Aft/rear cabin for Transatlantic cruise?

[Dd3thomas]

Looking to book a 15 day transatlantic cruise from Spain to Miami, Dec of 2025 on the Pearl, ~ 94k ton size ship. Been on 6 cruises, different brands, sizes but never a transatlantic or in the absolute fwd or aft cabin.  Never had any seasick issues before but have always ended up mid ship.  Looking for feedback from anyone who booked cruises like this, on a smaller-ish size ship and is the cabin location a valid concern? I understand the seas are unpredictable but would the cabin locations fwd or aft be bad on transatlantic?

[BirdTravels]

You are paying a premium for the fed and aft balconies on the ship. Not sure how much you will be able to use the balcony on a December TA. 
 

Also, all of the forward rooms and a lot of the aft rooms are suites which cost a lot more. 

[NordicExpat]

2 hours ago, Dd3thomas said:

Looking to book a 15 day transatlantic cruise from Spain to Miami, Dec of 2025 on the Pearl, ~ 94k ton size ship. Been on 6 cruises, different brands, sizes but never a transatlantic or in the absolute fwd or aft cabin.  Never had any seasick issues before but have always ended up mid ship.  Looking for feedback from anyone who booked cruises like this, on a smaller-ish size ship and is the cabin location a valid concern? I understand the seas are unpredictable but would the cabin locations fwd or aft be bad on transatlantic?

We have been in forward facing penthouse, 2 bedroom, and aft Haven cabins on the Getaway for a few crossings. The aft cabin was on deck 10, the forward facing on deck 12, and the 2 bedroom on deck 16. When the seas were a bit bumpy, the movement was felt less in the aft cabin.

The roughest I have felt was this past February on the Joy in a 2 bedroom on deck 17 forward. There was a 10 meter swell and a severe gale for all but a couple of days of the trip. On our Encore crossing in 2019, the seas and wind were greater than on the Joy for a few days, but the movement was not that bad in our aft cabin 11302. On other crossings, the movement was also felt less in the aft cabins compared to the couple of cabins we had forward.

Edited October 7 by NordicExpat

[9tee2Sea]

I would not do a forward balcony, too windy to be out.  I would do the aft, if windy, you could huddle by the sliding door of your cabin.  The one draw back to the very aft, is that sometimes the chairs on your deck will have soot particles, and be wet from the surrounding moisture.  But now, those are my go to cabins,  portside, aft.

[biker@sea]

Forward cabins have more bounce and slap.

Aft cabins have more shake and shimmy .

 

. 

[Dd3thomas]

Thanks for the feedback, we were looking at a suite and the ones in our range are all FWD and AFT.  We may just go with a Club Suite to play it more safe.

[www3traveler]

I am going on my 2nd Transatlantic Crossing soon and booked an Inside Cabin.

[Ken the cruiser]

16 hours ago, Dd3thomas said:

Looking to book a 15 day transatlantic cruise from Spain to Miami, Dec of 2025 on the Pearl, ~ 94k ton size ship. Been on 6 cruises, different brands, sizes but never a transatlantic or in the absolute fwd or aft cabin.  Never had any seasick issues before but have always ended up mid ship.  Looking for feedback from anyone who booked cruises like this, on a smaller-ish size ship and is the cabin location a valid concern? I understand the seas are unpredictable but would the cabin locations fwd or aft be bad on transatlantic?

We are boarding the Pearl on Nov 21 on a B2B that first goes from Le Havre to Barcelona and then heads out on the transatlantic you're thinking about booking in Dec 2025 to Miami. On that cruise, we will be in an aft-facing Club Balcony and will be posting to a Live From thread. You're more than welcome to follow along on that thread once I start it around mid-November.

 

We have cruised quite a bit in aft-facing cabins on different cruise lines and enjoy them very much, and always try to book them if we can. As far as movement goes, very seldom have we encountered any serious movement issues in one of them. OTOH, as far as forward "diving board" cabins near the bow, we have absolutely no desire to book one of those if there is any reasonable chance for rough weather.

[scaaty]

4 hours ago, Dd3thomas said:

Thanks for the feedback, we were looking at a suite and the ones in our range are all FWD and AFT.  We may just go with a Club Suite to play it more safe.

I would go with the aft suite on deck 10. The balcony is larger and you can relax out there in almost any weather because you are shielded from the wind most of the time. We cruised them in the winter from NYC and were always out for sail away, with a coat due to the temperature, but no wind!

[Middleager]

There was one cruise we went on, when we went to the rear of the ship, there was a lot of soot, and bad smell.  Not many people go to the rear of the ship.  It's not usually that bad, but in that particular cruise, maybe there was something with the engine or the fuel, but it happened.

 

That'd be one concern.  Otherwise, many people do like aft balconies.

[fredflint]

The TA weather is variable but we have found if they visit the Azores it is cooler Canary Islands it is warmer due to the more southerly route.  We always pick a balcony on the port side to get more sun and some days it was too hot to site outside midday.

We have been blessed on 5 TAs going west to only having one or two days total where we did not have great weather during the day.  I get motion sickness very easily ( I cannot sit in the backseat of a car and forget about facing backwards.  Due to the lack of any Islands and the depth of the ocean it seems the ships handle any kind of waves much better than a  Caribbean cruise.

The other thing about Aft Balconies that I have heard it that many of then are stepped so the person above you can look down into your balcony.

[Ken the cruiser]

For reference here’s a photo of the aft-facing cabins on the Pearl.

 

[LAFFNVEGAS]

While not on a Trans Atlantic, many years ago we were on the Pearl in 10666 Suite, it was a spring repositioning cruise from Los Angeles to Vancouver. We hit very rough seas, so much so the Captain kept apologizing and when we would be out of these waters. Oddly we felt that our aft facing stateroom was one of the best places on the ship to be. Trust me being forward was not good but the Pearl handled the very high seas like a champ. Also we found we loved those aft suite on the Pearl. The way they are designed the wind does not blow at all while cruising . As a matte of fact it was quite warm out there with the sun shining and we truly enjoyed the balcony. On the Pearl I would not hesitate to book an aft facing suite.