Another Royal Question

[Tall Stacks]

Hi Everyone,

Searched but couldn't find my answer. Sorry if it has been answered before. We are booked for February 2015 in the Aft cabin D728. Sister is in D730. Saw the reports of soot and am now rethinking my cabin choice. Deal breaker for these cabins will be if the balcony divider between the two cabins cannot be opened. Pictures I've seen does not look like they can be. Can anyone help?

[LittleMissMagic]

I stayed in cabin D729 and my parents stayed in D731. The balcony divider between these two cabins could be opened. We had it unlocked and the only issue is that when left open, it covers the door on one side (it was over cabin D729). What we did to solve this problem (which is probably a "naughty" thing to do) is unhooked the door and just shut it while it was unlocked. Sometimes it would blow open in the wind, but for the most part, it stayed shut. Then we just opened it to walk between the balconies. We had no soot problems and sailed Dec 22-29. I think most of the soot complaints were from cruises in 2013.

 

If you look at the right side of the frame, the portion of the partition which is closest to the wall opens and swings both ways between the cabins. The forward part of the partition remains stationary.

 

12.22.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

12.22.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

And then here on the left side of the image, you can see the frame and the black circle which is on the door and the back side of the lock.

 

I would imagine that the balcony partition between D730 and D728 is the same.

 

This was the balcony below us on the Emerald deck which is smaller. It's about half the size of the Dolphin deck balcony. You can see how the partition swings to one side and is hooked in front of the door. However, you can manually just unhook it. With the Dolphin deck aft balconies, the forward partition (closest to the railing) remains stationary.

 

12.27.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

And here are some images of the stateroom -

 

[/url12.22.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

 

12.22.13 by vshingl, on Flickr

[Gunner22aa]

Almost all if not all aft cabins on Princess ships have a door that will open between balconies. None of the ships have a divider that can be fully opened up to create one large balcony. There are several treads about the soot issue on the aft balconies, many with very ugly pictures. This is an issue that won't be fixed until a dry dock. Hopefully the fix is in for the Regal

[capriccio]

Hi Everyone,

Searched but couldn't find my answer. Sorry if it has been answered before. We are booked for February 2015 in the Aft cabin D728. Sister is in D730. Saw the reports of soot and am now rethinking my cabin choice. Deal breaker for these cabins will be if the balcony divider between the two cabins cannot be opened. Pictures I've seen does not look like they can be. Can anyone help?

 

Watch and see if the soot problem is fixed -- if it isn't before final payment, I urge you - based on our experiences in D727 and D729 in December - to cancel and book different cabins. We couldn't use the balconies for the majority of the cruise.

[Donder1]

As we have also booked an aft deluxe balcony for our cruise on the Royal in Sept. I, too, have been concerned with the soot issue. Both my TA and I called Princess directly in December. Spoke with a Customer Service rep. who said that Princess is acutely aware of the soot problem and working to resolve it. One thing they are going is trying a different mixture of fuel or something to that effect.

So, I am staying the course as I love the aft and am hoping that they will get the issue fixed before our cruise.

Would love to hear from others who have sailed in aft cabins in the last few weeks.