Westerdam review (abbreviated)

[sackman]

I have written a full review that will probably show up in another week or so, but here's the cliffs notes version:

 

Ship - dated and a little tired. Nothing overt, but little dents and scrapes could be found all over the ship. It's a 12 year old ship. That never used to be considered old, but it is now. It's going into dry dock this week. I'd be interested to see what they do. Also - there seemed to be a lot of wasted space in the public areas. The combination Crows nest/library/computer lounge/coffee bar was a real head scratcher.

 

Itinerary - Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Martin, Half Moon Cay. Really terrific. Especially for folks who just want to relax. Only gripe was the lack of time in port, especially St. Martin. 8-3 is a bad schedule. Too early to arrive, too early to depart. I don't know how to fix that, but it seems to me that we should have been able to leave around 5 PM.

 

Food - excellent. Main Dining Room service and food selections were more than adequate and prepared appropriately. Lido Buffet was a little limited, but it was still decent enough.

 

Entertainment - Magic show and BB King shows were simply outstanding. The rest - meh. But those two more than made up for it. Really, really good stuff.

 

Embarkation/disembarkation. Embarkation was a breeze. Arrived at around 1:30 and was in our room in under 20 minutes. Disembarkation was fine, but they only had two customs agents at the time. Hopefully, they added more as the process rolled along.

 

Security lines at FLL were unbelievable. We saw a guy get locked out of the plane after he waited in the security line for an hour and a half. Inexcusable. I don't know how that gets fixed, but it's the worst I've ever seen at any airport. Not a knock on HAL, more on the TSA and FLL, but it's something to keep in mind when flying out of FLL. Give yourself a minimum of 1.5 hours to get through security.

 

Overall: Very enjoyable trip. Would do it again in a heartbeat. The little issues were just that - little. Nothing is ever perfect, but this trip was pretty close. Good job by HAL.

[aliaschief]

Thanks for sharing your cruise experience. Appreciated.

[cruz chic]

Thx for your review. I'll be getting on the ship next Tuesday after drydock. Port times are getting way too short. I hate fll. It's always a zoo.

Edited April 7, 2014 by cruz chic

[jaspersmycat]

Thanks for the review.

 

Last year my niece and I almost missed the ship in St Maartin because the private excursion driver didn't believe that our ship was leaving that early. We got to the gangway 10 minutes after all aboard time. (Luckily the ship had not left.) Too close for comfort. A 5pm sailaway would have been better.

[Seago2]

Thanks for the review and the heads up on FLL.

[RJ2002]

Thanks for your review, and glad to see that the food got high marks.

[satchiesmom]

Thanks for the review, we'll be boarding the Westerdam to Alaska next month. I too am curious as to what will be done while she's in drydock.

[CowPrincess]

Disappointing to hear about FLL airport -- the one time we flew out of there, it was a marvel of efficiency.

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for the shorten review of your cruise on the Westerdam. Glad you had a good time.

[Hlitner]

We had a similar situation at FLL last December when coming off a Celebrity cruise on a Saturday morning. We waited in the TSA for nearly 1 1/2 hours but then got pulled out of the line by a Southwest Air employee (who went through the very long line asking if anyone had a flight in the next hour). The SW person then took us to a special TSA line (much shorter) where we managed to get through in about 30 min. It actually took us over 2 hours to get though security that day. I guess what is so darn annoying is that we pay special taxes on our airline tickets to cover the costs of this security. Instead, TSA should pay the passengers for putting up with their inefficiency.

 

Hank

Edited April 8, 2014 by Hlitner

[sackman]

I would have just scratched the TSA issues at FLL to a busy day from the cruises, but this was A) very early - like 7:30 AM, before the majority of the cruise passengers even got there, and B) the second time in the last year I've experienced this at FLL. The first time was on a Monday morning in May. No issues with hordes of disembarking cruise passengers that day.

 

It seems that at most airports, they've figured out how to speed up the process. It's gotten slower at FLL. Maybe it was only an issue at the one concourse I was at (Southwest). But here's the thing - there aren't THAT many flights coming and going from that one concourse to cause a 1.5 hour delay at screening. True, SWA has several flights, but that concourse only has something like 10 gates. How tough could it really be to process people more efficiently?

 

Sorry for the rant. Mostly I wanted to offer fair warning that FLL is becoming a very crowded and inefficient airport. It never used to be that way. It also looks like they're adding another runway, so get used to the crowds.

[sackman]

We had a similar situation at FLL last December when coming off a Celebrity cruise on a Saturday morning. We waited in the TSA for nearly 1 1/2 hours but then got pulled out of the line by a Southwest Air employee (who went through the very long line asking if anyone had a flight in the next hour). The SW person then took us to a special TSA line (much shorter) where we managed to get through in about 30 min. It actually took us over 2 hours to get though security that day. I guess what is so darn annoying is that we pay special taxes on our airline tickets to cover the costs of this security. Instead, TSA should pay the passengers for putting up with their inefficiency.

 

Hank

 

Yeah. They were doing a triage for us as well. We got lucky in that we had our daughter with us. That seems to be a good way to get put in the expedited security line. That said, it still took us 45 minutes to get through. It seemed silly to me to have a person running through the line announcing "Anybody with a 7:45 flight, come with me!" That kind of defeats the purpose of security screening, doesn't it?

 

The moral of this story? Bring your 11 year old daughter with you in order to get put in the expedited security line. :D

[Typhoon1]

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. Will be looking for the unabridged edition.

[erewhon]

Thanks for your short Westerdam review.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for your report.

Will be looking for your full review.

[Himself]

Thanks for your "Cliff Notes." I look forward to the full review. Was John Scott the Captain?

[7leagueboots]

I have written a full review that will probably show up in another week or so, but here's the cliffs notes version:

 

Ship - dated and a little tired. Nothing overt, but little dents and scrapes could be found all over the ship. It's a 12 year old ship. That never used to be considered old, but it is now. It's going into dry dock this week. I'd be interested to see what they do. Also - there seemed to be a lot of wasted space in the public areas. The combination Crows nest/library/computer lounge/coffee bar was a real head scratcher.

 

Itinerary - Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Martin, Half Moon Cay. Really terrific. Especially for folks who just want to relax. Only gripe was the lack of time in port, especially St. Martin. 8-3 is a bad schedule. Too early to arrive, too early to depart. I don't know how to fix that, but it seems to me that we should have been able to leave around 5 PM.

 

Food - excellent. Main Dining Room service and food selections were more than adequate and prepared appropriately. Lido Buffet was a little limited, but it was still decent enough.

 

Entertainment - Magic show and BB King shows were simply outstanding. The rest - meh. But those two more than made up for it. Really, really good stuff.

 

Embarkation/disembarkation. Embarkation was a breeze. Arrived at around 1:30 and was in our room in under 20 minutes. Disembarkation was fine, but they only had two customs agents at the time. Hopefully, they added more as the process rolled along.

 

Security lines at FLL were unbelievable. We saw a guy get locked out of the plane after he waited in the security line for an hour and a half. Inexcusable. I don't know how that gets fixed, but it's the worst I've ever seen at any airport. Not a knock on HAL, more on the TSA and FLL, but it's something to keep in mind when flying out of FLL. Give yourself a minimum of 1.5 hours to get through security.

 

Overall: Very enjoyable trip. Would do it again in a heartbeat. The little issues were just that - little. Nothing is ever perfect, but this trip was pretty close. Good job by HAL.

 

I agree...it will be interesting to see a review after the dry dock.

[grammyandpoppy]

I mostly agree with you. Thought the ship seemed tired with chairs and loungers in the public areas needing replacement. Loved the chilled soups and enjoyed food in both the dining room and lido acceptable. We sailed at a good price and service was exceptional.

 

Ports - except for the beach, thought Grand Turk a port I could do without. The early departure out of both San Juan and St. Marten left little time to enjoy the ports.

 

Would only go back on HA if price was right.

[matondo]

Thank you for your review. I LOVE HAL but, it seems their port times are getting shorter and shorter. I was at Half Moon Cay in November with Carnival and we were there all day..it was fantastic. I believe my last time at HMC with HAL the all aboard was like 2:00 or 2:30 and the next day were were in Ft. Lauderdale so it wasn't like we had a huge distance to cover. I don't understand.