review of Westerdam 11/12 - 19

[tootiesmom]

I have just submitted my 1st ever cruise review. I don't know when it will show up in the "Reviews" section, but thought some of you might be interested in another review of the Westerdam.

 

tootiesmom

[grannynurse]

Tootie'smom,

If you submitted it here on CC it might be a week or 2 before it shows up. Mine took about 10 days and they sent me an email to say that it was available for reading.

Thank You, I'm looking forward to reading it. Can you give us a brief preview?

GN

[lysolqn]

Since it may take a while for your review to become available, how about a quick overview? We'll be on the Westerdam 12/10 sailing and would love to hear about the highlights and (if any) the lowlights of your cruise. Thanks!

[tootiesmom]

Well.... As far as we were concerned there were no lowlights on this cruise :D We really tried hard to find something "not so great", but we couldn't. I'll try to give an overview.

 

This trip was an "all girls cruise". This made my 14th cruise and 1st on HAL. My two friends have been on about 3 - 4 cruises each and this was also their 1st time on HAL. We left all the husbands and kids home and took a week for ourselves. We highly recommend this if you can swing it :cool: Our ages range from early 40's to 50 (that's me ;) )

 

We flew in a day early and stayed at the Hampton Inn Ft. Lauderdale Airport North. Very clean, excellent service and full shuttle service. Would definately stay there again. We didn't want to wait for the shuttle on Sunday, so we took a cab to the pier. The cab picked us up at 10:30 am and as soon as he let us off, the doors opened and they started letting people in the building. There were maybe 30 people ahead of us. It took us all of about 10 minutes for all 3 of us to get checked in and then we went upstairs to a "waiting area" before they would let us board. We had just enough time to "visit the restroom" and they started letting us on. We were on the Lido by no later than 11:15 am.

 

We were able to get in our cabins around 1:30 and found a wonderful surprise. When we booked this cruise, I went on-line to book a cabana and was waitlisted :( . In our cabin was a big bright pink envelope letting us know that our request for a cabana had been granted and we were getting the Red Cabana so we immediately went downstairs and upgraded to the Butler Service . This experience will go down in our history as one of the best ever ! Suffice it to say that if you ever get the chance to have a cabana with Butler service, go for it !!!!

 

We found the food throughout the ship to be very very good to excellent and the entire staff seemed very attentive to anything and everything we might have needed. We found this ship to have the best service across the board we have ever experienced. The ship was beautifully appointed and we found the entertainment to be great. One of my friends was even asked to help with one of the card tricks the illusionist/comedian was performing. She had fun and we all had a great time laughing at what the man had said to her.

 

On Grand Turk, we just stayed at the pool at Margaritaville. We loved that place . On Tortola, we hired a cab and asked the driver to give us a tour of the island, we had dinner at Pusser's Landing and he picked us up and took us back to the ship. On St. Maarten, we took a cab to Orient Beach, took a cab to Marigot then one to Phillipsburg then back to the ship. On Half Moon Cay (a piece of Heaven on Earth) we had the Red Cabana and stayed until they came and told us we had to leave :( .

 

I guess this got a little longer than I expected and I could have gone much longer. I took about 11 pages of notes and over 500 pictures on this trip.

 

If you have questions, I'll be glad to answer as best I can.

 

tootiesmom

[lysolqn]

Thanks for your mini-review - sounds like you had a great cruise. This will be our 38th cruise, second on HAL. We're loyal Celebrity cruisers (25 X cruises) and had planned to spend two weeks on Millenium in December, but the first of our b2b cruises was cancelled last week due to propulsion problems and we had to scramble to find something in its place. We decided on the Westerdam (like Millenium, it leaves from Ft. Lauderdale which will make changing ships a bit easier after week one) and are looking forward to sailing HAL again. Many of the Westerdam reviews I've read have been mixed at best, especially with respect to service and food - two areas we were quite pleased with on the Statendam years ago. Your original post piqued my curiosity. I'll take you at your word and expect to have a wonderful cruise! Thanks - I look forward to reading your full review when it becomes available.

[hammybee]

Thanks for your mini-review - sounds like you had a great cruise. This will be our 38th cruise, second on HAL. We're loyal Celebrity cruisers (25 X cruises) and had planned to spend two weeks on Millenium in December, but the first of our b2b cruises was cancelled last week due to propulsion problems and we had to scramble to find something in its place. We decided on the Westerdam (like Millenium, it leaves from Ft. Lauderdale which will make changing ships a bit easier after week one) and are looking forward to sailing HAL again. Many of the Westerdam reviews I've read have been mixed at best, especially with respect to service and food - two areas we were quite pleased with on the Statendam years ago. Your original post piqued my curiosity. I'll take you at your word and expect to have a wonderful cruise! Thanks - I look forward to reading your full review when it becomes available.

 

How fun is this. BTB on 2 different lines from the same port. I look forward to your review. We too sail X. It's different than HAL, not better or worse. (Food is so subjective and not worth the comparison/contrast). Nothing like the thermal pool on X. And nothing like the people on HAL.