Westerdam review - part 1

[sandiego1]

I submitted this review in its entirety but it usually takes a little while for them to be posted. Here's part 1:

 

Review of HAL Westerdam – Eastern Caribbean 2/4/07 – 2/11/07

Itinerary:

FLL

At Sea

Grand Turk

Tortola

St. Maarten

At Sea

Half Moon Cay

Short Summary:

We traveled w/ our in-laws for this cruise. We are in our early/mid-40s and the in-laws in early/mid-60s. This was our 4th cruise (2nd on HAL): Carnival Elation (Mexican Riviera), Celebrity Constellation (Southern Carib) and HAL Veendam (Western Carib). We did the Veendam last March w/ my in-laws as well. Caribbean cruises aren’t my favorite vacation type, but it does work well for traveling w/ my in-laws. We can each reserve a cabin that is w/in our budget and be happy w/ what we got. If we went to a resort, it would be a bit more difficult to agree upon the same caliber hotel. Plus the meals are all included in the cost and you get a set dining time so there’s no discussion on where/when we will go to dinner or who is going to pick up the bill tonight. We are able to go off and do an adventurous excursion during the day, while my in-laws favorite thing is to find a beach or pool and sit in the sun and go to the bar. We always meet for dinner and are usually able to find each other for bkfast w/o having to set up a specific time to meet. We spend some of the time together on the ship doing some of the trivia or “name that tune” games.

I like HAL because of the smaller size of their ships, decent level of service and price vs. value. If I was going alone w/ my DH or friends, I would likely choose Celebrity since it’s a younger crowd and a bit more active. We are trying going to Alaska on Princess for the 1st time this summer (going w/ friends). I would definitely go on another HAL cruise w/ my in-laws, but not if we were alone. I would choose Celebrity and maybe Princess (depending on our Alaskan experience) for cruises w/o them. Of course the itinerary and cabin availability is a huge part of my selection criteria as well.

Overall the cruise was very good and I am a fairly harsh critic. The best part was how happy it made my in-laws for us to be w/ them. That was worth the 11 hr return flight to San Diego, the cruise expense and the hassle of booking over Superbowl weekend (which was a total disaster trying to get a hotel room!!).

Cabin: We had a Deluxe Verandah Suite (SC6158). We were disappointed in the size of the cabin. It was much smaller than I expected (much smaller than our S suite on the Veendam last yr). It was much smaller than the SA and SB cabins we went into on the W-dam. Our cabin should really have been an SY or SZ. It was that small. However, since it was the corner aft cabin, it had a huge deck! The SA has a large wrap around sofa and 2 chairs. Our sofa barely fit 3 people. There was only 1 chair and it was tucked under the unusable desk. The desk was mostly occupied by the overly large TV. You had to push the chair all the way under the desk or you couldn't open the refrigerator. The only clothing drawers we had were in the nightstands and the 2 large ones under the bed. We also had 4 closets, instead of 6 in the SA. The closets were quite shallow and my DH’s suit had to be angled to close the door (he’s not a big guy so the suit isn’t large either!). We did have plenty of room for our clothing but more drawers instead of closet shelves would have been preferred.

The bed area was small. There was barely enough room on the sides of the bed for the nightstands. The back of the room was slightly angled so it got narrower at the head of the bed on the side w/ the verandah. At the foot of the bed was the sofa and coffee table. Some day I’ll post pics of the cabin.

The dressing/vanity area was poorly laid out and quite small. If I had a closet door open, my DH couldn’t walk past to get into the bathroom. My DH could barely open the closet if I was sitting on the stool to put on my makeup. There were 3 small drawers in the vanity area – one was mostly taken up by the worthless hair dryer. It was stuck in the drawer so you couldn’t use it at the sink to get the steam off the mirror (so my DH could shave after his shower). I much prefer the dressing area layout of the Veendam. There was only 1 sink in the bathroom on that ship, but there was a small one at the vanity so I could use it while applying makeup while my DH occupied the shower or toilet.

The bathroom had 2 sinks and a large counter. There was a ton of storage room in the bathroom w/ 2 medicine cabinets and a shelf under the sink (the entire length of the room). There was a whirlpool tub (didn’t use it) and a claustrophobic shower w/ a curtain. Only used the shower in the tub, not the stall shower. There was also no hot water when we got back to the room (often after midnight). Wasn’t much fun to wash my face in cold water. Glad I always shower before dinner and not before bed!

The deck has lots of furniture on it. There were 2 loungers, 2 arm chairs w/ 2 ottomans, 1 small drink table and a smallish dining table w/ 4 chairs. We had 12 people on our deck during a cabin crawl and there was plenty of room. I bet we could have fit another 15 people out there – even more if we used the side deck. The side deck was very windy so we barely used it.

We did had a party for 8 in our suite - 3 sat on the sofa, 1 on the chair, 1 on the ottoman from the dressing area, 2 on the bed and 1 standing. It was cramped but we still had fun. I don't want to sound like I'm a big complainer. But it was less than what we expected and I think we over paid for the cabin compared to the price of a comparable "non-Neptune" suite. We still had a wonderful time.

We were fortunate to meet the Captain on several occasions (suite reception, suite luncheon, Captain’s reception, at the gym, etc.). One time we discussed the dry dock modifications that will be made to the ship in April, lovingly referred to as the “aft lift”. I mentioned this to the Captain and he got quite a kick of the term. I wish I had come up w/ it but it was coined by another CCer. He told me that they are going to add 30’ to the Lido deck (deck 9) and push out decks 8, 7 and 6 too. They are adding 18 cabins and the aft cabin decks will be considerably smaller. He also mentioned that soot from the smoke stack was a big maintenance problem for them. I did notice that our deck was often dirty. I wore the robe out there one afternoon and there were very noticeable black marks on the back from sitting in the chair (steward replaced it since I left it dirty side up on the sofa). Every day I noticed the deck was wet and sometimes there were some soap bubbles in the corners. Our door mat was always wet. I would hang it on the bottom of the lounger to dry, but it was wet again the next day. I realized that the steward was washing the deck and that’s why it was always wet.

We were also quite far from the Neptune. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing We didn't have as many snacks from the lounge since it was a decent walk to get there. When we did, we didn't want to schlep them all the way back to the cabin. Nothing like walking to the aft carrying a hot cup of tea and a plate of goodies! We definitely used it more last yr when we were on the Veendam and it was just down the hall. So maybe I didn't gain as much weight on this cruise because of that We also didn't use the concierge services too much this time since we were hardly in the lounge.

The aft cabin definitely had a bit more motion compared to the other cruise cabins we’ve slept in. There was more noise (squeaks and rattles) than other ships. It wasn’t bad, but I did have some trouble sleeping on the first few nights. On the 1st night, I kept thinking my husband was shaking the bed and I was getting annoyed w/ him . We had 1 rocky day/night and it was challenging to apply mascara when I was getting ready for dinner. Despite this, I would definitely consider an aft cabin again. I don’t know if I’d pay the extra money for a corner one because of the wind and small cabin. I would definitely consider a regular verandah in the “V” category (non-suite) since I don’t think there’s as much wind in those cabins and substantially less expensive.

[Schplinky]

Very well written. I like when people go into detail about what they liked and didn't instead of saying that everything was great or awful I think reviews like this help others make decisions for their own cruises.