Hopefully, the Ultimate "Riviera Deck" thread... Quiet, Noisy.

[maxxedout2]

Thanks to the many interesting CC reviews (and reviewers) I decided to

book a cabin on the Crown's Riviera Deck. We liked the idea of being one

flight of stairs down from the Lido activities, pools, pizza and ice cream.

 

But which cabin? What about reported noisy deck chairs, early A.M. pool

deck pressure washing, MUTS, high-heeled-late-night Conga lines...you

name it?

 

Here's an animated .gif file combining the various areas of the Lido deck

with the cabins on the lower Riviera deck.

 

 

 

Please make your own interpretation...but it sure seems to me that a few

feet either way will determine if your Riviera cabin is subject to noise from

above.

 

Based on this illustration, DW and I decided to book both R737 and R514

on two upcoming Crown XMas cruises from Ft Lauderdale. ....will let y'all

know how it goes. :D

 

Please add your own comments on the Good or the Bad

of the Riviera deck.

 

Regards,

Maxx

:cool::cool:

[Colo Cruiser]

The 700's are excellent.

[Whoo]

We will be on the Riviera deck also on our next cruise. Snagged one of the "secret" larger inside cabins, and I did it just because of some reviews and comments here on CC.

 

I would like to know other cruisers' experiences on the Riviera deck as well!:)

[DonnaK]

R401: only heard a muffled scrapping of chairs once or twice during the daytime throughout the cruise.

 

R729: ideal. Very quiet.

[Woobstr112G]

Stay away from the PH suites. Balconies are very narrow which makes the upgraded wood furniture very cramped.....:(:(:(

 

Bob

[PescadoAmarillo]

Wow, this is awesome!! You've discovered our favorite, R737. I wouldn't take a balcony cabin on a lower deck in trade. DH initially walked off the distance while we were in a balcony cabin on that deck so that we knew that 737 was the first one from the back with carpet above, and we've chosen that cabin on 3 ships for 5 different cabins. We couldn't get it for both B2B cabins this fall, and didn't want to move on turnaround day, so we opted for sideways R515. I'll let you know about noise when I return.

[AndyTheK]

Sailing on the Crown in six weeks. We have cabin R301 - not by choice. There were only 2 HC balcony cabins left when we reserved last January. The other was on Caribe, and since this is a port intensive fall cruise, the half-uncovered balcony didn't appeal enough to pay the extra money.

 

All this said, the cabin is not under the active Lido venues, but under the forward Lido cabins. So I don't anticipate much noise or extra traffic above.

[Pam in CA]

Great animation. It really shows clearly the best areas to be.

[SteveH2508]

We were in R625 a fortnight ago. No noise to speak of but there were quite a few cooking smells, especially in the corridor. The cabin steward was very good as well.

 

We would have preferred to be a bit nearer the centre lifts but this was a last minute GTY booking so no complaints.

 

Good animation BTW.

[spongerob]

Nice job on the graphics.

 

It's the center area that is the worst, where there is no carpet. The pool attendants start dragging deck chairs around at 6:02 AM (precisely and it was like clockwork) and about 5 minutes later you get the noises of chairs and tables being slid around on the hard deck.

 

Might as well have someone dumping a load of gravel on your bedroom ceiling. There's no sleeping through it.

[jbu]

I found a WONDERFUL website that lets you see how each of the decks lines up on any ship. The site is cruisedeckplans.com - when you access this site and select Princess, you can then select any specific ship. You'll then be able to see any individual deck plan, and these are (IMO) easier to read than those on Princess's own site.

 

A really cool feature that's easy to miss is that there's a little icon that looks something like a paperclip or a chain in the lower left corner; if you mouse over it, it says "drag decks." When you click on it, it opens another window with ALL the decks, side by side, and you can click and drag any deck and lay it over top of another. If you do this and make sure you line up things like staircases, you'll see what's actually on the deck above and below your cabin.

 

This is a really great website with lots of other really great information, but I thought I'd share this tip here, since you're curious about what might make noise above you and want to choose a cabin accordingly. Hope it helps.

[DeRon]

a fortnight ago

 

ha! man, yall talk cool!

[Toto2Kansas]

I can definitely say that R411 (PH suite) which is under your hard deck area, is absolutely the worst stateroom/suite we had ever seen. The noise wasn't just early in the AM, but constant except for the hours of 1:00 AM and around 5:00 AM, which means 4 hours of quiet out of 24. Run don't walk if you ever consider booking (at any price) or are upgraded to this suite, very bad!

[bad973]

jbu, thanks so much for the great website! It will come in very handy!

Barbara

[PescadoAmarillo]

...but there were quite a few cooking smells, especially in the corridor.

That's interesting you mention that. Every afternoon at cookie time, we could heavily smell them baking while in the corridor on the port aft side of Riviera Deck. Of course, in this case, it was a good thing, so I'm not complaining!

 

I found a WONDERFUL website that lets you see how each of the decks lines up on any ship.

 

Jenny, you're right. That is a wonderful website. Thanks for sharing...I've got it bookmarked. :)

[DonnaK]

I can definitely say that R411 (PH suite) which is under your hard deck area, is absolutely the worst stateroom/suite we had ever seen. The noise wasn't just early in the AM, but constant except for the hours of 1:00 AM and around 5:00 AM, which means 4 hours of quiet out of 24. Run don't walk if you ever consider booking (at any price) or are upgraded to this suite, very bad!

 

Interestingly, we recieved a call from Princess the evening before our cruise offering an upgradeto R411. We turned it down because we were traveling with a large group and had reserved 5 cabins in a row on the Emerald deck, and we didn't want to split our group up. She really drove a hard bargain, and even offered us an additional $1000 OBC if we took this suite. I still turned it down. (The reason for the OBC is that they wanted two of our minisuites in exchange for the one suite - 3 people were affected)

 

I wonder if they have a hard time selling 411 due to noise issues.

[jbu]

Jenny, you're right. That is a wonderful website. Thanks for sharing...I've got it bookmarked. :)

 

Jeannie, you surprised me! I would have thought you'd found that site a LONG time ago!

 

How are you doing? Hope all is well, and things are settling down a bit for you.

[Toto2Kansas]

Interestingly, we recieved a call from Princess the evening before our cruise offering an upgradeto R411. We turned it down because we were traveling with a large group and had reserved 5 cabins in a row on the Emerald deck, and we didn't want to split our group up. She really drove a hard bargain, and even offered us an additional $1000 OBC if we took this suite. I still turned it down. (The reason for the OBC is that they wanted two of our minisuites in exchange for the one suite - 3 people were affected)

 

I wonder if they have a hard time selling 411 due to noise issues.

 

All I can say is that you are soooooooo lucky you turned down their offer. As I have said in the past, I knew there would be some noise above this suite, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it was going to be anything like we experienced. One reason is that it is DIRECTLY BELOW the ping pong tables. And passengers play ping pong at all hours. Even if they take away the paddles and ping pong balls and try to close down the tables, passengers seem to be bringing their own and they move the tables over into the light which was right above our bed. It sounded like a football team was practing above us until the wee hours of the morning. And during the day, more like someone is dropping lead weights on the floor above.

 

As said, you did the wise thing.........I just wish we had been wiser (and believed that those that talked about it here were not exaggerating, but being kind when it came to reporting the noise level, it was much worse than had been reported by others). ;)

[KruzPrincess]

I had R748 which is an outside aft cabin. It has portholes instead of a window and it's right next to the door to the aft pool area. If people had their balcony doors open the door would bang loudly when it slammed shut. It was like a wind tunnel was created. It didn't happen all the time, but when it did the walls would shake. Loved the location, but I wouldn't choose that cabin again.

[AndyTheK]

I found a WONDERFUL website that lets you see how each of the decks lines up on any ship. The site is cruisedeckplans.com

I tried to go there and got "server not found". Even went through Google to make sure it was not misspelled... same result :(:(

[somogirl]

We had R626 and didn't hear or smell anything, loved it. We have booked R736 for a upcoming Med cruise. We love being so close to everything.

[Toddy709]

On the Ruby the four aft cabins on Rivieria are balcony cabins rather than porthole cabins. I can recommend R750 and R751, although they have slightly smaller than "standard" balconies. However, R748 and R749 I would NEVER book. Having that balcony is like sharing your balcony with the ENTIRE Terrace pool deck. Zero cover and even less privacy!

[PescadoAmarillo]

Jeannie, you surprised me! I would have thought you'd found that site a LONG time ago!

 

LOL Jenny. No, it was new to me (and it worked perfectly when I accessed it; thanks for the hint about the drag decks icon-it was pretty darn small). We're the ones who were relying on DH's pacing to figure out which cabin to book. :D It's kind of making me wish we had booked R514 instead of R515, but I'll pack earplugs, just in case.

 

I am doing better, thanks for asking. It's taken a while, but I am finally sensing progress and peace. Sure I can't talk you into the 11/28 or 12/18 cruises?? :)

[Tatka]

We sailed on Riviera twice, although the ship was Caribbean

 

R255 - balcony

R749 - OV

 

It was not noisy at all.. and yes at R749 (OV not balcony) our balcony was whole Terrace pool. Niiice! :D

 

However I'd never book R748. People in this cabin suffered from the noise of closing door to the pool. We didn't hear a thing. But ship's movement was felt at all times.

[SCFCRUISER]

We had R223 towards the bow on the Emerald & it was as quiet as a mouse. Cabins are below & above the cabin, so no worries with the early crew working.

 

Steve