Air conditioning on / off ..

[helenandfrank]

Morning all. We are on Viking Star in July (Viking Homelands). I have searched without success, but seem to recall reading that it is not possible to turn air conditioning off in cabin / suite / stateroom on Star. We are previous river cruisers who enjoy sleeping at night with the air con off and the balcony doors wide open to enjoy the sounds and the fresh air (on nights when it is not too cold, not too hot, not too many mozzies that is ...). Are you able to offer any advice about whether we can turn air con on / off or any advice about whether it is wise to sleep with balcony doors open (whether or not we can turn air con off). Hardly a life-changing issue we realise, but just something we have been thinking about. Thank you, and regards F & H

[sophiesdeb]

F&H, so glad you're taking Viking Homelands...we are, as well, but not until September on the Sea. We took our first Viking Ocean cruise in December 2016, Christmas in the Mediterranean. This was our 7th Viking cruise, the others all river cruises. We found that leaving the balcony doors open turned off the a/c. In other words, the a/c will not run when the door(s) are open. We also enjoy the fresh air, but a few nights were too blustery (read, waves crashing on the balcony of Deck 5) to keep the doors open! Of course, our cruise was in December, not July. Perhaps someone who has travelled Homelands in July can tell us more about the seas during that time.

 

 

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[chengkp75]

F&H, so glad you're taking Viking Homelands...we are, as well, but not until September on the Sea. We took our first Viking Ocean cruise in December 2016, Christmas in the Mediterranean. This was our 7th Viking cruise, the others all river cruises. We found that leaving the balcony doors open turned off the a/c. In other words, the a/c will not run when the door(s) are open. We also enjoy the fresh air, but a few nights were too blustery (read, waves crashing on the balcony of Deck 5) to keep the doors open! Of course, our cruise was in December, not July. Perhaps someone who has travelled Homelands in July can tell us more about the seas during that time.

 

 

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Generally, on ships, leaving the balcony door open will shut off the recirculation A/C in the cabin. This A/C recirculates 80% of the cabin's volume every hour, and cools it in a unit cooler controlled by the cabin thermostat. The rest of the A/C system is that 20% of the cabin's volume is exhausted by the bathroom fan, while 20% is supplied as fresh air from outside. This outside air is cooled in larger A/C units that supply an entire zone of cabins. HVAC systems on ships are designed so that the air pressure in the cabins is higher than in the passageways, so that in the case of fire, smoke doesn't move from the passageways to the cabins. But, leaving a balcony door open disrupts this pressure balance, and the system sends more of the fresh air to the cabin to re-establish the pressure balance, so that the other cabins in the zone get less fresh outside air, and therefore tend to suck air from the passageways under the cabin door, and these cabins tend to get warmer.

[helenandfrank]

Thank you Sophiesdeb ... enjoy your cruise in Sept.

 

Thank you chengkp75.

[mhb1757]

Well if you plan to sleep with the doors open on your Homelands cruise in July I hope you are early risers!! Since it will be daylight from 4AM until after 11PM in places like Helsinki it would make for a rather short nights sleep if you need dark to sleep. :)

[helenandfrank]

mmm good point mhb1757.

Perhaps doors partly open - with the curtains drawn most of the way.

Regards, F

[garycarla]

Your choice:

 

a) A/C can be on all night

 

or

 

b) Balcony doors can be open.

 

Like my Dad always said - we are not heating/cooling the entire neighborhood. LOL!

[helenandfrank]

Thank you garycarla .. Dad was right :)

[chengkp75]

Your choice:

 

a) A/C can be on all night

 

or

 

b) Balcony doors can be open.

 

Like my Dad always said - we are not heating/cooling the entire neighborhood. LOL!

 

And the point I've tried to make is that if you leave the door open all night, you will not endear yourself to the other 30 cabins or so where you have altered their AC level. I can tell when and where balcony doors are open just walking down the passageway, hearing the "sucking" sound of the air whistling under the offending cabin door.