Artesian Piper Glen vs Sundance Optima

[bohms]

Ok, we've been hitting all of the dealerships the past few days and we may look at a few more.  We went to Artesian tonight and fell in love with the Piper Glen.  Does anyone have any input on this model/brand?  We still have the Sundance Optima on our minds as well.  It just seems like we would get more for our money with the Piper Glen.  We were quoted $9600 for the Piper Glen and that includes, hydralic lift, cover, and steps (not including tax, stereo or LED lights).  The Sundance Optima we were quoted a little over 11K but he said that they were having a sale in a couple of weeks and that we could get them down on the price (not sure how much).  That includes the regular lift, cover and steps (not including tax or stereo).  I was just wondering what everyone thought of these two models.  Also, do these stereos hold up???
Thanks.

[tileman]

I wet tested the Piper Glen and really liked it. Great power and can't say enough about its individual pumps for each seat. Your price qoute seems good. Thats a little cheaper then my dealers $10,500, but that was fully loaded. If I had a family, more parties, or the money I would have purchased. Just too much spa fo me.

[SpaMorph]

bohms, have you tested Hot Spring?  If so, how do you rate them compared to the Piper Glen?

[Stemay]

Just got out of my Piper Glen!  AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!  We've only had it since June and we're still remarking several times a week "This was a GREAT investment!" and "Boy, do I LOVE this tub!"

The jets are nice and strong and we love the individual controls.  The jets hit lots of the muscle groups.  

We absolutely LOVE it!  

[SpaMorph]

Does anyone have a Piper Glen with a taupe cabinet?  If so, would you please post some pics.  Thanks!

[hymbaw]

You get what you pay for. $11,000 is a little high for an Optima. Negotiate. Go with the Sundance.

Bring on the comments about how I'm biased. I am. There are other that I will give props too(when deserved).

Artesian is a O.K. built tub. Their goal sems to be to copy Sundance(and others) shells with generic parts and low-ball the price.

[sledjunkie]

Taupe cabinet, with oyster opal(desert horizon) shell.

bohms, I think you've proven yourself smart enough not to listen to hymbaw's comment, so that's all I'm going to say about that.

[Lakedaisy]

We were quoted $9600 for the Piper Glen and that includes, hydralic lift, cover, and steps (not including tax, stereo or LED lights).  The Sundance Optima we were quoted a little over 11K but he said that they were having a sale in a couple of weeks and that we could get them down on the price (not sure how much).  

Local Sundance dealer offered us the price of $8294 (just had a spa show sale and extened the sale price to us) for the Optima.  We purchased (haven't received it yet) the piper glen for $10600 total, with LED lights, delivered and set-up.  The price was never a consideration in selecting the spa we wanted. When all the spas we were considering were in the range of $8-$11k a couple of thousand either way didn't seem that important.  The overall consideration was purchasing a spa that we would be happy with now and later.  

We saw both the Red and Taupe  cabinets.  The Taupe is more light brown looking to us. It appears more grayish on the Artesian website.  We wanted gray so we got the Taupe.

[bohms]

SpaMorph - we looked at Hot Springs but didn't wet test it.  We really want a tub that has 4 corner seats and the foot jet dome so that's why I think we narrowed it down to Piper Glen and Optima.  We haven't wet tested either one but intend to do so prior to making our decision.  Also, our Artesian dealer told us that the cabinets now come in gray as well - is that not the case?  We saw an Artesian in the showroom in gray (it wasn't the Platinum series but it was gray.  Now I'm curious....
Is Hymbaw a Sundance dealer or owner?
Sled Junkie - love the way your tub looks, thanks for posting the pic.

[Vinny]

You get what you pay for. $11,000 is a little high for an Optima. Negotiate. Go with the Sundance.

Bring on the comments about how I'm biased. I am. There are other that I will give props too(when deserved).

Artesian is a O.K. built tub. Their goal sems to be to copy Sundance(and others) shells with generic parts and low-ball the price.

Most dealers will be biased. You say that it's a copycat going after Sundance ... my Cayman doesn't look anything like a Sundance but it's designer came from LA Spas. Yes it looks like the Concord, but I would imagine that that's what happens when someone designs something - they copy what they designed. Look at Detroit - a certain style becomes popular (remember early '90's - everything looked like a Ford Taurus) and almost every car in a lineup looked the same, some bigger and some smaller.

Does the Piper look like an Optima - NO!. It has a different look and configuration! What has it been copied against? NOTHING.

As far as generic parts - yea your right on that - they use all the top manufacturers on parts - no proprietary parts. No SUN purity, No SUN ozone, NO SUN anything.

My opinion is that Artesian is starting to put a dent in the locked up sales for Sundance and others, so that's why we have to bash it ... Don't worry, when YOU don't make your numbers, Sundance will stop you as a dealer and open up up their own corporate store like they've done else where and maybe they'll hire you.

I am an owner of Artesian and IMO they are GREAT tubs. Am I biased - YES - I looked at many tubs to come up with this tub and there WASN'T any other manufacturer that gave as much value for a tub as did Artesian. They have excellent customer service and as I've seen here, they do take care of their customers. I myself have had a jet issue for the first 7 months of ownership which my dealer was taking care of and when I called Artesian they did take care of the problem!

Is the Optima a good tub, I'm sure it is. I personally didn't have the money to buy a higher end tub so I didn't look at Optimas or Pipers. Rest assure whatever tub you get, you should enjoy.

[tileman]

Bohms, have you checked out Jacuzzi yet? If you haven't and you have a dealer remotely close, I would strongly recommend going. For that kind of money you could be in a 400 series. The J-470 and J-480 both have what your looking for, (4 corner seats, footwell dome, and ridiculus power). I also think that you would really like their silverwood cabinetry. It's the color I chose and absolutely love. I would have suggested this in my previous post but I was having a mental lapse. :-? As you can tell I'm not a dealer just very passionate about the 400 series. Just haven't been in or seen a spa as nice as the J-480. Some come close, but IMO not close enough.

[SpaMorph]

Taupe cabinet, with oyster opal(desert horizon) shell.

Man, that looks nothing like the actual color taupe, nor does it look like Artesian's sample pic on the website.  Is that your tub, sledjunkie?  Are we sure that's Artesian's taupe cabinet?

[sledjunkie]

Yup, that's my tub. It's a gold series Opal 2005. I was told it's the taupe cabinet, and I'm pretty sure it is.

Also, I would say the gold series Emerald is more of a side by side, spec by spec comparision to a Optima..

The piper glen is a serious tub IMO. Too much money for me.

more pics..




Next year I'm doing landscaping, deck, new patio, etc..

[SpaMorph]

Yup, that's my tub. It's a gold series Opal 2005. I was told it's the taupe cabinet, and I'm pretty sure it is.

junkie, that's not what the current taupe cabinet looks like.  The 2006 models are a different shade and the slats are narrower.  See the link below:

http://www.artesianspas.com/showroom/platinum/options.asp

[Vinny]

The Platinum series does (and did) have a different style of cabinet than the other series. The color was slightly different too. That probably is the taupe color, here's the redwood:

 

The dealer should be able to show you a color other than in a book. My dealer had each color and had tubs in the "most popular" colors. What I found was the color chips had a different look than the tubs themselves. I opted for silver marble which is actually white marble to me. My dealer had the Piper outfitted in it and I really liked the way it looked so I copied it. I would have liked to see the oyster opal in person as the chip looked interesting.