Got a Grandee!

[CCC]

So I've had my Grandee now for a couple of weeks. So far, we love it! It is the perfect size for me, and I love the open seating and the ability to easily float from seat to seat. I can spread out on my back and float if I want to. I love the size! It has a very nice, high quality feel to it. The Moto Massage is great! I was initially concerned about the lack of foot jets. It has two that work very well, and considering that it's just the wife and me or just me 99.5% of the time, it's plenty. The great thing that I didn't really anticipate, though, is that there are dozens of foot jets in there, including the Moto's! I can sit on the floor and being a tall-torso'd 6'4" guy my head is still above the water. Let me tell you that the Moto's on the bottom of your feet are amazing and I can reach any of the jets with my feet and legs. Sitting in the deep Moto seat is awesome. Plenty deep. Very comfortable.

I initially had some angst because I looked at a few really nice tubs and I have some niggles about the Grandee. There is no perfect world, though, and considering my overall satisfaction thus far I'm sure I made the right choice for me. The wireless/waterproof controller and wireless charging system is pure genius. Intuitive, simple, and convenient. The lighting is super nice and I enjoy it much more than I thought I would. I bypassed the 104 degree setting and when I went out there last night the tub was at 107. Ouch, too hot for me but the wife loves it that hot.

Niggles: Not many. If you sit right across from the foot jets, you can't get all of the jets on your back on at the same time as the foot jets. It took me awhile to finally figure out the diverters and what does what. It's not intuitive but once you get the hang of it it's fine. It's a bummer that one of the corners is the filter compartment. Some of the jets will turn down/off when you brush up against them a little too easily. That's it. Very minor complaints.

Hopefully my satisfaction will last past the honeymoon phase. So far, so good and I haven't noticed any problems with the tub at all. I passed on the Ace system and am using chorine. Our city water is really good and I didn't have to do much to get things balanced. I'm still getting the hang of it, and while chucking some chlorine in there after every use is hardly an ordeal, I can now totally see the appeal of the Ace system. It's always an option in the future. I put in the recommended amount of dichlor and when I get back to the tub the next night my strips are reading zero. Should I put more in? The threads on here about chemical use can be mind-bogglinly complex. Simple is good, right? I don't want to overthink things when simplicity works for most folks. For some reason Hotspring is all about chlorine if you don't go with salt, while the others I looked at used bromine in the stores. I'm sure with time I'll get the hang of it.

In the end it was between an Amore Bay and the Grandee. The Marquis are nice and very well built (locally, even!) but they just weren't big/deep enough for me. I didn't fit in the Calderas. The Amore Bay was absolutely amazing. The thing of it was, as my wife observed, I was only comfortable in one seat, the big lounger. Now, that was one hell of a seat! Overall a beautiful tub. (That heart in the middle was a little much, though. Looked like something Tony Soprano would give his wife for their anniversary.) The shape looked cool, but would have been very awkward in our space. They also said they'd need to use a crane to get it in my backyard. The money was just starting to get insane. It was a hell of a deal, but I had to draw the line somewhere. Also, the dealers store was pretty run down looking and I live almost 90 minutes away so I was getting nervous about the whole thing. I'm sure I would have loved it, though. They didn't have any others in their high end lines to look at.

The place closest to me sold L.A./Maxx. They are very nice people, but I wasn't impressed with the quality of those brands, especially after looking at Marquis and Hotspring. The dealer 30 minutes from me sold Bullfrog. I wasn't impressed with the store, as you can read in my previous posts. The tubs looked well built, but they just didn't do it for me and for the money they were talking for an A8 (over 14K ) I wasn't interested. They also sold Marquis but only had one tiny tub on their floor. That brand is well represented in Portland where I ended up buying my Grandee.

The Hotspring store has 5 locations and have been around forever. I've read and heard great things about their service department. Hopefully I won't need to test them out! For about 12K+tax for the tub and normal accoutrements, delivered and set up over an hour away, I feel like I got a fair deal.

Thanks for all of the advice! It's been a pleasure and I'll be lurking around here. I'm sure I'll have more questions about water care/etc.

Corey

[Tman122]

Welcome to Spatopia

[wmccall]

Interesting post. I'm glad this is working out for you.  One thing nice about that open seating is when the tub is less than full of people as it probably will be most times you use it, you can move around and get jets on the part of your body that needs it. i use to do that with my larger Dynasty.   Great choice.

[CCC]

Thanks! One thing I figured out after geeking out on this purchase so much and talking to people I know who own them, and especially reading the vast experiences of people on this and other forums, is that getting a quality brand who supports their dealers and takes pride in doing right for their customers, and a good dealer with the ability to provide quality service is the number one priority. Fine tune from there. I could have purchased any of the contenders on my list and I'm sure I would have been happy with their performance initially and would have been a happy camper. The novelty wears off of any purchase/product after awhile. I don't, however, see the pleasure of soaking in a lovely vat of hot water with hydrotherapy ever getting old! I love it.

I'm a car geek, and I know that no matter how cool the car is, eventually I will get the itch to have something else. Well, I figured the same thing would apply to a hot tub. The big difference is that I am not going to be swapping out my hot tub every few years like I do with a car so the most important thing to me was how is this thing going to look and feel in ten years + time, and if it breaks, will it be relatively easy to fix and worth the cost of fixing. Is the quality look and feel going to last? That's what eliminated out of hand the mid and lower tier brands, and the lower lines of the higher tier brands. In the end the most important things to me were the space and depth, the durability and reputation of the manufacturer and dealer, and the overall aesthetics and pleasure of just sitting in the damn thing with the jets off and how comfortable I was in it. Don't get me wrong, the jets on are really awesome, too! Even being a newbie, though, I find myself enjoying simple soaking without the jets off to be at least 50%+ for me. The open seating just happens to work best for me because of the way I use it, which is almost always just me 75%, or me and the wife the other 24%. If you have more than two people in there it seems to me you are simply enjoying the social experience and not concentrating on the the therapeutic experience.

And yes, Tman, I am in Spatopia!