Cabin help please ASAP

[mrsnicola]

Hi I’m booking a cruise this evening on anthem of the seas. Outside balcony room is £966 more expensive than the interior with visual window. The balcony includes the all inclusive drinks package. Is it worth paying the extra for the balcony or have the interior and add the drinks on before we travel... I just can’t decide. We are staying 3 nights after cruise in New York so trying to factor all costs xx

[BevS97]

We have never had a balcony but once had a window and twice didn’t. I did like the window and probably wouldn’t book an inside again.
Just for the morning/evening when you are sailing in /out of port. I don’t want to have to sit up top but like to see the world go by. It does depend on the ports. For Nassau I wasn’t bothered about lack of view. But in Norway I felt it was a big loss.

[Ciano]

We had interconnecting interior cabins last yr on Harmony. They were fine for the week. In saying that I think if we went again on a 7 nighter I think I'd book balconys if the money was there. Just booked a 3 nighter last night but went for interior again couldn't justify the extra for just 3 nights!

[Smilesonfaces]

Not sure if Anthem has the promenade cabins. On the Harmony these look out on to the main shopping promenade. It was priced as an inside but had a large window looking out. A little window seat to people watch and the rooms were a little longer. No noise which I had worried about before the cruise.

We were not in the cabin long enough to justify paying for a balcony or outside.

[Loopylooloo]

There are no promenade cabins on Anthem, the interior with virtual balcony are interesting and clever, but I wouldnt choose over a proper balcony, if the price includes drinks, then its not bad, we had a balcony last year on Anthem, and one of our highlights was sailing out of NYC, we spent a lot of nice quiet moments watching the scenery, we saw dolphins, giant butterflies, and even a shark! Its a beautiful ship. Be sure to try a meal in Chops, and dont miss the chocolate chip cookies from the buffet! Delicious. The drink package includes premium coffees etc, there is a cute coffee station just inside the buffet restaurant perfect at breakfast. And a milkshake from Johnny rockets! Yum.

[Echo18]

If you book the drinks package it’s usually around £40 per day for adults (all adults in the cabin need to purchase) - if that helps you to weigh up the difference.

[Elise79]

The balcony cabins on Anthem are lovely

Personally I'd pick them over an inside as I love sitting watching the world go by...

[cheekydeeky]

We’ve done four cruises with RCI and all in an inside cabin. We just aren’t in the cabin enough to justify the extra cost (and we love the darkness of an inside cabin for a sound sleep during the night).

The drink package will be approximately £280pp for a week but they do have sales occasionally so personally I’d go for an interior and add the drinks later but it’s really down to whether you want the balcony and feel it’s worh paying a premium.

[catherinesian]

We went on a 2 week cruise in an inside cabin a few years back - simply because we couldn't have afforded to go at all if we didn't go for inside. You're not in the room much, however what I didn't like was the lack of natural light, and it made my sleep patterns odd. You would wake up and not know if it was the middle of the night or mid-day, and I really didn't like that! We vowed after that to never have such a long cruise in an inside cabin.

We then did one with a balcony and it was absolutely lovely to have, and have booked a balcony cabin for our Fjords cruise in May (on super special offer mind).

However, those virtual cabins do have natural light in some sense, they are the ones that have the window sized screens that play the live video of the outside of the ship aren't they? So in that case I would personally be tempted to try it, depending on how long your cruise is (do you say?)

Either way, I am very interested to hear what you do and if you do opt for the virtual balcony, please let us know your thoughts as I am also interested to try those

[mrsnicola]

Hi
Thanks everyone we did decide to go for the balcony in the end as we thought with a 13 year old it would just give us the extra space xx