Westerdam Review April 6-13, 2008

Background: Myself (53) and DH (48), veteran cruisers and second cruise on Westerdam. My sister (45), BIL (55) and their 7-year-old twins, also veteran cruisers

Precruise: We spent two nights at Hyatt Pier 66. We thought it was a very nice hotel, but for some reason, we like the former Marriott Marina Hotel (now Ft. Lauderdale Grande) better. I'm not sure why. The Hyatt is beautiful, the grounds are lovely, the pool area is larger, and we had a wonderful corner room. Maybe it's just the wonderful memories we had at Ft. Lauderdale Grande, where we spent many precruise stays with our children (now all grown). My sister and BIL and the kids only spent one night precruise at Hyatt. They were due to arrive early in the day Saturday, but missed their flight and didn't get in until about 11 p.m. the night before the cruise. We had plans to take them on the water taxi to Las Olas, but because of their late arrival, those plans got nixed. We had pre-ordered 20 bottles of wine from Total Wine in Ft. Lauderdale. HAL allows you to bring on an unlimited amount of wine with a $15 corkage fee. Fair enough. Total wine did a great job. Everything was boxed and they were going to deliver it to our hotel, but a friend met us in Ft. Lauderdale and dropped us by the store so we didn't have to wait around the hotel to sign for the wine. They got our order complete and the prices were very good. Would highly recommend them. They also sell other spirits, but HAL allows only wine and champagne to be brought onboard. In the morning, we had the concierge at Hyatt arrange for a shuttle to take us over to the ship. We had a 20 passenger shuttle to ourselves and they charged $35 for the 6 of us. I thought that was more than fair, since we would have needed at least 2-3 taxis with all the luggage we had. We pre-arranged for the same shuttle service to pick us up after the cruise to take us all to FLL and that worked out great. Read more