Review Westerdam 14 day Caribbean with children

[JLTO]

This was our first holiday with HAL and these are our reflections upon Westerdam and HAL's service.

We had previously cruised with Celebrity (Mercury) and Cunard (QM2).

Firstly booking;

We are from the UK and were looking for 3 cabins for our party of 2 seniors, 2 adults and our 2 children aged 4 and 6. We used HAL's UK website to check their pricing and then booked through a large UK travel agent. We chose this agent because we were told that they receive the largest commission from HAL (12.5%) and so we were able to negotiate a discount of 7.5% off HAL's own fares. We ended up booking 2 outside and 1 balcony cabin all guarantees. The outside cabins were £510 per person and the balconies £680 per person for a 14 night Caribbean cruise on Westerdam departing Fort Lauderdale on 18th October.

I did a lot of research and found that this was the cheapest deal available, including comparison with US / Canadian agents.

Our cabin numbers were all confirmed about 3 weeks prior to sailing and we got more or less what we'd paid for.

Embarkation / disembarkation

This was pretty smooth. We'd checked in online and arrived early at the port, around 1115. We were on the ship by 1155 and stored our hand baggage on the Lido deck in an area set aside for it. Our luggage didn't arrive in the cabin until about 1700 so if you want to swim early on then you'd be well advised to have stuff in your hand baggage.

Disembarkation was if anything even better. You are given a disembarkation category number and told to turn up during a fifteen minute window. We turned up at exactly 0915, walked straight off the ship, collected bags and we were in our hotel at Miami airport by 1000!

As an aside the do offer self disembark which starts at around 0730. Next time I would be tempted to do this as you could be in a taxi on your way to FLL by 0800 and catching a 1000 flight.

Dining

We thought we'd booked for the anytime dining service but our ship's cards said that we had been allocated fixed early dining. This was fairly easily changed on board but only because we got on the ship so early.

The anytime dining proved to be a good choice for us with small children but it's not quite as flexible as it sounds. Generally reservation times are the same as fixed seating – 1730 and 1945 ish – and if you turn up without a reservation at busy times then you can expect to wait or be given a bleeper.

Our experience in the main dining room was generally OK. The food is of a high standard (maybe not quite as good as Cunard or Celebrity but not far off) and we didn't have a bad meal in respect of the quality of the food. Where I feel HAL does let itself down a little is in the standard of the service. It is most definitely one notch inferior to Cunard or Celebrity. As always it's the little things that make the difference. The waiters frequently leaned over people to serve or clear plates and only once in 2 weeks did a waiter actually clear the crumbs away between courses. Water glasses often had small chips in the rim at the bottom. The dining room does seem to be more crowded than on QM2 or Mercury and the open seating dining may well discourage the waiters from going the 'extra mile' since they don't build a relationship with guests.
I do have a suspicion that by introducing its flexible dining option HAL has shot itself in the foot. Whilst there is a perception of greater choice and flexibility you may be sacrificing levels of service in the process. I think if I sailed with them again I would be likely to opt for fixed traditional dining because I would hope that I might get better service as a result.

It is also worth noting that HAL's definition of 'formal' is something of a joke. On Mercury and QM2 the number of guests not wearing proper evening wear on formal nights was negligible, and this was because the staff strictly enforced the policy. On Westerdam dress on formal nights ranged from tuxedo to jeans and t-shirt with no attempt to discourage the latter. Perhaps it might be better if HAL either enforced formal wear or dropped the pretense altogether.

The informal dining venue, The Lido, produced much the same food as the main restaurant but in a self service style environment. The area gets very crowded at breakfast and lunch. In the evening the staff go to great lengths to display nice 'examples' of the evenings' dishes but then when they actually serve it on your plate it tends to be dumped rather than presented nicely.

There is a third dining venue – the Pinnacle Grill, for which there is a $20 service charge. Food and service here are absolutely top notch, well worth the extra fee. You need a reservation, which can be hard to come by, so get in early.

Cabins

Our window obscured view cabin was very comfortable and perfect for our small children – they have a bath which inside cabins do not. The cabin stewards work in pairs appear to cover more than double the number of cabins that the single dedicated steward does on Cunard / Celebrity. The result is that your ca bin may not be serviced as early as you might expect, however when they do get round to you the service is good.

Children's activities

Of particular interest to us was the kids club. On Westerdam the activities were well thought out and generally entertained our 4 and 6 year old well. Because our 14 night cruise was actually 2 - 7 nighters back to back there was some repetition on week 2 but the co-ordinator worked hard to keep it to a minimum. You are very much at the mercy of the staff when it comes to the effectiveness of kids club but on Westerdam HAL had chosen well and Denise did an excellent professional job. Given the general demographics of HAL's passengers I was pleasantly surprised that in this area children are well taken care of!

Entertainment

The main theatre entertainment consisted of the usual mix of the ship's own singers / dancers plus specialty acts – a comedienne, a gymnast and piano / guitar playing singer who did take-offs of Elton John and The Eagles. The latter, Joel Mason, was particularly good but he was the highlight of a fairly bland entertainment bill. HAL does employ a string quartet who play every night near the dining room and they provided welcome and relaxing listening even for the musically uneducated such as ourselves!

Facilities

Westerdam has 2 swimming pools, both fairly small and pretty crowded on sea days. HAL's policy on children in pools is rather confused. We enquired specifically in the UK if any of the pools on Westerdam are off limits to children and we were told quite unequivocally that neither is. Even staff onboard told us that children could use both pools despite a sign by the back pool indicating it was adults only. During our first week on board there seemed to be no problems with any of the several families using the rear pool but at the start of the second week the daily programme specifically mentioned that the rear pool is adult only. Whilst it seems rather odd that the rear pool (the one with the statue of the multi coloured children's dragon beside it) is adult only the key thing is that HAL's own staff need to know what the policy is. The other pool in the middle of the ship is slightly larger but gets very noisy, hot and suffers from cooking smells from the Lido hamburger bar. Even here there was nearly a fight between a grumpy elderly passenger and a protective grandparent whose (well behaved) boys were accused of splashing in the pool. In reality Westerdam's pools are not big enough for Caribbean cruising. Adding another one is probably out of the question so maybe HAL needs to consider making one of its pools adult only during specific times (during the hours of operation of kids club maybe?).

The Explorations cafe is a lovely retreat at the front of the ship where the library and coffee shop are situated. If anything it's too small and does get quite crowded during the morning. There are a number of Internet PCs here but the price of buying time is very high ($55 for 100 minutes) when you bear in mind that the speed is less than a dial up modem. We're pretty reliant on the internet at home but even we felt that we could do without internet on sea days especially when most port stops have free wireless internet available somewhere. You can send and receive text messages on board so if you need to keep in touch this is a better and cheaper option.

The Greenhouse Spa is a facility for which you pay extra for use of a hydropool, sauna and relaxation room. The rate for a couple for 7 days is $250. We negotiated a price of $375 for 2 weeks for a couple. On reflection we all felt that this was not money well spent. The whirlpools beside the swimming pools were almost as nice and there is a free sauna on deck 9. One of the 2 saunas in the Spa didn't work for our whole 2 week cruise and the steam room was so hot that if you closed the door you could not sit down in there for more than 3 minutes!! It certainly was not nearly as nice as the Canyon Ranch Spa on QM2.

I would also make a comment on the lifts in the middle of the ship. Here there are 3 pairs of lifts right close to each other. During our 2 week stay at least 1 and often 2 of the lifts was out of service. The lifts can only be called in pairs which means you either have to walk round and press 3 buttons or, at busy times, wait some time for one of your pair of lifts to arrive. Quite why one button does not call all 6 lifts I do not know!

Summary.

HAL appear to occupy a category of cruise somewhere between mass market (such as Carnival and premium (such as Celebrity and Cunard). Their ‘4.5 star’ service represents very good value for money at the rate of £36 ($58) per night which we paid for a non-balcony cabin. If you are a first time cruiser or ‘stepping up’ from, say, Carnival, then you will probably be very pleased with your choice. If you are used to the likes of Cunard then you will find HAL a compromise that proves that in cruising as in most of life you get what you pay for.

HAL has a reputation for having an almost cult following. I’m not quite sure how it gains this status other than perhaps through a comment made by a very pleasant fellow cruiser. He said that HAL’s clientele has gradually aged with the line itself. This certainly was bourn out by the average of our fellow guests.

Provided the price is right we will cruise with HAL again. I will probably try a Celebrity Millenium class ship first because they came so highly recommended by several fellow cruisers on Westerdam.

Finally if you are considering cruising the Caribbean with HAL then one additional reason to choose them is Half Moon Cay. I’ve added to the section about the island but suffice to say it is a very beautiful place and, provided the weather is good, a wonderful beach visit.

[IRL_Joanie]

I want to say thank you for your honest review.

I was just on the Westerdam this past May 7 day Alaska (our 2nd HAL Cruise), and will be on her in February for a B2B Caribbean cruise.

I cannot speak for the pools being crowded, as they were not in use (though they were available) in May, other than the hot tub on the Lido aft deck. But, neither of them looked small to me, though, as I said, no one was in them, so that might make one heck of a difference.

I also take it from your review that they did not have the Lido pool roof open? I think if they had the smells from the food and heat would not have been an issue. But, who knows...

I am happy to hear that the children were well taken care of. That will be a plus for me to convey to my son in law for our granddaughter, whilst I also try to convince him it is safer to cruise than be a paratrooper.

The fixed dining, in my opinion, the waiters are less harried than you experienced in AYWD. So I think you will be happier the next time you cruise with fixed seating

Thank you so much for the honest review!!

Joanie

[JLTO]

Hi

The Lido roof was open but it still got stuffy and smelly in the pool area.

I think you are absolutely right about the dining room - fixed dining is easier for the waiters and kitchens to organise so probably leads to a better product.

At the end of the day that's why cruise lines have been doing it that way for years.

[jmps]

Thanks so much for posting your experience. We will be on the Westerdam in March. We used non-fixed seating on the Zuiderdam last June for Alaska. It worked well schedule wise but the service was a bit less then our past Celebrity fixed experience. We will be on late fixed in March and I am anxious to see how that compares to Celebrity.

On the March itinerary we will be in Aruba 1-11. Did you do that on your intinerary? How did that work out and what did you do?

[JLTO]

Hi JMPS

I suspect you will find fixed seating gives better service, I hope so!

We did stop in Aruba and we took a taxi to Eagle Beach which is a 10-15 minute cab ride form the port. It's a long and quite wide beach with nice white sand. We found the sea at that end of the Caribbean quite rough (several people had to take sea sickness pills) and the beach at Aruba was quite rough and sloped quite steeply. It's a lovely looking beach backed by hotels and condos so it is quite busy. There's lots of beds and shade to rent and food for purchase.

Our back to back itenerary gave us a nice mix of undeveloped and then the more touristy islands, like Curacao and Aruba.

Enjoy.

[Djptcp]

DH and I were on the Oct. 18th sailing on the Westerdam and had early dining. I would say that probably 70% of the men were in tuxes and the rest in dark suits. We did not observe anyone in jeans or otherwise inappropriately dressed on any night. It could be that people associate the As You Wish Dining option with a more relaxed dress code and that is why you didn't see as many passengers in formal attire.