What cabin do you usually sail in?

[PompeySailor]

This is the Rockstar virgin inside 

Even that has a window, no TV though 

 

[Tapi]

25 minutes ago, Tatka said:

I also do not think it in any shape or form resembles broom closet.

 This is just a wrong analogy. The question is why do some people resort to this?

It’s hyperbole. Just like some people say that their suite is like a palace. An obvious exaggeration not meant to be taken literally.
 

It’s also perception and how something personally makes me feel. To me, walking into an inside stateroom, with no sunlight, often times with less square footage than an oceanview or balcony stateroom, makes me feel like I’m walking into, well, a broom closet. It’s confining and anxiety inducing. 

I don’t like how that feels which is why, after trying them twice and dreading it, I’ve decided to get at least a window when I cruise so that I can enjoy my cruise 100%, and not just the time I’m away from my cabin. 

 

I’m fully aware that there’s a lot of people who prefer and actually love inside staterooms and find them perfect for their needs. That’s great. They’re not wrong. Neither am I. 🙂

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Tapi

[Tatka]

This is one of last insides (light is turned off)  🙂

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Tatka

[RJ257]

As a solo cruiser I usually stay in Ocean View Balcony. Occasionally a Jr Suite. I do have an Ocean View Studio Balcony booked on Odyssey next spring for 8 night southern route from Ft Lauderdale. Great price.

[jeh10641]

On 4/5/2023 at 8:37 AM, S.A.M.J.R. said:

It seems many, many posters sail in suites with Royal.  I'm just curious what the breakdown is on types of cabins people sail in.   We're Ocean Balcony all the way.

 

Multiple choices allowed.

 

The list of suites I got here: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/what-rooms-are-included-in-the-suites-program

[jeh10641]

For some reason, my computer is misbehaving in trying to comment here. I hope this works. Usually, my wife and I sail in a large inside cabin, midship, lowest deck. For our next cruise on Anthem of the Seas, we got a really good price for a spacious forward facing ocean view on deck 8. Since booking a year ago, the price went up about 60% and the type is no longer available on any deck.

 

Jim

On 4/5/2023 at 8:37 AM, S.A.M.J.R. said:

It seems many, many posters sail in suites with Royal.  I'm just curious what the breakdown is on types of cabins people sail in.   We're Ocean Balcony all the way.

 

Multiple choices allowed.

 

The list of suites I got here: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/what-rooms-are-included-in-the-suites-program

 

[Another_Critic]

3 hours ago, Tatka said:

This is one of last insides (light is turned off)  🙂

 

I'm 0 for 3 on Virtual Balcony

 

Quantum maiden voyage (SOU to CL) - booked VB, free upgrade to OV balcony

Anthem (CA/NE) - booked VB, free upgrade to Oceanview

Anthem (CL to SOU) - booked VB, OV balcony price dropped below VB, so upgraded. 

[Tatka]

2 minutes ago, Another_Critic said:

I'm 0 for 3 on Virtual Balcony

 

Quantum maiden voyage (SOU to CL) - booked VB, free upgrade to OV balcony

Anthem (CA/NE) - booked VB, free upgrade to Oceanview

Anthem (CL to SOU) - booked VB, OV balcony price dropped below VB, so upgraded. 

We had them 7 times on Anthem. And twice real. 
We going to have them for Thanksgiving week and 11 days in January and I’m sort of missing VB already.

We rarely step on real balcony … but VB provide for some fun views in ports. 

Once we had a bird “flying” into our VB.

[Morecruisesplz]

5 hours ago, Tatka said:

 

Nice to know. 🙂

We mostly vacation in broom closet 5 times a year. )))

We love insides. We get everything that others get up to a JS and are able to cruise much more often. Like others, if our D+ balcony is close to the inside rate, we do a balcony. Happens often enough to keep us happy.

[gingerpeaches]

On 4/5/2023 at 4:37 PM, S.A.M.J.R. said:

It seems many, many posters sail in suites with Royal. 

 

Here we go again.

 

On 4/5/2023 at 5:58 PM, basenji56 said:

The people in Suites just talk about it more.  

 

 

This. ⬆️

 

On 4/5/2023 at 9:28 PM, topnole said:

I only cruise in suites that cost 20k or more.  😂😂😂

 

😆

 

On 4/6/2023 at 12:00 AM, GetToLivin said:

OH yeah? So do I, but *multiple times* per year.

 

👍

[Cruise a holic]

We typically sail in a crown loft suite- and really try to only sail on Oasis class ships.

[GetToLivin]

It's all so personal - some people prefer to cruise more and stay in a certain category in order to do so. Others might only be able to sail once or twice a year so maybe they like to splurge when they do sail.

 

As for us, we mainly sail in an OVB, though I've also done interior and promenade cabins before. We've also been lucky (pre-Royal Up) to get upgraded to a Grand Suite. Other times we've booked the Jr. Suite as I like the extra closet space and "living" space. 

 

But then last Dec, I put in a decent bid for the Aqua Suite over the NYE cruise and won. That has changed my experience when cruising 😬 Realized when sailing with DS and DH that I ****REALLY**** enjoyed the extra room, the extra perks, etc. From here on out, if it makes sense, we'll do an OVB when it's just DH and I, and when it's the family, I would really like to be able to try out different suite categories. And that's what's great about cruising, you can book whatever is comfy for the pocketbook at that particular time. 

[Mick B]

Hi,

I always give my wife an option, she can have an interior room and have 2 cruises a year or have a suite and have just 1.

 

She always chooses an interior.

Sometimes I will select the cheapest option which is a GTY and hope that when we get it, it is in the right place, if not, royal up becomes an option only at that point.

 

It also depends on the class of ship.

I have actually upgraded from an interior to a junior suite for next to nothing on the Anthem which then allowed us to eat at the Coastal Kitchen every night, which we did! However, I would not consider paying for a suite on a ship that is old and doesn't have anything on it worth paying an upgrade for.

I know I sound tight, but we are not rich, but love cruising. Being based from the UK we also have flights/trains/hotels to pay for too which can sometimes add up to almost the price of the cruise.

 

I normally check the plans for the ship and pick somewhere that is slightly aft/midship and near but not next to the rear elevators, and in the middle of the ship to avoid sway as much as possible. The main reason is so that it is easy to get to the main dinning room on foot at busy meal times without waiting forever for a lift. From near the back the longest distance to walk is to the theatre for a show, but that is normally only after dinner, so we would simply walk from the dinning room through to the theatre which sometimes is on the same level.

My wife's health is not too good, so we normally find a cabin that is quiet and not under anything that is going to keep her awake like the kitchen, theatre or running track.

I see on some ships that they have suites under the running track etc. I don't know how noisy that would be and wouldn't want to pay to find out.

Also some ships have promenade view rooms above the pub - not too bad if you love being in the pub till midnight!

 

Again, depends on the cruise, but an interior is great for transatlantics too where there is nothing to see for days on end and it is more stable. Afterall, if you want to watch the sunset, you can always go out on deck and watch it.

 

I must admit a balcony is nice in places like the Caribbean, but again, it depends on the price difference. Sometimes a balcony can be cheaper than a ocean view room and sometimes a balcony can be double or triple the price of an interior. If I really would want a balcony but the price is too high then I would book an interior and then go to guest services and see if there are any balcony upgrades available either on day 1 or day 2 or if I see anyone get kicked off or miss the ship. The cost of an upgrade on the ship can sometimes be far far lower than the difference displayed on the website.

 

Another thing to think about is the C&A points scheme. If you want to get to Diamond then booking suites is a good way to do it. We are currently D+ and probably will be for the next 20 years, so I am not going to spend money on trying to get double points just to get 1 extra drink and access to the Coastal Kitchen on Quantum and Oasis class ships as like I said before, we can have 2 cruises a year in a interior and still collect the same points as having 1 cruise in a suite.

 

We have done 25 cruises with RCI since 2008 and are very very happy with where we are in the loyalty program. It has taken a long time to get here, but we have enjoyed every single day on every single ship we have been on and so far, have never had any major issues.

 

I hope you can see my thinking behind this. Like I said, we are not rich people and we love cruising. BTW we do also sometimes spend money on trips from the ship to places that we want to visit that we cannot do ourselves, so RCI does get a bit more money out of us that way.

 

Mick.

 

[OCSC Mike]

1 hour ago, Mick B said:

Sometimes I will select the cheapest option which is a GTY and hope that when we get it, it is in the right place, if not, royal up becomes an option only at that point.

 

We always book GTY interiors. You do also have the option of switching to another available cabin in your exact category (applies to US bookings, I believe UK and possibly other countries can't do this).

 

I moved my last cabin twice as more desirable locations (to us) opened up. We could deal with anywhere and really only have certain decks we would dislike but we, of course, have preferred locations as well. This helps take some of the gamble out of using GTYs to me.

[poocher]

Our 3/21 Rhapsody cruise in an OS (4 adults) was L&S’d to an OS on Harmony with price protection so it was barely half price.  OMG we were so spoiled!  On Harmony again in 3 weeks in lowly JS.  I will miss our 250 sq ft balcony and yes we all used it multiple times a day.

[Another_Critic]

3 hours ago, Mick B said:

Sometimes I will select the cheapest option which is a GTY and hope that when we get it, it is in the right place, if not, royal up becomes an option only at that point.

But, Royal UP is also a GTY.

[OCSC Mike]

5 minutes ago, Another_Critic said:

But, Royal UP is also a GTY.

 

True, but depending on the cabin type, it can be narrowed down. As an example, last July I saw we would be assigned deck 3 with our interior GTY from the bar code trick. A low deck is the only place on the ship we'd really prefer to avoid b/c we like being closer to where we spend most of our time and that's not down there.

 

While waiting for my official assignment to look to switch to another interior, I placed a very small bid on an interior promenade view. Obviously these only exist mid-ship just above the promenade so I knew if we won we would move up to decks 6-8 mid-ship... and we did. Didn't really like the cabin as it turns out, lol, but that's another story. We were happy with the improved location at least.

[orville99]

1 hour ago, Another_Critic said:

But, Royal UP is also a GTY.

True, but if there are any other cabins in the assigned RoyalUP win, you can move just like any other GTY cabin. We won a bid to a CLS on Harmony and they assigned one dead center in the back over the Boardwalk. There were still two ocean view CLS showing as available on the starboard side, so we changed to one of those. No problem at all.

[JupiterTwo]

We don't have a "usual" yet as we are still "movin' on up."

 

We started sailing in Jr. Suites because we needed the tub/shower. Our last cruise (pre-Covid) was a B2B in a Grand Suite. Our next cruise (tomorrow 🤩) is in an Owner's Suite for our 25th anniversary.

 

We'll probably fall back to Grand Suites in the future, but we'll see...

[orville99]

52 minutes ago, JupiterTwo said:

We don't have a "usual" yet as we are still "movin' on up."

 

We started sailing in Jr. Suites because we needed the tub/shower. Our last cruise (pre-Covid) was a B2B in a Grand Suite. Our next cruise (tomorrow 🤩) is in an Owner's Suite for our 25th anniversary.

 

We'll probably fall back to Grand Suites in the future, but we'll see...

If you liked the GS, you will love an OS.😇

[JupiterTwo]

16 minutes ago, orville99 said:

If you liked the GS, you will love an OS.😇

Thanks. We got it to celebrate our 25th anniversary.

 

For our 20th, we got our first full suite for our Alaska cruise on the Island Princess. We haven't gone back to a JS since then (except for Disney where they are all standard staterooms).

[Karma5]

junior suite

[Nettee]

I have done the family ocean view (Radiance class) and panaromic ocean view (Freedom class - corner cabin) and loved them both.  Panoramic more so I think although the space in the FOV was fantastic.  Next time we are trying a junior suite with an interior across the corridor for the kids.  Hope we will enjoy our balcony but I can imagine the view being better from the panoramic ocean view because you don't have the balcony between you and view when you are in the room.  

[mickeygirl78]

I pick my room based upon price. Sometimes that’s an interior, sometimes a balcony. I’ve only done a suite once via Royal up because I can’t justify the cost. I’d rather go on multiple cruises per year. This year I’ve had an interior,and have booked for my next three cruises interior with vb, interior and ocean view balcony. Most times I book solo rooms and cannot book guarantees, so the price difference in categories can be extreme.

[Mick B]

Wow! is that true that you can move cabin after a royal up. I believed that you were stuck with the cabin they gave you. I suppose if there is another cabin in the same category in a better location that is available, then guest services may allow the move.

 

As I said before, one of the main reasons we choose an interior is the cost, also if we know the sea is going to be rough, also if there is nothing to see (if we are on a TA for example) and lastly, because on some cruises we will be getting off the ship at every port on every day for most of it, so won't be spending much time in the cabin to enjoy it anyway.

 

I must admit it was nice being in the junior suite with the extra width of the room and balcony and having the bathtub and don't forget the doorbell - and coffee machine - and access to coastal kitchen on Quantum and Oasis class ships and queue jumping on boarding day, but it really does depend on what the cost of this is compared to an interior.

Although the coastal kitchen was lovely and the food was great, but so is the food (or at least it was) in the MDR. We never used the bathtub as we were too busy enjoying the ship, so again it all depends on what you are going to do in the time you spend onboard.

I know there are some nice perks too with Grand Suites upwards, but if you are Diamond upwards with the C&A program, then you also get some nice perks too. 

Again it comes down to what you prefer or can afford. 

 

Mick.