sapphire suite closet

[zship]

Is it true that in the closet of the sapphire veranda suites, you can not open the drawers without first closing the closet door ?  Is this true on both the symphony and the serenity ?

 

[BWIVince]

I can only vouch for Serenity's Sapphires, but yes, when the closet door is fully open, the drawers will bump the door.  Ideally they would have flipped the layout and had the drawers on the corner side (towards the corridor bulkhead), but that said, you probably don't always have to "close" the door to open the drawer, depending on what you're trying to do.  For the things that I keep in closet drawers on a cruise, I'd be able to just move the door clear of the drawer to pull something out of it.  YMMV though, depending on your build, accessibility situation and what you're grabbing.

 

Vince

[Texas Tillie]

Since Serenity has 3 different Sapphire Suites - classic, 2018 and 2023 - which one(s) does this problem apply?

 

Patty

[BWIVince]

5 minutes ago, Texas Tillie said:

Since Serenity has 3 different Sapphire Suites - classic, 2018 and 2023 - which one(s) does this problem apply?

 

Patty

 

Good point!  My message only applies to the 2023 version.

 

Vince

[Keith1010]

From what I remember no issues with the classic and the 2018 versions. 

 

Keith

[Lovetotravel7890]

Just otf Symphony on Sunday where we stayed 2 weeks in a 2023 Saphire veranda suite.  Overall I think it is a wonderfully designed suite, but you are right the closet door must be closed to fully open the drawers.  

[BWIVince]

I happened to have taken a picture of the issue on the stateroom tour last month...  Hopefully this helps flesh out the situation a little for those that haven't seen it firsthand. 

 

 

Vince

[Txcotn]

Not a well thought out design is it 😱

[BWIVince]

29 minutes ago, Txcotn said:

Not a well thought out design is it 😱

 

I have to think there was a reason it was done this way...  I only have a few years of architectural design experience, but the impact of a door's orientation and travel path was covered in the first quarter of year 1.  The door will impact the drawers in any possible location given the closet's size (one reason pocket doors have been used so often), but given the open hanging space on the right wall, if they had just put that shelving unit on the right side instead of the left in that same unit, the drawers would have worked fine with the closet door open or closed.  That's too easy, there must be more to that story.  🤷‍♂️ 

 

Vince

[zship]

Perhaps if Keith has time he could ask the hotel manager why the drawers and hanging space were not simply flip flopped when the closet was designed. It seems like such a simple solution, one has to wonder why the flaw was not caught by the closet design team ?

[Keith1010]

16 minutes ago, zship said:

Perhaps if Keith has time he could ask the hotel manager why the drawers and hanging space were not simply flip flopped when the closet was designed. It seems like such a simple solution, one has to wonder why the flaw was not caught by the closet design team ?

Unfortunately the  problems they had were due to not doing mock ups like they normally would do for a new ship or a major dry dock.  Because of the speed in which they wanted to complete this major dry dock to meet the in-service date for each ship they could not do mock ups and thus these problems weren't discovered until the rooms were all completed. 

 

Keith

[BWIVince]

I definitely agree about the impact of not doing mock-ups on many of the issues with the staterooms (like not having the full range of mirrors, or the issues with the showers in the deluxe rooms), because although they do 3D modeling in lieu of mock-ups in many situations these days (like time crunches), the 3D models don't always show usability challenges and require a certain degree of experience with these challenges to be applied and really understand what you're looking at.

 

I do however have to throw this one into a different category.  A door's travel literally gets illustrated on plans to call out conflicts and misalignment clearly to everyone using the plans and involved in the design process.  That one can't be missed and doesn't require a mock-up to understand.  You'd literally see the conflict and lack of clearance on any/every [digital] blueprint.  If someone missed this one, they'd literally have to have vision problems, or not understand how a floor plan works.

 

Vince

[dimundsR]

It’s like having a non-cook design a kitchen ……. Just saying .

 

[ryndam]

Or the ridiculous removal of the sofas for “the chair” and the dumb “salad bowl” sinks years ago on Symphony. 
 

The original sofas on Harmony & Symphony had the life vests stored in drawers under the sofas that did not take up shelf space in the closets, either.
 

Rob

Edited August 17 by ryndam
Typo

[Cruise-y]

I’m perplexed by this whole thread. I spent 16 days in a Sapphire suite on Serenity a few months ago and I had no problems with the nice walk-in closet and absolutely no problems with the drawers. I thought the whole suite was spacious and well laid-out. I loved it, especially the bathroom and shower.

 

I always bring my own hangers and ditch the big wooden ones because they take up too much space, but that was the only issue. 

[Keith1010]

Related to this thread and consistent with Cruise-y's post I asked two different sets of friends who are in the newer Sapphire suite about the closet and they thought it was fine.  They didn't have an issues of the closet layout.

 

Over the years depending on the length of the sailing and the room we are in, we have also used our own wire and plastic hangers to maximize space to hang clothes.  This was particularly important on the World Cruises.  

I don't see us needing to do that in any of the suites when we take the types of voyages we currently do.  I do understand and have seen first hand the issue of closet space in the regular room type.

 

Now, we do have our preferences when it comes to Aquarium and Sapphire suites, not only which type we like more but on which ship.  As I've said over the years between a Sapphire and Aquarium we prefer the classic Aquarium on Serenity and for the money prefer it over the Sapphire but on Symphony we prefer the Sapphire over the Aquarium.

 

With all that said, we prefer cruising Crystal versus not cruising Crystal so we can make do in any of those categories or suite types.

 

Keith

[May B]

We experienced our first Aquamarine when we boarded Serenity just this past June 24th, and I chose classic b/c of the tub. Loved the whole thing. Surprised the couch area was crowded and I had to watch t,v. from the bed, but didn’t mind one iota.

 

My autocorrect didn’t think to turn it into Aquarium.

[zship]

So Cruise-y, are you saying that in your suite you were able to open the drawers without closing the closet door first or are you saying that you didn’t mind having to go into the closet and close the door before opening the drawers ?

[CruisePfan]

The 2023 redesigned Sapphire suites are the ones with the closet door and drawer problem, but they they do have the more modern walk-in showers.  It was a small hassle in the 4 months on the world cruise, but would be tolerable in a one to two week cruise. The Classic and 2018 redesigned Sapphire suites do not have the closet door problem.

[BWIVince]

2 hours ago, zship said:

So Cruise-y, are you saying that in your suite you were able to open the drawers without closing the closet door first or are you saying that you didn’t mind having to go into the closet and close the door before opening the drawers ?

I think the level of inconvenience varies by guest, honestly.  I would never have to “close” the door to open the drawers, I would just need to move [or not open] the door enough to open the drawers partially, which is hardly the biggest inconvenience I’ve ever had in a cruise ship cabin.  The type of things I store in the closet drawers are socks, undergarments, bathing suits, workout shorts, etc…. All things I don’t need to fully open the drawers to access.  So no issue with me.  YMMV though, obviously others are more impacted.

 

Vince

[Cruise-y]

2 hours ago, zship said:

So Cruise-y, are you saying that in your suite you were able to open the drawers without closing the closet door first or are you saying that you didn’t mind having to go into the closet and close the door before opening the drawers ?

I don’t recall any issues at all with the closet or drawers. So, I just asked my partner and he said yeah the drawers opened 3/4 with the doors open, but it was no big deal, as he could still reach into the back of the drawers. It obviously didn’t bother me since it didn’t even register! 

[Kane]

23 hours ago, ryndam said:

Or the ridiculous removal of the sofas for “the chair” and the dumb “salad bowl” sinks years ago on Symphony. 

 

Damn! That sure brings back memories ... it's also around the time those spherical soap balls vanished😁

[ryndam]

28 minutes ago, Kane said:

 

Damn! That sure brings back memories ... it's also around the time those spherical soap balls vanished😁

You didn’t like those stupid red balls flailing all over the bathroom? lol. 😂🤪

[sea bright]

6 hours ago, CruisePfan said:

The 2023 redesigned Sapphire suites are the ones with the closet door and drawer problem, but they they do have the more modern walk-in showers.  It was a small hassle in the 4 months on the world cruise, but would be tolerable in a one to two week cruise. The Classic and 2018 redesigned Sapphire suites do not have the closet door problem.

We recently booked an August 2025 cruise on the Serenity. It's our first Crystal cruise since about 2007.

We booked a 2018 Sapphire Suite as the online suite layout looked the most similar to (though smaller than) the Silversea classic ship  Silver Suite, our favorite. Based on the online description, we thought it had a modern walk-in shower. Is that not the case?

[dimundsR]

About those round soap balls . . . . . I used the fruit knife and cut them in half so there would be a flat side.  Remember the fruit knife?  That was when fresh fruit was available in the room.  Disappeared about the same time as the fresh flower arrangement.

There was a comedian onboard that had a really funny routine about that soap.