Cabin Review

Our cabin was on the same deck as the bridge. We saw the captain several times while waiting in the hall and he was very pleasant and personable. Our room steward was excellent and went out of his way to be helpful. Although our room was at the front (starboard) of the ship, it didn't seem as if it was too far from anything. The ship has two main sets of elevators and our room was quite close to the forward set of elevators which made it convenient to the Opal Theater, Central Park and the Promenade. It was a bit of a hike to the Boardwalk area, but certainly manageable. (I appreciated the extra steps as a way to help walk off all of the food I ate!)

Our room was large - we liked the area with the couch near the balcony, as it provided a nice sense of openness. There was a small table in front of the couch also. The desk/dressing table storage area was a bit smaller than what we've experienced on other ships. There were several very small shelves behind doors on one side - only about 5-6 inches deep. There were two good sized drawers and drawer that included tissue and the blow dryer. They were the only drawers in the stateroom. There was a small refrigerator - BUT, it did not cool our pop or water. When we questioned the cooling ability of it we were told it was only a cooler not a refrigerator. (Huh????) Needless to say it was pretty useless. We asked for, and received, an ice bucket that we used extensively. Our room steward filled it twice daily.

Our balcony was adequate, but my husband really missed not having a recliner or a footstool. Instead our balcony (and most on the ship evidently) had only 2 chairs and a table. The bathroom is of a good size and I liked that the shower had doors instead of a curtain. However, I did feel like I was in a bank drive-through document travel tube! I kept thinking I was going to be blasted out at any moment! The shower has a nice handy foot bar - great for washing/shaving legs. It also had two hooks for wet items or loofahs. There was liquid shampoo in a dispenser on the wall - not the best - it didn't suds up much (probably on purpose, but it meant having to shampoo my hair twice to get it clean, which certainly defeated the purpose of less soap). The lights don't turn off completely in the bathroom - the one over the sink stays on all the time. Nice, but a bit bright in the middle of the night. There were 3 small shelves on the left, one small drawer, two shelves below and a small amount of space under the sink behind closed doors. Very adequate for our toiletries. Plenty of towels, and two more hooks near the sink. There were 3 hooks on the door - which made getting a towel from the shower quite convenient. Overall, a larger bathroom than on most cruise ships.

The bed was king sized and comfortable. There was a table on both sides of the bed. However, I'm used to bedside tables with drawers - and these tables were very small with two shelves below on each side that couldn't hold much besides my Kindle and a water bottle. My husband was able to fit his CPAP machine on his side, but there was only one plug on the bedside of the wall, which meant stretching an extension cord across the bed. There are two reading lights, but they are bright and not positionable like on some other ships. The suitcases all fit nicely under the bed.

The closet area, while adequate was not well designed. There are two room layouts in the type of room we had. Either the bed is on the side of the balcony or over by the closet. Ours was over by the closet, which made it very difficult to access. The space between the bed and the closet was only about 2 feet and included the side table on one side of the bed, which was right up against the side of the closet. It held our clothes, and did have a fold down bar for some short pants, short tops. On one side there were several top to bottom shelves, one of which included the room safe. The shelf above the clothing was very small - only 6-8 inches high, so not very useful. It was small overall, especially because there were only two real drawers in the room. The closet had two sliding doors, which made it even more difficult to get in and out of as only half of it was accessible at any time. There was a nice full sized mirror next to the bathroom. The walls are all metal - we bought heavy magnets (25 lb weight) and used them all over the room to hold hats, room key lanyards, our daily compass, shore excursion tickets, clothing for the next day, wet items, etc. I highly recommend bringing strong magnets for convenience sake. Overall, the room is very pretty, but not over the top.

If you are looking for an inside balcony we noted that the Central Park inside balconies were the quietest (as is Central Park). Choose a room toward the middle so that people in the elevators can't see into your room at night. :) If you want a livelier inside balcony experience choose one overlooking the Boardwalk area, but toward the middle or toward the Aqua Theater. If you are closer to the middle of the ship people on the overlook above the Boardwalk will be able to see into your room at night. The ones closer to the Aqua Theater also can see a bit of the ocean - hard to tell how much while looking up from below.