MSC Orchestra - Any new reviews on Aft Cabins

Heard so much about the aft cabins and how badly they vibrate, any recent travellers in the aft cabins with similar experiences or better? Would love to hear your stories.

just got back from two weeks in an aft inside cabin aboard Orchestra.

sorry, they vibrate. a lot. surprisingly my wife who is usually a very light sleeper found the rattling to be soothing. I usually sleep like a baby and found it to be a real pain in the ***, but I slept through most of it anyway.

enjoy!!

JUST back from Orchestra. I had an inside cabin on 8th floor. yES IT VIBRATES very laud. First night i and my husband couldn't sleep, but the next and next we slept like babies did not bother us at all. It just hard to makeup in bathroom. But it is fine. We did not spend a lot of time in our cabin. Only sleep and shower/change cloth.

Rumball, which deck were you on? The vibration complaints that I have seen were all from people on deck 8, which is the lowest deck with aft cabins.

We are sailing on April 11, in an aft cabin on deck 11. I will make a point to return here and post my experiences with the vibration.

We've never had an aft cabin before, but we have been on a couple of ships in which the dining room was at the stern and one of the lowest decks. One in particular that I remember was HAL's Zuiderdam. We had lunch in the dining room on a sea day and had a table with a beautiful view of the wake. The vibration was quite noticeable. On upper decks, such as the Lido, even standing at the stern rail, no vibration was apparent. I'm hoping that being on deck 11 will minimize the vibration.

Paul

thanks for your replies

We just returned from the 3/21-28 sailing on the orchestra. We had an 8th floor balcony aft cabin(8222), there is a lot of vibration. Especially when there were rough seas or pulling into port. However, we slept great! Rocked us to slept & we slept like babies. Even the kids slept through the vibrations. So, for us it was fine. Hope this helps.

sorry, we were on deck 10. no minimization at all. you will feel it.

...but I should add our experience was similar to royalcruise's in that the first night is the worst. you do get used to it.

thanks for your replies. I'm bringing lots of gravel just in case.

bring gravol too. the gravel will just weigh you down. :D sashasasha...you must be Cdn, like me. I can't remember what our US friends call it, but I think they call it something other than gravol.:) P.S. the rocking wasn't so bad, it was vibrations and rattling in the aft cabins. it doesn't make you ill, it just annoys you if you can't get your mind off it, and potentially, keep you awake!

bring gravol too. the gravel will just weigh you down. :D sashasasha...you must be Cdn, like me. I can't remember what our US friends call it, but I think they call it something other than gravol.:) P.S. the rocking wasn't so bad, it was vibrations and rattling in the aft cabins. it doesn't make you ill, it just annoys you if you can't get your mind off it, and potentially, keep you awake!

OK...I have to ask...what the heck is gravol??!! Motion sickness med or sleep aid or what?!:confused:

OK...I have to ask...what the heck is gravol??!! Motion sickness med or sleep aid or what?!:confused:

motion sickness med, that has the nice side effect of being an effective sleep aid.

Thanks Rumball. Your right, I am canadian. I just bought my supply of Gravol, it is an ani-nauseant for the prevention and treatment of nausea, vomiting or dizziness due to motion (travel) sickness. Bought a box of 50 tablets. Being an an aft cabin, sounds like I may need them.

Just got back from the 4/11 Orchestra cruise. We were in aft cabin 9225. Yes, there is constant vibration while the engines are running. But it did not bother my family. Kinda like "white noise." The only time it got noticeable was when the ship was docking or leaving port.

And the joy of looking off the back of the ship far offset the irritation. SO, it you're picky, or irritated by little things, don't book near the aft of the ship. If not, don't worry.

We, too, were on the 4/11 sailing of the Orchestra. We were in cabin 11250, facing aft.

Yes, there was noticeable vibration, but I expected there to be some vibration, since you are directly over the propellers. As others have said, the side-thrusters were much more noticeble than the normal propellers. At sea, the vibration was sometimes almost completely gone at times. At other times, it was more noticeable.

The thing that bothered us more was the rattles in the cabin, that were caused by the propeller vibrations. As most of you probably know, the cabins are pre-fabricated and trucked to the shipyard and installed in the hull, rather than being built onsite. In our cabin, one of the pre-fabricated walls seemed to not be fastened properly, and made an annoying rattle until I jammed a folded up piece of paper into the joint between the wall and ceiling. It took me three days to realize that the glass fruit bowl, sitting on a china plate was also rattling. The closet door also rattled. I solved those problems by moving the bowl and leaving the closet door ajar at night. These steps made it much better. Of course, these problems may well by unique to our cabin.

On the whole, I didn't find the vibration objectionable, although it WAS noticeable. My wife also found it soothing, sort of like a "Majic Fingers" bed, except that I didn't have to keep putting quarters in it. OTOH, we've never had an aft cabin on any other ship, so I can't say if the vibration was more than should be expected.

Paul

Do any of you have pictures of the aft cabins and the balconies? Do the balconies open between cabins?

Here is a photo of an aft balcany from the Orchestra. 8193

click to enlarge

Here is a photo of an aft balcany from the Orchestra. 8193

 

 

[ATTACH]114222[/ATTACH]

click to enlarge

Thank you. We are thinking of booking in March of 10 as well. It's so hard to decide because the reviews of this line are all over the place!

Did your balcony open to the ones on either side?

Thank you. We are thinking of booking in March of 10 as well. It's so hard to decide because the reviews of this line are all over the place!

 

Did your balcony open to the ones on either side?

Balcony divider that opens is about half of the whole divider. It is the part closest to the railing so although it does provide access from one balcony to the other, it does not make one big balcony if you wanted to 'join up' with you neighbors. Ours was broken at first and used to swing so I was very conscience of it till we got it fixed.

Also, we only had 2 chairs (unlike the photo) till we asked our steward for an extra one, it took no time and he reappeared with an extra chair.

Thank you. We are thinking of booking in March of 10 as well. It's so hard to decide because the reviews of this line are all over the place!

 

Did your balcony open to the ones on either side?

There is a divider between each balcony. However, the divider can be retracted if a family, etc has adjoining cabins. The two cabins to my right were in this situation, and the divider was pulled back.

Thanks for the replies. My group wants to be able to move from one balcony to another if possible. I appreciate your help!

3 weeks prior to our April 11 - April 18 cruise we upgraded to Aft cabin. We were in room 8220 take my word, stay away from any of these Aft cabins. We expereinced 7 nights of the floors heavily vibrating, the walls, the doors and the pictures on the walls rumbling, my girls called it a earthquake that never stopped when at sea. It was a total nightmare and believe me i'm not exagerating. There were four of us in this room and my girls are heavy sleepers and they weren't able to sleep through this. The ship is beautiful, the food and entertainment is great, but I will never book an Aft cabin again. We spoke to cruisers that had Aft cabins on deck 10 and they had the same complaints.

3 weeks prior to our April 11 - April 18 cruise we upgraded to Aft cabin. We were in room 8220 take my word, stay away from any of these Aft cabins. We expereinced 7 nights of the floors heavily vibrating, the walls, the doors and the pictures on the walls rumbling, my girls called it a earthquake that never stopped when at sea. It was a total nightmare and believe me i'm not exagerating. There were four of us in this room and my girls are heavy sleepers and they weren't able to sleep through this. The ship is beautiful, the food and entertainment is great, but I will never book an Aft cabin again. We spoke to cruisers that had Aft cabins on deck 10 and they had the same complaints.

Have you had afts on other cruise ships and if so was this one that much worse?

We were on the 4/4/09 sailing, 9th floor aft corner cabin. We LOVED it. Yes it vibrated upon docking, the worst in Key West. But I have not been on any cruise ship that I did not feel vibration. It did not bother us as we knew when we docked and it got us going in the morning. The view from the balcony was fabulous. We enjoyed sitting on the chairs and reading. One day we watched dolphins playing in the wake. I'd put up with some vibration for that anytime! The room was BIG. There were 4 of us and had no trouble storing the clothes or suitcases and I brought WAY TOO MANY clothes for me and the kids. Our steward was terrific. Always smiling and pleasant. My only complaint was the fact there were others on balconies who completely disregarded all of the posted warnings about NOT SMOKING on the balconies. I find it very annoying when people do not have any regard for the safety of others, especially when they were tossing their butts overboard.

Every person is different. We also had room 8220 on the Orchestra for the 4/4/09 sailing. While I admit that the vibrations were quite noticeable, especially pulling into ports, we became pretty immune to it after the first night. But the difference is that I've been boating since I was a little kid. Vibrations, waves, rocking... doesn't bother me, my wife, or my two 10 year olds. It seemed to me like there were two types of vibrations. The low rumble that is constant throughout the whole trip, and the pretty noticeable rumbling/shaking that happens for a few seconds or two when pulling in or out of port. The balcony was priceless though. :D