Stateroom sizes

[febtober]

Hi all,

 

I've cruised NCL twice quite a while ago, once on a mini suite aboard the Gem (I think now they call them club balcony suites) and once in a studio aboard the Epic. 

 

I've also been on Carnival in an oceanview, a balcony, and a suite.  The OV and the balcony were both quite sizeable and largely similar, just of course one had a balcony and the other didn't.  Both rooms had a king sized bed, a sitting area with a sofa and a coffee table, and a desk with a chair, so plenty of room to spread out and walk around without being on top of your roommate.  They reminded me very much of the mini/club suite on NCL, although NCL considered that a "suite".

 

NCL has a 10 day Caribbean cruise next February aboard the Gem that looks like a lot of fun.  I just went to book an OV room though, and I assumed it'd be pretty similar to the OV I've sailed in aboard Carnival, or maybe even nicer since NCL is often considered a little more premium of a brand, but wow, I'm shocked at how tiny the staterooms are.  It has a *queen* sized bed, the world's smallest desk, and that's about it.  I was really expecting it to at least be on par with Carnival, but looking at the floorplans and pictures, it looks like it's the size of a basic interior on Carnival, or even smaller since it's a queen bed versus a king.  The description says it can accommodate up to 4 people, but where?  Do two sleep on the floor?  It doesn't say anything upper pullman style beds.

 

Sorry if I sound like I'm kinda being harsh on NCL; I've sailed them twice and had great times, but I had never seen one of their OV or balcony rooms.  I just assumed they were on par with Carnival, or even better since I've always thought of Carnival as the most budget oriented of the large mass cruise lines, and NCL as a bit of a step up, so I was expecting them to at least be on par.  The Gem isn't a new ship, but isn't exactly ancient either.  Perhaps their newer ships are different?

[complawyer]

you are sounding harsh. you have a major alternative. if youre not happy, or dissatisfied with the potential size of the cabin, simply dont book it!  the gem is one of their older ships and remember the ancient adage "you get what you pay for"

 

and i dont want to sound harsh. spend a little more and get a balcony or club suite.

 

you seem to have what others affectionately call a 1st world problem

[Dcoy]

Google Gem and OV cabin and see if there’s any photos.  This may help answer some of your questions. I believe that only Haven cabins have king beds on NCL ships. They have queens that can be split into two singles. 

[ChiefMateJRK]

1 hour ago, complawyer said:

you are sounding harsh. you have a major alternative. if youre not happy, or dissatisfied with the potential size of the cabin, simply dont book it! 

I have to agree with my friend here.  Just book the room that you "require."  For some of us steerage peasants, that's basically any room on the ship with a bed and working plumbing (not always the case in Haven as I now understand it🤣).  My inside toilets have always flushed just as well as the best on the ship. 😎

[Two Wheels Only]

2 hours ago, febtober said:

The Gem isn't a new ship, but isn't exactly ancient either.

 

15 years is a long time in ship years for the cruising world.

 

 

Gem is about as old as Carnival Freedom....but without the fire. 😁

[mapleleaves]

there's lot of video on youtube of the various room types on various ships. 

Just do a search on NCL GEM OV ROOM and you'll find plenty of video ( including the pullman bed)

[febtober]

5 hours ago, complawyer said:

 

you seem to have what others affectionately call a 1st world problem

This is a lazy cop out answer that needs to die. It's another way of saying, "if you have a luxury item, you can't complain about it", which is clearly an absurd statement. Just because we're not street beggars in the slums of a third world country doesn't mean we can't have gripes (or questions, in this case) about what we spend our money on. 

 

Maybe the Gem is an old legacy class and all their newer ships have larger staterooms. Maybe NCL has normal sized rooms and Carnival is just an anomaly with large rooms. Maybe there's just something simple I'm missing, happens all the time.

 

It's just a little bizarre to me that I have to get a suite on the nicer more premium cruise line to get a room the same size as an Oceanview on the budget cruise line and seemed like it was worth questioning for more information. 

 

It might just be my kid and I on the cruise, in which case I don't care, interior will be fine. But my mother in law might come, in which case a single queen won't cut it. Do they have pullman beds? The room description makes mention of them, although it says there's "additional bedding to accommodate up to two more guests." which I guess could mean pullman beds, although the term "bedding" generally refers to sheets and blankets which sounds like just you'd just make a nest on the floor? Again, sounds kinda weird and worth asking a question about. 

[complawyer]

febtober, obviously you missed the point of the 1st world problem. instead of complaining about potential room sizes, book the room that will accomodate your needs.

 

if your mother in law needs to join you, get the bigger room. there are loads of cabin choices. if these choices do not conform with your wants, book with another cruise line. 

there is absolutely no reason to complain about cabin size with the number of choices available

[febtober]

8 hours ago, complawyer said:

febtober, obviously you missed the point of the 1st world problem. instead of complaining about potential room sizes, book the room that will accomodate your needs.

 

if your mother in law needs to join you, get the bigger room. there are loads of cabin choices. if these choices do not conform with your wants, book with another cruise line. 

there is absolutely no reason to complain about cabin size with the number of choices available

There's a difference between complaining and asking for clarification.

 

I can ask questions and get replies that add color and are more than just a simple yes/no.  Like I said, maybe their newer ships have larger rooms which I'd be interested in knowing.  Or it might just be as simple as "Nope, NCL just has small rooms."

 

Again, if you need to get a suite on the nicer cruise line to get what the budget line that has a rep for catering to spring breakers would give you in an OV, that's odd enough to justify asking a simple question to make sure I'm understanding it correctly.  If a Nissan Versa has Bluetooth and a BMW doesn't, that'd also justify a question about it.

 

I've also asked several times how they fit four people in the room, and still have no clue.  Do they use pullman beds?  Carnival's deck plans specify which rooms have pullman beds while NCLs (as far as I can tell) make no mention of them, so I can only assume they do not.  They say they have, ""additional bedding to accommodate up to two more guests" and the definition of bedding is "the covers on a bed", so it certainly sounds like they just give you extra blankets and you sleep on the floor.  Anyone should be able to plainly see how that's confusing and warrants asking a question.

[LadyBerard]

I'm pretty certain you will find the oceanview rooms on NCL to be considerably smaller than the OV rooms on Carnival.  Same goes for insides and balconies.

[hallux]

I'll just note that it's REAL easy to find video tours of cabins - 'norwegian gem oceanview cabin tour' in a Google search will get you videos you watch and draw your own conclusions.  The one I saw was of 8612, sleeps 3 and showed a single pullman bed.

 

I just saw another that toured 5598, a room that holds 4.

Edited July 28, 2022 by hallux

[febtober]

Actually I just thought of another question: How exactly are they making queen sized beds?  Two twins pushed together equal a king.  A twin is the smallest mattress you can usually buy.  If the beds are separated, I assume that means I'd be sleeping on something even smaller than a twin?

[hallux]

6 minutes ago, febtober said:

How exactly are they making queen sized beds?

I've been trying to figure that out myself after reading a couple threads recently.  I've been in balcony rooms on the Bliss and Joy, both standard balcony rooms which are listed as having queen size beds.  I have a queen bed at home, those beds felt more like king size...

[febtober]

30 minutes ago, LadyBerard said:

I'm pretty certain you will find the oceanview rooms on NCL to be considerably smaller than the OV rooms on Carnival.  Same goes for insides and balconies.

Thanks, I guess the simplest answer is the correct one and it's simply "that's how NCL does it."  Just seems odd but oh well.

[cruiseny4life]

1 hour ago, hallux said:

I'll just note that it's REAL easy to find video tours of cabins - 'norwegian gem oceanview cabin tour' in a Google search will get you videos you watch and draw your own conclusions.  The one I saw was of 8612, sleeps 3 and showed a single pullman bed.

 

I just saw another that toured 5598, a room that holds 4.

What hallux said. Unless someone on this forum has stayed in the exact same room that you are booking (which you don't mention a room number), then no one will really know what's in the room. I think you did not mention a room number as you haven't yet booked. 

Take a look at your category on the website, click on select your own stateroom, then find a few staterooms you're interested in. You could do a couple things with this information:

 

1 - check out YouTube to see if there is a video review

2 - post a new thread on here regarding the NCL Gem and list the specific rooms

3 - Google the room numbers to see what you find on sites other than NCL. Many sites will list exactly what is in the room, with photos, and sometimes with videos and reviews. 

 

One word of caution - the Gem was refurbished in 2015, so don't pay attention to anything pre-2015. Better yet, look at post-COVID start up in case NCL did any minor tweaks to rooms/layouts/furniture/amenities.

 

I learned this the hard way. We booked 14130 on the NCL Getaway. In my research I saw that this was a Haven Spa Balcony room, however the website didn't note this. Since the website is notorious about generalizing, I just thought the random website had more updated information. I'm the first to note that NCL marketing lies, cheats, and steals...yet I still sail NCL (is that a bad on me, or NCL - we'll never know). Anyway, the room turned out to not be a Spa room, so we had to purchase the thermal spa passes separately. From now on, we'll sail in 14140 on NCL Getaway/Breakaway as it is a Haven Spa Balcony room. 

 

Good luck, hope your mother-in-law enjoys the cruise, and for g-d's sake, book her a balcony! She'll be much kinder to you I'm sure. (I say this in jest)

[bookbabe]

This site talks about a charter on the Jewel, but it’s a sister ship to the Gem so cabins are likely very similar.  It’s the first page I’ve found that shows the general sleeping arrangements for the average cabin in most cabin classes, along with pics of how the beds are set up for 3rd and 4th sleepers.  While there may be minor differences from cabin to cabin, I like that it provides a general overview all on one page to help narrow down a category choice so that you can then do more specific research on that category and specific cabins.

https://www.thekisskruise.com/ship/staterooms/

 

[febtober]

2 hours ago, hallux said:

I've been trying to figure that out myself after reading a couple threads recently.  I've been in balcony rooms on the Bliss and Joy, both standard balcony rooms which are listed as having queen size beds.  I have a queen bed at home, those beds felt more like king size...

I was actually curious so I just called them up.  The rep said the same thing as the website, that the room contains two twins that can be pushed together to make a queen.  I told him that's not really possible since two twins make a king.  You can't make a queen by pushing two beds together and he said, "Oh, well, I guess they make a king then".  

 

I'm relatively certain they make a king, but that seems like a pretty important fact for them to mess up.  Queen is plastered all over their website in many places.  Seems like a glaring error, but I don't generally think I'm smarter than a multi billion dollar company, so again, maybe I'm just missing something.

[febtober]

1 hour ago, cruiseny4life said:

Good luck, hope your mother-in-law enjoys the cruise, and for g-d's sake, book her a balcony! She'll be much kinder to you I'm sure. (I say this in jest)

Thanks for the info!  A balcony would be nice of course, but it's double the price and you don't get much more interior space, which is what I want.  We just got off a Carnival cruise a few days ago where she had her own balcony cabin and I don't think she stepped foot onto the balcony once.

[hallux]

@febtober this is a pic I took on the Bliss in a standard balcony cabin.  draw your own conclusions as to the size of the bed advertised as a "queen"

 

[febtober]

5 minutes ago, hallux said:

@febtober this is a pic I took on the Bliss in a standard balcony cabin.  draw your own conclusions as to the size of the bed advertised as a "queen"

 

Thanks.  Can't really tell by a picture, but just going by simple math I don't see how it could be anything other than a king.

 

Do you know if that sofa turns into a bed?  Looking at the floor plan online it looks like it might be too small, but I can't really tell.  I'm thinking I'd need to move all the way up to a club suite in order to get a sofa bed

[hallux]

2 minutes ago, febtober said:

Do you know if that sofa turns into a bed?

I think that depends on the room, but keep in mind this is a different class of ship.  Just showed the pic as a "this room is listed as a queen that can be split but the bed seems to be a king" comparison.  I DO know someone that had a balcony on the Joy (sister to the ship this pic was from) that did have a sofa that turned into a bed.  Those are rooms that sleep 4 - 2 on the main bed, one pullman from the ceiling, one on the sofa made into a bed.