Westerdam Review
Rating by category
Additional details
We cruised on the Westerdam Feb 7-14, 2010. Overall a fairly good cruise, but it had certainly gone downhill since we sailed on her in 2007.
Day 1-Sunday: Embarkation�fairly fast, and well done. We drove from Tampa to Ft. Lauderdale on Saturday and stayed at the Rodeway Inn near the port; we had booked this thru Stay123.com so we could leave our car there. Very expensive at $215 because it was super bowl weekend, but we had a nice room and they took us to the port on Sunday morning and provided transportation when we returned, so no real complaints there. We were taken to the port about 10:45 AM, and HAL opened the doors at 11. We were about 25th in line, and were really surprised when we got in the terminal and there were 400-500 people waiting to get on the ship. We later learned that these people had been on the ship the week before and were doing a back-to-back cruise. I do not know why HAL makes you get off the ship and then get back on, but many of those people were ticked off at that process. Embarkation went smoothly and we were on board by 11:45 AM.
Since we are Mariners, we got a special luncheon in the Vista dining room when we got on the ship; nice touch but most of the ship's passengers were Mariners. It was an Indonesian luncheon and very spicy. They only had an hour time frame, so if you boarded later, you were out of luck.
Cabin Review
Deluxe Ocean-View Verandah Stateroom
We had category VF, Cabin 4028, outside port side deck 4 forward, with verandah. The verandah was 2 feet deeper than the cabins above us. However the bottom panel was steel, not glass, so you had to stand up to see the sea. Lots of closet space, and storage under the bed(2 drawers), plus you could slide your luggage under the bed. The cabin had a love seat which was not comfortable to sit on, a chair and a stool that was under the small vanity. Bath was nice with a shower in the tub, vanity, and toilet. Difficult to control the temperature, and there was no adjustment to the fan speed. A/C was very noisy--I finally put in earplugs so I could go to sleep. Overall a nice cabin.