Cove Balcony pros and cons

[nlktx49]

My husband and I leave on the Vista Saturday for our first cruise since January 2020, so excited! We have a Cove Balcony room, which we've never had before. Can those of you who have had them tell me about them, good and/or bad? Probably overthinking this - as usual - but I like to know what to expect.

[cruisingguy007]

Pros are shade, close to water, and more privacy, only con is distance to lido and having to use the elevators more. Some people consider the shade a con too, depends on the weather/season I suppose. Have a great trip! 

[klfhngr]

2 hours ago, nlktx49 said:

My husband and I leave on the Vista Saturday for our first cruise since January 2020, so excited! We have a Cove Balcony room, which we've never had before. Can those of you who have had them tell me about them, good and/or bad? Probably overthinking this - as usual - but I like to know what to expect.

I asked the same question a couple of9

 months ago, I got many replies. You might want to do a search.

[groundloop]

We had our first cove balcony on Magic a few weeks ago.  There wasn't a huge difference for me between that and a regular balcony.  One advantage of the cove balcony is there's a flat surface where you can set your drinks while enjoying the view, that always seemed to work better for us than the small table.  The biggest disadvantage (and it's certainly not a deal breaker) was the reduced field of vision when kicked back in a chair.

 

If I can find a good deal on a cove balcony again I won't hesitate to get it, if the prices are in the same ballpark I'll take the regular balcony.  It's just down to personal preference, you most certainly won't hate it and a lot of people prefer cove balcony cabins.

 

 

 

 

[IntrepidFromDC]

We've only cruised beginning 2013, but we've had 7 balconies and 3 cove balconies since then.  My view is it's a "feeling" kind of thing.  Balcony cabins high on the ship give a great, expansive view and good views of ports as you approach if you're on the right side of the ship.  Cove Balcony cabins give you a feeling of connection to the water... you not only see it, but hear it and smell it.  I'll continue to cruise both ways but my best experiences have been cove.

[teknoge3k]

Cove balcony cabins

Pros:

-Shaded

-Secluded

-When you look down, you see water / marine life, not some guy in a hot tub

-Nobody can see down into your cabin

-Nobody can look up into your cabin

-Lowest on the ship so you feel less motion

-Larger

-Cheaper, typically

-Faster getting off at ports

-Faster getting back to your cabin in ports

-Faster to get to the MDR. This is nice to run back and forth for more soda, if needed

 

Cons:

-If you book under the galley, it will be noisy. 

[xDisconnections]

13 hours ago, klfhngr said:

I asked the same question a couple of9

 months ago, I got many replies. You might want to do a search.

Yes - a common question since 2010. A search will definitely pull the information.

[maxydu]

We've been on 15 cruises; 14 regular balcony cabins and 1 cove cabin. That alone should give you a feel for what we think.......The cove balcony was more secluded; if we were young and wild, that might have been a good thing but it wasn't. Different view of ports, very shady, very wet. Everything we put out was wet. We booked a cove away from the gallery; apparently you can't get too far from the galley. 

Last, everything else was far away.......especially the Lido deck. 

It was slightly cheaper but we'll never book a cove cabin again.

[Rudyard]

I stayed in my first Cove last week and really liked it. The best thing for me was just being close to the water. I've had a few Lido balconies before and did miss being so close to everything. I would probably come down to price next time I book, but if it was close the Cove would probably win out. 

[Cushing985]

As others have mentioned, location of the Cove is important.  You really don't want to be under the galley!  We tend to be under carpeted areas above us (the MDR) and have also found that cabins under the Shore Excursions Desk or Guest Services are pretty quiet.  My wife tends to get a bit sea sick and I like balconies so we have a good compromise.  Coves are low on the ship so movement feels minimal (especially if you can find a quiet cabin in the middle of the ship) and I get a balcony.  People do complain about the sea spray but as long as you stay away from the bow of the ship, we've found they're pretty dry.

[pamesacruisin]

We stayed in a Cove once.  Couldn't even lean on the balcony rail because it was always wet and/or salty.  Everything was covered in salt, including the chairs.  We kept a towel on the floor to the balcony so we could wipe our feet when we came back into the cabin.  Being so close to the water was fun though and there were times when I felt I could reach right out and catch those flying fish!

[nlktx49]

11 minutes ago, pamesacruisin said:

We stayed in a Cove once.  Couldn't even lean on the balcony rail because it was always wet and/or salty.  Everything was covered in salt, including the chairs.  We kept a towel on the floor to the balcony so we could wipe our feet when we came back into the cabin.  Being so close to the water was fun though and there were times when I felt I could reach right out and catch those flying fish!

Was it rough seas at the time, or is it always wet like that? We'll be on deck 2, not sure if that's where all the cove balconies are.

[pamesacruisin]

1 hour ago, nlktx49 said:

Was it rough seas at the time, or is it always wet like that? We'll be on deck 2, not sure if that's where all the cove balconies are.

Don't remember having rough seas. Might have just been our location, but we were on deck 2 and it was only dry when we were in port.  We aren't ones to really use our balcony that much so it didn't bother us and I'm glad we had a cove for the experience, but we prefer to be higher.  For our upcoming cruise we are on lido deck and it's our first time on it.

[matymil]

On 10/19/2021 at 9:36 AM, teknoge3k said:

Cove balcony cabins

Pros:

-Shaded

-Secluded

-When you look down, you see water / marine life, not some guy in a hot tub

-Nobody can see down into your cabin

-Nobody can look up into your cabin

-Lowest on the ship so you feel less motion

-Larger

-Cheaper, typically

-Faster getting off at ports

-Faster getting back to your cabin in ports

-Faster to get to the MDR. This is nice to run back and forth for more soda, if needed

 

Cons:

-If you book under the galley, it will be noisy. 

So we booked under the galley lol!! I knew about it but it was our first cove room and it was the last cove available on the Magic when we sailed last month and i think there was a reason for it being the last one. The noise was terrible, it kinda slowed down for a few hours after midnight but between 3am-4am it picked back up again. It was so bad i honestly thought a piece of the ship may have been broken because it was like a constant loud bang noise, i think we may have been underneath a large machine like an industrial dishwasher or something. I talked to my neighbor and she said it was bad for her also. I gave it two days and finally said something to the front desk. They looked my room number up (2427) and the worker said "I'm not going to lie to you....there are like 3 rooms where the noise is really bad and you have one of them" They offered to move us but we had the worlds best room steward who had connected with our toddler. They did end up giving us pixels credit because he said "you paid for it, you should enjoy your stay" so that was nice of them. But yeah....be very careful about the galley.