Cabin Choice—Is Bigger Better?

There are many choices of cabin size. Smallest are inside cabins. These have no porthole and are about 200 sq ft. A travel agent told us that some folks in these cabins turn their tv to the channel that shows was the camera on the front of the boat sees. This gives them a tiny sense of being connected to the outside.

Next up are cabins on the lower floors, near the water line, that have small portholes…about 1 foot in diameter. Not much, but you don’t feel you are sleeping in a closet.

Next step is an “obstructed view.” These are on the 6th deck, and have full portholes (3 feet diameter), but they are blocked by lifeboats.

Next size have full portholes with no obstructions.

Next up are the balcony cabins. These are about the same size as all the ones I’ve mentioned so far: about 210 sq ft. Here you get a balcony that is comfortable for 2 people, and a nice full sliding glass door.

Next size up are the mini-suites. These are about 320 sq ft. On our ship they are about as deep as the regular balcony cabins, but are about 50% wider. On the bigger ships, the mini-suites were deeper, but about the same width as the regular balcony cabins. This latter configuration is nice in that it allows for a curtain that can separate the sofa area from the bed area for those couples that go to sleep and wake up on different schedules.

Finally are the full suites. These are 850-900 sq ft. They have a totally separate living room and a second half bath. In the full bath there is a Jacuzzi and shower. The living room has a full size couch, and a table that seats 4. The balcony is about 30 feet long with a dining table for 4, 2 reading chairs, and 2 lounges.

There are 10 full suites on the ship. The four in the front are call penthouse suites (PS). The 6 in the back are called owner’s suites (OS). The OS’s are slightly bigger than the PS’s due to the curved front wall in the PS’s. The OS’s also have their balconies slightly wrap around the side of the ship.

When we booked (over 16 months ago) the price of the minimum accommodation was about $250/day per person. The balcony cabins were about $300/day per person; the mini suites were $400/day per person; the full suites were $500/day per person.

The choice of cabin type has a lot to do about how you plan to spend your time. You can easily spend 50% less than another passenger by selecting the minimum. This may work well if you plan to do little more than sleep, shower, and use the bathroom in your cabin. You can spend your days in activities, sitting by the pool, or sitting on the open side deck on the 5th floor. Or you could spend back $500 of the money saved to have access for the entire trip to a special area on deck 9 at the front of the ship that has a hot tub and many deck chairs. (We have “free” access to this area as part of our PH perks. It is a nice area, but I’ve only used it twice so far.)

There are a few father-daughter and mother-daughter combinations on the cruise. Especially for the father-daughter ones, these smaller cabins mean that most of the changing of clothes takes place in the very small bathroom.

Truth is, if the mini-suites had been of the design of the larger ships, where the reading and sleeping area had a curtain, we might have chosen to stop at that level. We’ve seen all of the types of rooms, and the minis are quite nice.

Having said all this, we are very happy with our PH. We got a lot of extra room for the final step up in price. We probably spend more of our time in our cabin that most because the size and features make it comfortable to do so. (Right now I’m typing this in the living area while Kathleen is still asleep. We could not do this in the other type of cabins.)

We can order room service off of the main dining room menu. Other cabins have a more limited room service. This makes it nice for us to have dinner a couple of times a week in our cabin. Diner takes 20 minutes instead of 1-1/2 hours and we can either be in the living area or on the deck.

We get other complementary feature with the PH: free internet, free laundry, weekly resets of the mini bar, early departure treatment at ports. I’ll talk about some of these in later postings.