My husband and I usually cruise on small luxury lines like SS, Seabourn, or Regent. I signed up for this one-week cruise because it was sponsored by a group I am interested in, with group seminars on board on sea days. I was a bit nervous going "down" in service level from a small luxury line to a bigmainstream ship, so I booked a spacious Neptune suite with a bathtub and a big balcony and a concierge lounge to help ease the transitions and service deficits I expected.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprized with the Westerdam. It was clean, tastfully decorated, had good hearty and varied food in the MDR, pleasant and helpful service, a good wine selection, and problems that came up (there were five things that broke in the suite) were immediately attended to. The only thing I did not like in the suite was that the big balcony chairs were hard and upright wicker, with thin cushions, and did not lean back, i.e., they are not restful chaise lounges and were very uncomfortable. I loved the jacuzzi tub and the abundant storage space. The Neptune lounge services were helpful and organized and the constant food there made it easy to snack all day without leaving your area. Excellent espresso, capuccino, included for Neptune pax. Breakfast at the Pinnacle Grill for Neptune suite people was calm, and pleasant.
The ship had plenty of other room to sit and lounge, other than your room, and spaces did not look crowded except at the pool on a sunny day it was wall to wall loud kids in the pool and hot tubs, and the Lido cafeteria could be a disorganized, loud zoo during busy times.
Spacious jacuzzi tub, clean. Several things broke or were wrong, but were quickly fixed. Fridge only weakly cools.
Balcony chairs are uncomfortable and stiff and do not recline, so I saw not much point to the giant balcony unless you have a party with people standing, given seatinf was unpleasant.
Pre-embarkation, check out the Pike St fish market, Elliot's Oyster house, underground tours.
Beautiful views of glaciers on the one clear day we had all week.