Well... lessons learned in why to wet test, wet test, wet test. As you may remember, we have looked at basically every tub in the Northern Virginia region - HS, Caldera, Arctic, Jacuzzi, Artesian, Tiger River, Marquis, Coleman, Cal Spas, so on and so on. Everyone here said that you HAVE to wet test. So we did and, boy, are we glad. We dry tested everything and thought we were sure about the seating we wanted.
Then, we went to the "Hot Tub Show" at the Expo Center and got the hard sell on Master Spas and Down East. Ugh. They may have great tubs, but we couldn't stand the hard sell. They stopped talking to us when we said we would never buy a tub without wet testing and that we would never buy a tub due to one day only prices. We tried to explain that we aren't as concerned about the money as much as we are concerned with getting a tub that is right for us. The salesman basically told us off, told us to quit wasting his time, and that we weren't paying attention to the "right stuff".
So,we wet tested more. Liked the Caldera Niagara. In fact, went back and tested all the filled tubs and loved the Niagara, but wanted to wet test more. We loved the HS hot tubs, loved the dry test of all of the seats. We loved the Envoy most of all. Then we wet tested it AND... we hated it!!! We felt like we were being beat to death. I had to fight to stay in every seat but one. Neither of us liked the Moto-massage at all. We also discovered that we can't stand a tub set at 102 and that we don't want a lounge.
Today, we put a refundable deposit on a Jacuzzi 365 subject to both of us wet testing (husband is temporarily out of wet testing commission) and site review. We put the deposit down because we could get a fabulous price on a 2005. I will go and wet test tomorrow on my lunch hour if I can get away from packing for a move to a new office building this Friday for an hour. The dealer is only a 5 minute drive from my office.
Don't get me wrong. Although the wet test moved us far away from the HS Envoy, the features are still great and we think it's a great tub for someone wanting a hugely strong jet flow. The Caldera Niagara is an amazing spa and if the dealer would talk a little more about lowering the price, we might talk. The Arctic is a really cool tub, too, as is the Marquis. This post is not meant to discourage anyone looking at those tubs... just meant to illustrate the importance of wet testing!
Anyway, looking forward to our site review and our joint wet test later this week!!!
arnisarn
PS - Thanks for the write-up, Duffman. It made us go back to Jacuzzi to talk to them again. If you remember, when we first looked at the tub, we really liked it, but didn't like the salesman. We talked to Jim today...
