We were on the Westerdam last week for the Western Caribbean itinerary of Half Moon Cay, Grand Turk, Grand Cayman, and Costa Maya ( 2 days at sea ).

It was just my wife and I (ages 43 & 47 respectively) and we had filled out the immigration and debarkation forms on the HAL web site and received express boarding privilege 3 weeks prior to departure. We had also pre-booked a shore excursion on Grand Turk and pre-reserved one night at Pinnacles (on board steak house)on the HAL web site. This is our 6th cruise and our first on a HAL ship.

We flew to Ft Lauderdale on embarkation day. The HAL airport reps were not conspicuous and we had to hunt them down in the baggage claim area. Once located they were very nice and quickly got our luggage dispatched for the ship. We waited about 20 minutes and were then loaded on a bus for the 8 minute ride to the cruise terminal using our pre-purchased HAL transfer coupon. Read more