Upgrade to suite Or Perks??

[minimartha]

Ok all you HAL experts :). Question??

 

Thanks to you guys we picked Westerdam and we sail in 59 days. We booked an aft balcony room on the 4th floor (thanks again for the deeper balcony info). Now we are trying to decide if we should keep the balcony room or upgrade to suite. We normally book suites partly so I can get a bathtub.. What do you think?

 

The trade off for NOT upgrading IS:

1.We've never been to Half Moon Cay and never had the private cabana.

2.2 nights in Specialty Dining

3. Romance Package for our anniversary that we love to get

[minimartha]

Does anyone know if 4183 on Westerdam has a bathtub for sure?

[Aruba]

The bathtubs in verandah staterooms on Vista-class ships, if I remember correctly, are not full-size bathtubs as you might expect. They are shortened in length, similar to the way that a love-seat is a shortened version of a full-size couch.

If a full-size bathtub is important to you, I don't think you will find it in a regular verandah stateroom.

[kazu]

Does anyone know if 4183 on Westerdam has a bathtub for sure?

 

 

Just checked the deck plans to make sure and since there is no * (designating shower only), it definitely has a bath tub.

[minimartha]

Wow thanks! Didn't know I could check deck plans for bathtubs I would have definitely done that before I booked a room :D

[kazu]

Wow thanks! Didn't know I could check deck plans for bathtubs I would have definitely done that before I booked a room :D

 

no problem:D yes, all of HAL's deck plans have little indicators if there are shower only, connecting rooms, HC, triple, quads, etc. It does help :D

 

Now, to your question - which is more important to YOU? the perks or the larger, more spacious real estate? That's the way I would decide if you have to make a choice :D

[jtl513]

Wow thanks! Didn't know I could check deck plans for bathtubs I would have definitely done that before I booked a room :D

 

no problem:D yes, all of HAL's deck plans have little indicators if there are shower only, connecting rooms, HC, triple, quads, etc. It does help :D

Not quite. None of the Insides have tubs, but they don't bother putting the * on all of them ... they just say "shower" in the description. The other category descriptions all say "bathtub & shower" or "bath & shower", so they have to mark the exceptions with the *. Edited January 27, 2014 by jtl513

[kazu]

Not quite. None of the Insides have tubs, but they don't bother putting the * on all of them ... they just say "shower" in the description.

 

oops - thanks JT :o :) didn't notice that.

[minimartha]

As dumb as it might sound having a bathtub is enough to make me switch loyalties in cruise lines. I didn't realize HAL had them until this month when I started reading reviews :)

[kazu]

As dumb as it might sound having a bathtub is enough to make me switch loyalties in cruise lines. I didn't realize HAL had them until this month when I started reading reviews :)

 

I hear you - I like my bath tub too:D I do think that the bathtubs in the regular verandahs may be smaller than the ones in the suites. you might want to visit halfacts.com and take a look at some of the different pics - don't limit yourself to the Westerdam pics - any of the Vista ship cabins will be very similar.

 

It might help you in your decision making as well.

[barbarah33]

If the bathtub is really the most important thing to you then I would switch to the suite where you know for sure you are going to have a full-size tub. With the suite perks you can also have breakfast in the Pinnacle Grill so while you won't be eating dinner there you will still get a chance to dine there. And the suite is yours to enjoy for the entire cruise where a private cabana on HMC is only for the one day. We got the private cabana there one time and it was nice however the weather that day was not too great so for us it wasn't at all necessary; it was cool and cloudy. We were a bit cool and ended up getting back on the ship right after lunch anyway.

 

You want your vacation to be as great as you can make it so if the bathtub is a necessity it making it an outstanding vacation then make sure you get a good one like they have in suites. :cool: I had a suite on the Westerdam and I don't recall for certain but I think the tub even had jets in it.

[Oceanwench]

Tubs with jets, as long as you don't get the HC accessible suites. On Westerdam, those are both aft, deck 6.

They do have tubs, just not the jetted ones.

[cruise_bunnies]

We upgraded to a Neptune suite, in part, due to the perks vs the cost. I don't know how long your sailing is, but for us, especially the free unlimited laundry was a wonderful perk. That saved us around $150-$180's right there, because dry cleaning is expensive, so our upsell didn't cost so much all of a sudden and we truly did enjoy the large cabin.

 

With that in mind, are there any other perks that would help you reduce costs, so you can still get the other perks you've been looking at?

Edited January 27, 2014 by cruise_bunnies

[rkacruiser]

Tubs with jets, as long as you don't get the HC accessible suites. On Westerdam, those are both aft, deck 6.

They do have tubs, just not the jetted ones.

 

This is correct: no jets. Also, the sofa in the living area of these cabins is for two people, not as large as the sofas in the Neptune Suites elsewhere. There is a very comfortable chair available, however.

 

Deck 6 aft verandas are about one-third covered; Deck 4 may be totally uncovered.

 

And, to be honest, soot from the funnels on my Deck 6 suite was something that I noticed. The cabin steward "flicked" the particles away--ineffective method. I wiped the cushions that I was using and brought them into the stateroom after I was done with them each time to keep them clean. I also wiped the table pn the veranda prior to Room Service arriving. It was not bad; but white towels used for such a purpose became gray.

 

Buyer beware.

[minimartha]

You know I don't think I've ever had cushions on my deck chairs on any balcony on any line, suite or balcony cabin so that will be nice! :D... We changed our booking to aft balcony cabin on NA :)

[Krazy Kruizers]

Enjoy your cruise.

[Blondebomb]

My husband and I were on this same itinerary this past mid Jan and due to weather were could NOT tender in to Half Moon Cay. Sorry to bring that up but just a thought.

 

Susan from Indiana PS. we enjoyed the cruise VERY much. Regular balcony with CUSHIONS!!