Outside porthole oceanview (Category D) on R class (Nautica) ~ window ledge? Storage?

[willoL]

Can anyone comment whether the outside porthole staterooms (Oceanview Category D) on R class Oceania ships have even a narrow ledge below the porthole window? (I'll be on Nautica specifically.) Or is the wall totally flat to the porthole?

 

Basically, my first trip in this stateroom will be a long one, and I want to pack as well as I can to optimize storage in the space.

 

Do over-the-door shoe hangers work well on the bathroom doors on this ship, or are the doors too tightly fitted or perhaps the paint is super easy to scratch?

 

I was able to find sufficient information about where magnets would be most likely to stick, but my searching didn't yield any specifics about the window ledge (or lack thereof!) question.

 

The "measurements & notes Share" PDF someone else linked to in another thread reminded me to toss some Command hooks in my bag, and now I believe that the bed frame will need to be lifted to store my large, rigid suitcase underneath, so it WON'T be useful for quick sliding in-and-out storage drawer, but I remain open to other tips. I may even pack my clothes inside a suitable depth cardboard shipping box INSIDE my luggage so I have something to use as an underbed drawer.

 

We will have the beds arranged as twins, also, which I haven't found obvious pictures/videos of.

[Kay S]

Somewhere on YOU Tube I saw a video by a couple in one of the porthole rooms.  Not sure which ship.

[Kay S]

Found it.  They show the stateroom at the end.  Looks like plenty of shelf space by the porthole.

[willoL]

@Kay S Thanks, that video was the best view I’ve seen of the porthole window yet. It was at 19:00 exactly in the 20 minute video, so I probably wouldn’t have found it in my own.

[AMHuntFerry]

D-cat cabins are my favorite! The window ledge is quite wide...I want to say ~2.5 feet deep and 3 feet wide but that going on memory. 

There is tons of room under the bed...the sides are lower than the end, so your bag might slide out the end. If not, buy some fabric underbed storage drawers to use; they fold up really small (tons for sale now with dorm-specific sales).

There is a large volume of storage space in the triangular cabinet, but it mostly goes to waste due to the weird shape...a little creativity may make it more useful.

[willoL]

Fantastic info, @AMHuntFerry!

 

I have literally every large suitcase from half a dozen family members spread out in my living room right now as I was measuring to see if any opened to shallow enough dimensions. Your advice will help me choose, and end-of-bed access may well be best with the twin bed configuration and Mom/young adult stuff to store (not a couple's commingled belongings.)

 

I may already have some of those folding drawers from when my kids were little. (Their entire bedroom was IKEA.) Time for another dive into the backs of everyone's closets. My sturdy, shallow shipping boxes from Nordstrom will work similarly, though; they're the really nice ones that hold up to crushing and open and close easily with the tab/slot. The question is whether having a "lid" to lift on those is inconvenient when under the bed, or if an open basket will contain everything to my satisfaction yet offer better access.

 

I'll ponder how to optimize use of a triangular cabinet, too. 👍

[Kay S]

5 hours ago, willoL said:

 

 

I'll ponder how to optimize use of a triangular cabinet, too. 👍

I chuckle at this one.  I used one to store my hat.  Nothing else really fits. 

 

Please take pictures of how it all sorts out for us.  🙂

[JK300]

We stayed there last year for 20 days, problems with the AC the first day, it was too hot we couldn't sleep. We reported it at 11pm and at 01am technicians finally came try to fix it. Long stoy short, we ended up sleeping in an inside cabin that night.

The concierge told me later that all the cabins on deck 3 have that problem, during the cruise we saw that the passengers in the cabin next to us moved out to an upper deck.

That was on the Nautica in June, 2023, the Suez Canal transit from Dubai to Barcelona.

Hope things are fixed by now.

John

[willoL]

2 hours ago, JK300 said:

...problems with the AC the first day, it was too hot we couldn't sleep. ...

The concierge told me later that all the cabins on deck 3 have that problem, ...

Hope things are fixed by now.

John

@JK300 Yikes that would be miserable. I prefer to sleep in a cool room, too. On the other hand, the British Isles are having a typical summer this year, so my 10-day forecast has highs in the 60's and lots of overcast/rain, so I suspect conditions won't be as demanding for the HVAC as they were for you in the Middle East. 😮‍💨

 

@AMHuntFerry May I ask if you are a cool-climate cruiser (like me), or if you like a warm room (like my spouse)? Have you taken more than one voyage in the porthole cabins, or just adored a single experience in one?

 

After half a dozen cruises, I thought I knew all the smart questions to ask my TA. Should I check in with Cruise Critic veterans about every new cabin category, asking if there's a chronic, known HVAC issue? 😳 (But, turning lemons into lemonade, my top floor central air is out at home and we've just had a week of 90 F & humid, so I'll still sleep better if the ship has any a/c at all!) 😁

[AMHuntFerry]

4 hours ago, willoL said:

 

@AMHuntFerry May I ask if you are a cool-climate cruiser (like me), or if you like a warm room (like my spouse)? Have you taken more than one voyage in the porthole cabins, or just adored a single experience in one?

 

After half a dozen cruises, I thought I knew all the smart questions to ask my TA. Should I check in with Cruise Critic veterans about every new cabin category, asking if there's a chronic, known HVAC issue? 😳 (But, turning lemons into lemonade, my top floor central air is out at home and we've just had a week of 90 F & humid, so I'll still sleep better if the ship has any a/c at all!) 😁

I can't speak of any HVAC issues on Nautica. We took 3 cruises on Regatta last year, 2 of which were in D-cabins (we tried C1 and decided we liked our deck 3 cave better...have one booked on Sirena in December). We are definitely cool weather people (I whine when temps get above 70). The temp control in the room worked fine on Regatta.

[willoL]

On 8/6/2024 at 7:08 AM, JK300 said:

We stayed there last year for 20 days, problems with the AC the first day, it was too hot we couldn't sleep. ... all the cabins on deck 3 have that problem...

Hope things are fixed by now.

Thankfully, as of August 2024 in the non-tropical ocean around Ireland, their does not appear to be any HVAC problem. 🙂 

 

If anything, our stateroom has been a little bit cooler than I like, but that's because I left the setting low just in case the system was going to struggle. I like it ~64 F to sleep (17.5 C I think), and I've slept well for our two nights on board thus far, but my fingers are too cold sitting around the cabin during the day. (We had a tender port canceled for a late arrival to a docking port instead, due to weather, so an unexpected early almost-sea-day that I spent settling in for our multi-week journey.)

 

The deep window well around the porthole is just great for storing our "going ashore" gear out of the way, and the bar that holds the round metal cover open seems like it could work to hold small items while they dry, too, because it is annoying to hang anything to dry in the itty bitty bathroom. Magnetic hooks would be AWESOME around the porthole; I put up family photos in magnetic frames there and it is nice since they can be seen when in bed.

 

All of our check-in sized luggage but my largest, hard-sided Nanuk 955 case (11.8" deep) fit under the beds, though a Seahorse SE920 hard case just barely fit at 9.3" deep. (Neither of these opens to 180 like a book; I'd say 9 1/4 inches is max underbed height!)

 

I wish there were some real hanging space in the second closet. My teen doesn't need much, but his collared shirts for dinner really have to hang in the big closet with my clothes. Everything fits, but I would prefer that he need never rummage near my silk scarves. 😆

 

I've had good luck using the triangular cupboard because I brought some stuff in rigid boxes within my luggage. Standing such things on edge means I can quickly access what is at the back of the cabinet.

 

With 8-10 foot seas thus far (plenty of fairly obvious motion), I'm happy we are down on deck 3. That was the main reason I booked this category to begin with, though I was feeling cocky after our first transatlantic saw my whole family "sail through" without seasickness. 😉

While I worried I might oversleep due to too little natural light, I'm waking up at the same time I was in our embarkation port hotel room, suggesting it is enough light to awaken me. (I'm VERY sensitive to light and will wake half an hour after sunrise, more or less regardless of any other environmental conditions!)