How obstructed is "obstructed"?

I'm booked on the Sapphire coastal cruise May 13th from L.A. to Vancouver. I see that my outside cabin (E204) has a totally obstructed view. Does this mean that I will be facing the side of a tender with no sight of the sea whatsoever.....or with only part the view blocked? If I have no view at all, I wonder why they charge more than an inside cabin. I'll bet somebody has the answers for this.

I don't know the Sapphire or if totally obstructed in your case really means totally, but you should receive some daylight with it. That would be important and worth some extra $ to me, perhaps not worth it for others.

We have been on a number of cruises with cabins with a window and compeltely blocked view, but you can usually still see part of the sky, and you do get a lot of daylight through the window. We don't care, as we spend so few daylight hours in the cabin anyway, and we try to get the cheapest cabin we can on any cruise for this reason. We get the same view from the Lido or other areas of the ship as those people paying a lot more $$$$$$$$$$!

We found the deck plan to be pretty true. We booked an obs cabin on the Star. On the deck plan it appeared that our cabin was set between two lifeboats. Sure enough our window looked right out between the boats. We had only a thin cable in our straight ahead view. To the left and to the right there were life boats.

Be very aware though that there are also platforms for the workers outside some of these windows. We had the opportunity to watch them do their maintainance work live and closeup right outside our window. Had we not been so alert, they would have had the opportunity to catch a little live action view of their own!!!:eek:

Check out the deck plan and you can probably at least tell if you'll have a lifeboat in front of or off to the side. I paid for an obstructed view, but just had a pole off to the side that hardly blocked anything (I think I was in E118).

Best,

Mia

Our last cruise on the Celebrity Zenith we had an obstructed oceanview. It was pretty obstructed-there was a lifeboat right outside our window and except for sunlight we saw nothing-the day we were at Grand Cayman though the lifeboat outside our window was used for tendering-so we got a view for a few hours-but it certainly was not worth paying a $100 a person extra over an inside cabin.

One thing that was nice though was we were just 2 decks under the lido-and 2 decks above our dinningroom so everything was convenient and close.

I do know some lines give you a break when you have an obstructed oceanview-and these staterooms are classified as an inside cabin-I am not sure about Princess though-whether they do or not-but my thinking is-you should not have to pay the price of an oceanview cabin when the view is obstructed.

We found the deck plan to be pretty true. We booked an obs cabin on the Star. On the deck plan it appeared that our cabin was set between two lifeboats. Sure enough our window looked right out between the boats. We had only a thin cable in our straight ahead view. To the left and to the right there were life boats.

 

Be very aware though that there are also platforms for the workers outside some of these windows. We had the opportunity to watch them do their maintainance work live and closeup right outside our window. Had we not been so alert, they would have had the opportunity to catch a little live action view of their own!!!:eek:

Too funny! Same with us on the Zenith. Hubby and I were "napping" and had the TV on-he looked up and saw the reflection of a man in the TV screen and realized there was a man in the lifeboat outside our window-I guess the guy was getting it ready for tendering the next day in Grand Cayman.

Fortuantely I was still fully clothed! So I recommend you close your drapes!

We had 2 obstructed view cabins on the Emerald deck on the Sapphire. One was between the life boats, which had a good view. The other one looked out over the lifeboat. You could see the sea. Look at the deck plan of the ship and you can tell exactly what you have.

tonyt

We were on the Saphire last August on the Emerald deck cabin E604. We had a good view of the life boat only. We didn't spend that much time in the our cabin. It was still a great cruise.

We found the deck plan to be pretty true. We booked an obs cabin on the Star. On the deck plan it appeared that our cabin was set between two lifeboats. Sure enough our window looked right out between the boats. We had only a thin cable in our straight ahead view. To the left and to the right there were life boats.

We had the same experience on the Star. Depending on your location you will be able to some or little of the outside. We had a paritally obstructed view so we could see between two tenders. However, when the tenders were used to ferry passengers to shore at Grand Cayman and Princess Cay, we had an excellent view out the window for the day.

We also had a first hand view to watch the crew lower and raise the tenders, which was very interesting, and for a first-time cruiser, VERY reassuring that the tenders were fully operational. It is amazing how quickly the the tendors can be lowered and then raised back into place.

I just found out that we were upgraded on our upcoming cruise (on the CB) from an inside (on the Aloha) to an obstructed view on the Emerald deck. It being my first cruise, I called and asked what the difference was. I was told that that square footage on an inside cabin was 163 sq. ft and that we were going to a cabin that had 179 sq. ft. So even if the view is blocked by a lifeboat, you are still gaining a larger room and you will still probably get some natural light in your room as opposed to having nothing like the inside cabins have. On our ship for our cruise, the difference was $600 to upgrade to a Obs. Vw, so the free upgrade was very welcomed. With 4 people in our room (2 adults 2 kids) the extra space is very welcome.

I too want to know if my cabin will be completely covered by a lifeboat so if anyone has had cabin E425 on the CB, let me know...

Thanks

My daughters stayed in E423 on the Grand. There was a big metal pulley thing mostly blocking their view. You could see around it and they did have daylight. They also saw men out working outside their window one afternoon.

The E204 looks like it most definitely will be obstructed by a lifeboat.

E425 looks like you MIGHT have a peek-a-boo view but not 100% on that.

We stayed on the Grand in Feb and on the deck plan it showed we were in between lifeboats and we absolutely were. We had a great view from our stateroom as we had lifeboats to either side of our window but not in front. Some pulleys and bars but nothing we couldn't see through. Check out the Sapphire's deck plans as they show where the lifeboats are in relation to your specific staterooms.

http://www.princess.com/ships/sa/deck/sa_emerald_index.html

Just returned from Golden where we had two "fully-obstructed" outside cabins on Enerald deck. They were not Fully Obstructed, in my opinion. We could see across the tops of the lifeboats and view the land when in port. I knew that I had to have a window or I was afraid I'd sleep all morning. The windows were large and let in plenty of light. We got these cabins for a great price and I'd do it again if it meant getting on the ship or not (in other words, my first choice would have been a balcony cabin but, #1, there were no side-by-side balconies left and #2, they wanted $600.00/pp more to have a balcony and we decided to save that money for shore excursions.) I'd do it again.

Hi Racepoint,

could you tell me more about E607 on Golden? On a map it seems that the weindow is at the front of the life boat so I wonder if i would get anything but a daylight? And one more thing, I cannot figure out from the deckplan what is oposite the cabin door on emerald? Some kind of fence, can you look down to the lower deck? There are no inside cabins opposite mine cabin so I wonder what is it?

Hi Racepoint,

 

could you tell me more about E607 on Golden? On a map it seems that the weindow is at the front of the life boat so I wonder if i would get anything but a daylight? And one more thing, I cannot figure out from the deckplan what is oposite the cabin door on emerald? Some kind of fence, can you look down to the lower deck? There are no inside cabins opposite mine cabin so I wonder what is it?

It doesn't appear that there is anything across from your cabin door other than a wall.

I'm booked on the Sapphire coastal cruise May 13th from L.A. to Vancouver. I see that my outside cabin (E204) has a totally obstructed view. Does this mean that I will be facing the side of a tender with no sight of the sea whatsoever.....or with only part the view blocked? If I have no view at all, I wonder why they charge more than an inside cabin. I'll bet somebody has the answers for this.

Here is a photo of your window. It is the window with the glare behind the bow of the lifeboat. Looks like you will have a partial view, over the top of the lifeboat.

Thank you for the photo of the Sapphire. This picture is worth a thousand words.....I guess I'll be able to see over the top of the tender, just like on the Royal. All I really needed was a lot of light, so the rest is a big bonus.

Hi neighbor! I'll be in E210 right down the hall. Sailed on the Sapphire a couple of years ago to Mexico and had E211 on the opposite side and both cabins are directly between the lifeboats. I have a closeup photo of your cabin window if you send me an email. A friend sailed a coiple of weeks after me and was in of one the first couple of cabins also and had the same question.

Doug

dbhembroff@aol.com

In hopes that Ken reads this message, Im wondering what the view out of this cabin was like. How obstructed was it. Any information you can provide would be great. We will be in this cabin in August 2009

I will be on the Crown in February and have booked E607 which says obs view. From looking at the diagrams it looks totally obstructed. (we booked an outside guarantee and this is what we got.) If we upgrade to a 'D' cabin we would have a better view but then we are 3 floors lower and we would also have to do a Guarantee. That could mean that we would be upgraded to 'C' which has only a porthole and is in the extreme front of the ship right over the main theater. To upgrade to a Balcony would be another $600 which we don't really want to do.

Any info or advice would be welcome.

Sharon:confused:

I will be on the Crown in February and have booked E607 which says obs view. From looking at the diagrams it looks totally obstructed. (we booked an outside guarantee and this is what we got.) If we upgrade to a 'D' cabin we would have a better view but then we are 3 floors lower and we would also have to do a Guarantee. That could mean that we would be upgraded to 'C' which has only a porthole and is in the extreme front of the ship right over the main theater. To upgrade to a Balcony would be another $600 which we don't really want to do.

Any info or advice would be welcome.

Sharon:confused:

Sharon, I kind of look at it this way.....you don't spend all that much time in your cabin, and when you are in your cabin you really aren't just staring out the window. I almost always get an obs cabin and like it because I need to have natural light. I look out the window to see if it is day or night, sunny or raining, and if we are getting close to port. That's is really all I use the window for. And totally obs doesn't mean like you are staring into the side of a building. You will be able to see the the sea, and the sky and the big ole lifeboat. Really I think, unless you are going to Alaska, where it is too cold and too crowded to stand out on deck, an obstructed cabin is just fine.

Thankyou Doris! We went to Alaska in June and then it was well worth it to have our balcony cabin but this time probably not...;)

Sometime a fully obstructed view really is. Some of the lifeboats/tenders are larger than others.

The picture below shows a "fully onstructed" view when one of the smaller tenders was in front of our window.