We had a four-berth cabin on deck 9 (cabin no. 9.403 to be exact) to house our family of two adults and two teenage children for the week.
I mentioned in another post how I had been reluctant to go on what was my first ever cruise – and the idea of being crammed, all four of us, into a tiny room with zero privacy, all living on top of each other for the week was one of the reasons why.
It turns out I didn’t need to worry and we were happy with the cabin and the size and space we had.
It certainly wasn’t large by any means – and we wouldn’t really want to spend a great deal of time in there – but as a space for sleeping and getting ready in the mornings and evenings, it was perfectly fine.
I’m pretty large – 6ft 2in, and our teenage children are 17 and 14, so we’re not a small family, and I was worried about things like bed size and headroom in the cabin.
Turns out the bed was extremely comfortable – one of the most comfortable I’ve ever slept in – and was a full-sized double bed.
There was a sofa which converted into a bed and, above it, a hatch in the ceiling from which a bunk bed pulled down – both with perfectly adequate size for two growing teenagers.
The cabin steward came in every evening when we’d gone out to dinner and set the bunk bed up – and put it away again when we’d left the cabin in the mornings.
We were all comfortable in our beds and all slept very well.
We had a small balcony which gave a bit of extra space and, although we didn’t spend much time on it (it was much nicer being out on the decks) it had comfortable chairs for sitting in and enjoying the views, which never got boring wherever we were.
If there could be one tiny, tiny complaint with this particular cabin, it was that one of the small hot tubs on the ‘Promenade Deck’ was just outside our window, below our balcony, so there was a little bit of noise from that bubbling away and people sat in it during the day, but not really a problem at all.
The walls of the cabins are obviously not likely to be thick and it is possible to hear noise in the next-door cabins, or from the corridor outside, but nothing that ever disturbed us.
Some of the cabins in the ship are above noisier parts of the ship – for instance above the Clubhouse where they have music playing until late, which I understand you can hear in the cabin, but our position – basically mid-ship – on deck 9 seemed ideal.
Nothing that created any noise anywhere near us – and easy access to all parts of the ship, being in the middle position.
Having never been on a cruise ship before, I didn’t know what to expect from the toilet and shower facilities. Just some kind of chemical toilet? A bucket to be sloshed overboard?
No – the toilet, sink and shower facilities were pretty much what you’d expect from your own at home.
A decent sized shower cubicle with steaming hot water at a pressure that you’d expect from a normal home shower – and an ordinary, normal sized toilet and sink.
And of course the added benefit that it’s all cleaned and tidied for you every day by the cabin stewards.
Of course the cabins are a relatively small space and you probably wouldn’t want to spend the majority of your time in them.
One tip we found that proved really useful was to buy some magnetic hooks from Amazon, which stick to the metal walls of the cabin and give you some very useful additional hanging space for things like dresses and suits.
But our cabin, middle of the ship on the ninth deck, was fine – and proved all my fears about uncomfortable living and sleeping space to be totally unfounded.