We have been off Westerdam on our first cruise aboard a HAL ship since 2008 for about a week as I write this in early May, 2018. In our new roles as travel consultants with we were invited on this familiarization (FAM) cruise in late April/early May 2018.
The FAM part of the cruise was a hello cocktail party, three 2 hour plus classes, a dinner together at Pinnacle Grille and a farewell cocktail party, plus some other out-of-class bonding.
But the real reason we were on the cruise was to see if we could and would recommend to our clients that they book Holland America to Alaska. Well after a week, the answer is a resounding YES with only one major reservation.
Our stateroom
We were in 4145, a balcony stateroom on deck 4. Loved being there near the stairs/elevator. Good stuff in the cabin included:
The most amazing water pressure ever.
So much hot water. So much. I took two showers a day because it felt so good.
Great beds, lots of good storage and the most unbelievable 4K TV I have ever seen in a ship stateroom or a hotel room for that matter.
Kathleen loved the fact that it is a bathtub and not a shower stall. I honestly didn't care.
The plethora of USB plugs around the cabin. Not only where there three charging plugs on the desk, there was one on either side of the bed. I had brought a plug strip but by the third day, I wasn’t using it anymore. I also love having light switches on both sides of the bed so that either of us could turn them on and off and a reading light.
Let’s talk about that TV
I know, we were on a cruise…but there were two sea days and other down time. And since HAL has a partnership with BBC Earth, the programming on the TV was amazing. As Kathleen will tell you, I am not a big nature doc fan but these were AWESOME (I now owe Bob $1) as was the huge selection of FREE movies available. There were great films that were just out of theaters as well as a bunch of classics. They did have a hard time getting them categorized correctly but they were still good. And the navigation map is awesome. with five different levels of magnification.
Got off, walked around, had lunch at the local brewery. Shopped in local shops.