Hi everyone, We LOVED our cruise on the 11/5 Westerdam sailing and wanted to share some photos and a brief about our experience (photos can be found in my signature). Feel free to ask any questions. This was our first cruise with HAL (we've sailed Princess recently and Carnival many years ago). We were thoroughly impressed by little luxuries HAL has to offer, and most importantly, the service.

The cruise was 99% fabulous, with 1% not-so-great, which is normal for any vacation. Most of our issues were with our hotel in our embarkation Port of Fort Lauderdale (yucky and moldy Hyatt Regency Pier 66) and the airport shenanigans, so let's get to the good! We do not recommend this hotel. Despite the Hurricane damage caused at the time of travel, this hotel was dirty and substandard and overpriced.

Our cabin- We were in 4183, AFT and wake facing. The beds are amazingly comfy for a cruise ship. Great job HAL! Great room, huge balcony due to position on ship, but be aware that the reports of the balcony being quite toasty and the ask and/or soot are true. We are not sure if the folks smoking cigars (lots o' cigars) above us had anything to do with the ash, but the balcony was always dirty. **NOTE: There is major vibration, and what my husband refers to as "shimmy" in this cabin. Lots of side to side movement from the engines and being aft, and very strong vibrations at times (for those of you from California, think of a really mild earthquake). We enjoyed the lull of the motion back in the cabin, it rocked us to sleep, but if you are a light sleeper, beware of the aft. Read more