestone achievement of 700 cruise days on Rotterdam\u2019s current 150th Anniversary Transatlantic Crossing, making her eligible to receive the Platinum Medallion, the highest past-guest award for cruising days. Joska, a 10-year-old black Labrador retriever, is the ultimate globetrotter and spends most of her days cruising on Holland America Line with her owners, Cornelia \u201cConnie\u201d and Cornelis Marinussen, who previously received their Platinum Medallions. <\/p>\n
A special ceremony for Joska was held on board Rotterdam Oct. 26 to mark the milestone. Holland America Line President Gus Antorcha and Rotterdam\u2019s Captain Werner Timmers presented Joska with her Platinum Medallion, 5-Star Mariner status (highest level) in the cruise line\u2019s loyalty program and a selection of dog-friendly, Holland America Line-branded gifts.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoska is the first service animal to achieve this lofty status and we wanted to honor her with an event that shows her how special she is to everyone in our company,\u201d said Antorcha. \u201cService animals are always welcome aboard Holland America Line ships, and Joska has become a member of our family. She not only brightens the spirits of everyone on board, but she also allows Connie to do what she loves most, which is to cruise and explore the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dutch couple have been cruising with Holland America Line since 2013 and have taken nearly 60 cruises. From Alaska, Hawaii and Canada to Europe, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean, Joska has sailed on more than 50 Holland America Line voyages since joining the Marinussen family in 2014 to assist Cornelia, who is legally blind, and is among the most traveled dogs in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Holland America Line\u2019s favorite four-legged friend, Joska the service dog, reached a milestone achievement of 700 cruise days on Rotterdam\u2019s current 150th Anniversary Transatlantic Crossing, making her eligible to receive the Platinum Medallion, the highest past-guest award for cruising days. Joska, a 10-year-old black Labrador retriever, is the ultimate globetrotter and spends most of her days cruising on Holland America […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1876,"featured_media":68252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,39],"tags":[4208,4196],"class_list":["post-61387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activities","category-life-on-board","tag-best-of","tag-experiences"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hollandamerica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hollandamerica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hollandamerica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollandamerica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollandamerica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61387"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollandamerica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68303,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollandamerica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61387\/revisions\/68303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollandamerica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hollandamerica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollandamerica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hollandamerica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}