Dawn balcony booking tips

[friskat]

Hi and I know that even while writing this that it might be a stupid question, but I am going to ask anyways :D

 

I do NOT know nautical terms and so forgive my ignorance. I am looking at booking a balcony on the dawn tomorrow. I am not interested in an Aft balcony. I am interested in the more forward balcony's on deck 8 or 9. Now we are looking to book the Western Caribbean out of Tampa on the Dawn. On the Epic (my 1st balcony) we lucked out and were on the left side when looking at floor plans to book and were next to the pier. We enjoyed looking at the islands from our balcony in the morning and talking about what we are going to do that day. Can anyone tell me if they know :) should we book on the left side or the right side if we want to overlook the pier while docked?

[rvsullivan]

You can never predict which side will face the pier. It varies from port to port and trip to trip. Wind, weather and number of ships in port all have an effect on the decision.

[friskat]

I thought that might be the case, but I figured that it doesn't hurt to ask!

[DISNEY1975]

From all my reading, researching and slight cruising, Port side (left) docks facing Port more often than not. It seems they only dock starboard when needing to do lifeboat drills on that side, not often.

 

On my 2 NCL cruises, we docked Port side. My RCC cruise too. Makes me wonder if they are called port and starboard for this reason, Port faces port, starboard faces the stars and water!!!