Premium balcony with ocean view Meraviglia

[Slyfox16]

Has anyone stayed in 13249 on the Meraviglia or any aft premium balcony with an ocean view? Wanted to know if there were any pros or cons to the room.

[bundtkate]

Deck 13 aft balconies are Mera are not very deep. If you're after lovely wake views, you'll still get them, but be prepared for a fairly ordinary-sized balcony. Here's a video of 13354 to give you an idea. It may have a slightly deeper balcony than 13249 as those near the center get a bit of extra space, but I'd guess the difference isn't significant.

13249 also looks to be one of the family balconies. We were in 11273 which was also a family balcony. This means you will have a connecting door to the adjacent inside cabin. This didn't bother us as we couldn't hear any noise from that cabin, but I'm not totally convinced the cabin was occupied since we were on her in Sept 2021 and a lot of cabins were empty at that time.

Family balconies also come with bunk beds across from either the couch or the bed. Whether that's a pro or con depends on how you look at it. It does provide an extra place to stash stuff, but the beds can't be tucked away in any way so if you're not using it for storage (or, y'know, sleeping space for extra humans) they just eat floor space. It also impacts where one can watch TV. Looks like the bunk beds are always by the balcony so if your bed is by the balcony, the TV will be centered with the couch and hard to see from the bed. Our couch was by the balcony so TV was centered with the bed. We don't watch TV while cruising so we didn't care, but others may.

 

Finally, it looks like 13249 specifically comes with a bathtub. This isn't true of all family balconies and 11273 did not so I can't comment on that impact first hand, but based on this video of 11386, it doesn't look like it makes the bathroom too tiny or anything so probably fine unless you have mobility issues and would have a hard time stepping into the tub.

The last possible con I'd cite is the exhaust. Even on 11, it got us sometimes and I'd assume it'll be worse on 13. There are a lot of variables like wind direction/speed and ship speed that determine whether it's a problem and you may never notice it at all. We did, but it never bothered us enough to force us inside so take that for what it's worth.

Overall, our aft balcony on Mera was my favorite stateroom ever. I even liked it better than our Haven Penthouse on NCL Joy, but the extra deep balcony was a huge part of that so I'm not sure I'd pay the premium for 13. The Haven suite was bigger, but there's no beating the aft balconies on the lower decks on Mera and her sisters. The wake views are great so if the price is right I'd say go for it, but if you can move down even just one deck that will be a huge upgrade so I'd keep an eye out if something opens up and move if you have the opportunity (and the stomach for risking a change with MSC).

Edited June 23, 2023 by bundtkate

[skipsaur]

13 hours ago, bundtkate said:

Deck 13 aft balconies are Mera are not very deep. If you're after lovely wake views, you'll still get them, but be prepared for a fairly ordinary-sized balcony. Here's a video of 13354 to give you an idea. It may have a slightly deeper balcony than 13249 as those near the center get a bit of extra space, but I'd guess the difference isn't significant.

13249 also looks to be one of the family balconies. We were in 11273 which was also a family balcony. This means you will have a connecting door to the adjacent inside cabin. This didn't bother us as we couldn't hear any noise from that cabin, but I'm not totally convinced the cabin was occupied since we were on her in Sept 2021 and a lot of cabins were empty at that time.

Family balconies also come with bunk beds across from either the couch or the bed. Whether that's a pro or con depends on how you look at it. It does provide an extra place to stash stuff, but the beds can't be tucked away in any way so if you're not using it for storage (or, y'know, sleeping space for extra humans) they just eat floor space. It also impacts where one can watch TV. Looks like the bunk beds are always by the balcony so if your bed is by the balcony, the TV will be centered with the couch and hard to see from the bed. Our couch was by the balcony so TV was centered with the bed. We don't watch TV while cruising so we didn't care, but others may.

 

Finally, it looks like 13249 specifically comes with a bathtub. This isn't true of all family balconies and 11273 did not so I can't comment on that impact first hand, but based on this video of 11386, it doesn't look like it makes the bathroom too tiny or anything so probably fine unless you have mobility issues and would have a hard time stepping into the tub.

The last possible con I'd cite is the exhaust. Even on 11, it got us sometimes and I'd assume it'll be worse on 13. There are a lot of variables like wind direction/speed and ship speed that determine whether it's a problem and you may never notice it at all. We did, but it never bothered us enough to force us inside so take that for what it's worth.

Overall, our aft balcony on Mera was my favorite stateroom ever. I even liked it better than our Haven Penthouse on NCL Joy, but the extra deep balcony was a huge part of that so I'm not sure I'd pay the premium for 13. The Haven suite was bigger, but there's no beating the aft balconies on the lower decks on Mera and her sisters. The wake views are great so if the price is right I'd say go for it, but if you can move down even just one deck that will be a huge upgrade so I'd keep an eye out if something opens up and move if you have the opportunity (and the stomach for risking a change with MSC).

 

Not the OP but this was such a thorough and thoughtful answer. Definitely taking a look at those aft balconies now!

[coscab]

We sailed in cabin 11269 november 2022, aft facing balcony cabin, it was perfect!