The panoramics are worth more and we always pay to upgrade, but I paid a little less than that this year (sorry forget how much at the moment) and a lot less years ago. Depending on how long you're stay is and your Hilton status, you might be able to negotiate a little better, but it could also be because they are already filling up. We were there a couple weeks ago and they were around 80% capacity, so the value of the better OWBs does go up (we had prepaid the upgrade). I'm diamond and in the past gold, but they still require $ to upgrade, but not as much since I'm coming from a deluxe garden award night. Lower status means you're having to pay to upgrade from the basic garden.

The panaramics are at ends and more private, but haven't heard complaints from those in other OWBs as long as you're not the partial OWB by the beach (3 of those). Those are too shallow for us.