She was the second Holland America Line (Nederlandsch-Amerikaansche Stoomvaart Maatschappij, or NASM) ship to be named after the former Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, now New York.

All of her dimensions were bigger than those of Justicia, which NASM had ordered before the First World War as Statendam, but which the United Kingdom had requisitioned as a troopship, and then lost to enemy action.

[7] The First Class dining saloon had columns covered in gold leaf, tinted mirrors, ivory walls, satinwood furniture, and a Moroccan leather ceiling with Murano glass light fixtures.

The auditorium was egg-shaped, using the latest scientific sound-proofing materials and amplifying equipment for high-quality acoustics for concerts, drama, and pre-release motion pictures.

[18] On December 25, NASM announced that 12 electric eyes would be installed, to operate automatic door-openers at the entrances and exits of the escalators used by stewards serving the dining saloons, in order to speed up service.

One was the Jewish businessman Arnold Bernstein, whom Nazi Germany had imprisoned, and forced to forfeit his shipping line in return for his release.

[33] After calling at Boulogne and Southampton she reached Hoboken on September 29 carrying 1,197 passengers, including British actress Merle Oberon and Polish pianist Jan Smeterlin.

[44] From January to March 1940 she made five cruises to Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Curaçao, and La Guaira, leaving Hoboken about every fortnight.

[50] Nieuw Amsterdam was then scheduled to make three more fortnightly cruises to St Thomas, Curaçao, La Guaira and Puerto Cabello.

On March 31 President Taylor reached New York, where her passengers told news reporters that they had seen Aquitania, Mauretania and Nieuw Amsterdam arriving in Bombay, and the Free French troop ship Île de France anchored in Singapore.

She spent the next few months trooping mostly between Durban and Suez, with occasional variations to Bombay, Colombo, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Aden.

[58] On February 3, 1943, Nieuw Amsterdam left Massawa in Eritrea as part of Operation Pamphlet to repatriate the 9th Australian Division.

[58] Nieuw Amsterdam spent the next few months trooping between New Zealand, California, Australia, Ceylon, the Middle East and South Africa.

[58] Nieuw Amsterdam was a troop ship for 73 months, in which time she sailed 530,452 nautical miles (982,397 km), including 17 round trips across the North Atlantic and back, and carried 378,361 people.

The wood paneling in her public spaces had been scratched and mutilated during troop service, so it was sanded down to half its thickness and relacquered.

[73] She called at Southampton,[74] and on November 6 entered the Hudson River to a traditional welcome of fireboats making a display with jets of water, and ships and boats giving three blasts on their whistles.

[80] Among them were the writer Aldous Huxley on November 3,[79] and Ralph Bunche on December 19, returning from his work assisting the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine.

[80] Notable passengers sailing east on Nieuw Amsterdam that year included the exiled royal family of Yugoslavia: King Peter II, Queen Alexandra, and their young son Crown Prince Alexander, who left Hoboken for France and Britain on July 24.

[87] In June 1949 NASM appointed a new Master to Nieuw Amsterdam, Cornelis HP Coster, who was also a commandeur in the Royal Netherlands Navy Reserve.

The number of passengers she landed at Hoboken from Europe was 997 on June 28,[89] 1,230 on September 4,[90] 1,201 on October 19,[91] and 1,038 on December 14, including the composer Samuel Barber.

[92] On August 16 she left Hoboken for Europe carrying 1,025 passengers, including the sculptor Jacob Epstein, pollster George Gallup, and actor Walter Pidgeon.

[102] That winter, using both Nieuw Amsterdam and a smaller liner, Veendam, NASM ran seven cruises, which carried a total of about 4,000 passengers.

Her Master canceled a call she was scheduled to make at Havana, she got back to Hoboken half a day late, and NASM gave her 750 passengers an eight percent refund on their fares.

One of her eastbound transatlantic crossings was scheduled to make an additional intermediate call at Boston on August 18, to embark a pilgrimage to Ireland led by Archbishop Richard Cushing.

On November 13, 1953, she landed 1,145 passengers at Hoboken, including the Hungarian ballet-dancers István Rabovsky and Nora Kovach, who had defected via West Berlin that May.

[111] On June 11, 1955 Nieuw Amsterdam diverted on an Atlantic crossing to meet the Greek cargo ship Marpessa, which had radioed for help for an injured crewman.

She was to spend the first part of the winter undergoing a three-month overhaul, which was to include fitting stabilizers to her hull and installing air conditioning throughout her passenger accommodation.

NASM scheduled her to make a fall cruise to Bermuda, leaving Hoboken on September 25, spending three days in port in Hamilton, and getting back on October 1.

[129] In February 1967 NASM installed a Golfomat electronic golf simulator aboard the ship, and engaged Doug Ford to demonstrate it in port.

[140] In November 1969 NASM announced that Nieuw Amsterdam and Rotterdam would each start two Caribbean cruises from Port Everglades, Florida, instead of Hoboken.