Aft balcony vs Mini Suite (Epic)

[BadKitteh]

I keep seeing everyone praising Aft cabins, but I wanted to see what the hype was about last night and checked into the rooms on the deck plan. All I can tell is the Aft rooms are smaller. I understand the lack of wind theory and such, but is it really worth giving up 30sq feet when the rooms are already pretty tight?

[Zimomiller]

If you intend to use your balcony much, the answer is yes.

[bluesea777]

mmmm ....

 

We had the stern balcony cabin for our Caribbean cruises last Aug. We liked it but the balcony was so hot (as were the outside decks) as it was height of summer and West Caribbean was sooo hot and humid. We used the balcony to watch the dockings and departures. Liked the balcony as it was quite deep and very sheltered.

 

Now we're going on the TA in Oct - we decided between the stern again (it's be cooler which would be ideal) or a mini-suite with bathtub. We opted for the latter as it's going to be a long cruise with many sea days and the bathtub will be a bit of luxury for us.

 

If we go on a short and port intensive cruise we'd have a stern balcony cabin.

 

The stern balcony should be fine for the January cruise in Caribbean.

[cmdchiefthom]

I keep seeing everyone praising Aft cabins, but I wanted to see what the hype was about last night and checked into the rooms on the deck plan. All I can tell is the Aft rooms are smaller. I understand the lack of wind theory and such, but is it really worth giving up 30sq feet when the rooms are already pretty tight?

 

Take a look at the cabin pictures on cruisedeckplans .com and get a feel for the stern cabins. My son had an aft Penthouse suite on deck 11 aboard the Epic two weeks ago, and I thought the cabin was pretty roomy, but the balcony was quite large, in fact it was almost twice as large as our Courtyard Villa.;)

[slotaddict]

I actually booked my first aft balcony on the Epic sailing next week. On most ships the aft balcony is very large, but the only larger balconys are the suites...it looks as though my balcony is a tad larger than the others so I am quite excited..

I think it will probably lead me to book another aft, just to experience the larger balcony, which will not be the case on the Epic - :D However I do plan to enjoy every minute of it..

[Zimomiller]

We have chosen to sail in aft balconies for years. They usually have larger balconies.

 

We had 2 aft balcony cabins on our Epic cruise, 1 was a Penthouse the other was a connecting BA.

 

They both had deep balconies, but we have no experience with the Epic balconies mid ship so I cannot tell you how the balcony sizes compare.

 

Take a look at my signature, there you will find a link to our webshots galleries. I took extensive photos and videos of the two cabins and balconies. There are 2 galleries, 1 for each room.

[elsplace2]

Aft balconies are awesome....especially the panoramic view you get from them. We had one on our Alaska cruise and we LOVED it! Got to see both sides of the ship and we really utilized the balcony seeing Alaska is such a scenic cruise. It also helped with blocking the wind with those cool Alaskan days!

 

On the other hand, we also had an aft Wrap on a Caribbean Carnival cruise. It was Oct and it got VERY HOT back there during the day.....would probably have not used it as much but because it was a wrap, we had the side as well so it had a nice cool breeze and shade!

 

We don't spend much time in our rooms, but it is nice to have the extra space....both were regular balcony rooms and enough room for the 2 of us.

 

This time on our Epic cruise, we debated on the aft or a large balcony....but I was concerned with the heat back there, so we ended up getting the large balcony, but since then NCL had some great sales and we decided to upgrade to a mini suite.

 

Good luck with your decision! You really can't go wrong with whatever you decide!