3/11 Westerdam Review

[TriGirl]

My husband left a week before me for work/business. I flew out from San Francisco on 3/10. My husband had already spent two nights at the Sheraton in Ft Lauderdale. He said it had been an Embassy Suites, but the Sheraton had bought it out. I had seen pictures of the hotel on their website, it’s very nice. However, on the way there my husband said “There’s something about this hotel I forgot to tell you, and you’re not gonna like it” The hotel is right next to some railroad tracks so about every half an hour the trains come through, complete with the horn. They did seem to die down on Saturday night though. Since my husband had the rental car for work we drove to Joe’s Stone Crab in Miami for dinner. That place is packed, they don’t take reservations either. We ended up eating near the bar instead of waiting for a table, which worked out well.

I don’t think we set a wake up call for Sunday morning, I woke up and decided to go for a run so I went to the gym. When I got back my husband was up and had made coffee for us. We took our time getting ready, I think we were shooting to be at the pier around 12:30. We stopped at Walgreens on the way for some stuff and then dumped the car off at the airport. Catching a cab was no problem. I want to say we got to the pier around 11:30, but I didn’t look at my watch. There were no lines, the entire embarkation process took us less than 15 minutes. We had to fill out a short Noro-type questionnaire. The cabins weren’t ready so we went up to the Lido for lunch. It wasn’t too busy when we first got there but it did start to fill up fast. They made an announcement around 1ish(?) I’m really bad with times on Sunday, that our cabins were ready. I took a nap, my husband watched part of a movie. Our cabin steward came by with our luggage, which woke me up. It was time for the lifeboat drill. We got there right after they started taking role and never got credit for being there. We got a letter the next day saying their records indicated we had not attended. Rest assured we heard the whole thing. It was time for sail away, got the drink of the day and went up on deck to watch Ft Lauderdale fade away. We went back to the cabin to rest before dinner and unpack some.

Monday was Half Moon Cay, the weather was perfect. But the water was cold, too cold for us. In fact not many people stayed in the water very long. I was disappointed since we’d rented floaties and never used them. Still, we had a very nice day at the beach.

Tuesday was Grand Turk, we didn’t do anything there because we had two beach excursions booked for later in the week and both of us were already really pink/burnt. We walked around a little by the pier, there isn’t a whole lot to see. It’s a very pretty island though.

Wednesday was a sea day, I honestly can’t remember what we did. I think we played team trivia on Wednesday and won.

Thursday was Grand Cayman, I had booked Captain Marvin’s independently. They have a great operation, however the shore side part could be better. You make your payment once you reach the island. You have to go to their office, which is a small little shop. The line was very long and moved very slow. I think they could organize it a bit better. Once we gave them our money it went quickly. We went to Sting Ray City and a couple of other snorkeling stops. Sting Ray city is really amazing. However, it’s so popular now that even early in the morning there are hundreds of people there. So it’s hard to really get to interact with the stingrays. None came up and bumped us. We both held one, they weren’t hungry so there was no point in trying to feed them. What’s really cool is you sail out a good 20-30 minutes from the shore and stop in what seems like the middle of nowhere. I expected the water to be deep, but it’s waist high. It was definitely a lot of fun. We didn’t do any shopping because the town was an absolute zoo. There were four other ships docked with us. When we were walking back to our tender spot, my husband saw the line for the Mariner of the Seas and almost lost it. The line was ridiculous, he thought it was ours, then I explained it belonged to the giant ship out there he relaxed. Our tenders were running very smoothly and there was almost no wait.

Friday was Costa Maya, I booked Tequila Beach independently. It’s a very nice beach, it looks like they are trying to clean it up even more and build more. We spent the day in the water and in the sun. They also have some nice tables in the shade so we sat there for a bit as well. The package I booked comes with an open bar and snacks. We both decided to play it safe and stick with beer, I did see a lot of people drinking pina colada’s. Once we had our fill of the beach we headed back to the pier and did a little last minute shopping. We didn’t sail until 8, which I think was a little too late, we could have easily sailed by 6.

Saturday was a nice sea day, the sea was pretty rough. We had a great cruise, the food was very good. Not knock your socks off great, but we certainly found enough to eat. The crew works so hard and is so friendly, our cabin steward was fantastic, our waiter and busboy were wonderful.

This was my 10th HAL cruise and my husband’s 2nd. When we were docked in Costa Maya there was a Carnival ship across from us. I knew what to expect, but my husband was annoyed. They were whistling and yelling at us. Probably one of the more entertaining things we saw was at the Costa Maya beach. I mentioned you can buy an all inclusive package that includes an open bar. Several people from the Carnival ship did this, and they were easy to spot. They had Carnival beach towels, and were so drunk they couldn’t walk straight. My husband was sure this one kid was going to blow chunks in the water. He was staggering and kept falling. We had hoped to watch them stagger back to the ship before sail away but we missed it.

I mentioned the Noro Virus thing in a previous post. When we saw the doctor he said the whole outbreak was overplayed. I’m really glad HAL takes steps to prevent a further outbreak. They super sanitized the ship before we embarked, there were Purell hand dispensers everywhere and they were dispensing it in the dining room. Virox hand wipes were in the bathrooms and the casino as well as plastic gloves. Everything was constantly being scrubbed. As a result the code red was lifted about half way through the week.

Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed the Westerdam.

[ldog]

Thank you for your review. I agree with you about all the people in Georgetown. It would be lovely to be there on a day with no other ships.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thanks for your report.

[TriGirl]

Oh one other thing I completely forgot about, and I thought it's worth mentioning. As I said I flew by myself from San Francisco to Charlotte and then Charlotte to Ft Lauderdale. I was sitting near the back of the plane on the SFO to Charlotte leg. I sat down in my seat and I could hear a man in the bathroom throwing up. Not to get too gross but I swear it sounded like this poor guy was going to turn himself inside out. This went on for a good 10 minutes. He finally came out of the bathroom, the flight attendant handed him a garbage bag and he took his seat. This was all BEFORE we left the gate, people were still boarding the plane. I saw a flight attendant spray something in the bathroom, but I'm quite sure there was nothing they could do to clean it. Anyway, later on after we were in the air I asked the flight attendant if the man was allowed to fly. She laughed and the other flight attendant said "why not? It happens more than you think"

About an hour into the flight I noticed the poor sick man getting up and going to the bathroom, he must have to had to go every 20 minutes. Since I have no idea what was really wrong with him, I don't feel right passing judgement. BUT if he had Norovirus he was potentially infecting the entire plane. For all I know he had food poisoning, but it really made me think about how people get on a cruise and get sick and blame the cruise line. Anyway, it just struck me as odd that the airlines won't deny someone boarding if they are exhibiting signs of a fairly virulent virus.

[hammybee]

Thank you for sharing your cruise with us.

 

You are absolutely right that airlines do not deny boarding to pax who are ill and I am not sure it is practical to expect them to do so.Having had the virus twice, I cannot imagine being on a flight.But then again, most do not relaize how bad it's going to get at first.

 

If the pax who was sick on your flight had noro, you can bet there were traces of it left behind for the next pax who might book a hotel room or board a cruise ship and around we go.

 

I deeply appreciate all that HAL and the other cruise lines do to protect their pax and crew from the virus, regardless of the relatively minor inconveniences.