After spending 12 nights aboard 皇家加勒比的 海洋航海家 in room 9593, a virtual balcony room, it has proven to be a very comfortable place to live for that period of time.
The room is larger than regular interior rooms tend to be and has a king bed that can be split into two singles. It also has a small but comfortable armchair with footrest, dressing table, bar fridge, kettle with tea, coffee and mugs, in room safe, reasonable cupboard, safe, flat screen TV on a swivel arm, and bathroom. The bathroom is much the same as what is on other ships in interior, oceanview and balcony staterooms with a basin, large mirror, a hidden cupboard behind the mirror in the corner, toilet, and a curved shower.
In terms of power there are 2x North American 110v power outlets on one side of the dressing table near the TV. There is also 1x European 240v power outlet on the opposite side of the dressing table. In the bathroom, there is a dual voltage shaver outlet in the ceiling near the mirror. That’s all, but it is enough for most uses you might have while on the ship. Remember, you can’t bring power boards onto the ship, so you need to figure out how to make it work with just these outlets.
In terms of storage space there is stacks of room under the bed to put suitcases under which frees up your cupboard entirely for your clothes and makes the space feel a lot bigger than it does if you keep your bags or suitcases in the cupboard. The walls and ceiling are magnetic, so if you bring some magnets it can be another great way to help keep the room tidy and make more storage space available. For example, we kept our Cruise Compass and other papers on the wall where we could easily read them. This freed up part of the dressing table and one of the drawers that we would have otherwise stored the papers in and kept the cruise compass on.
The room overall is quiet. The first night we noticed a clear hum every time we entered the room. We figured out that it was coming from the air conditioning outtake and initially it was a bit annoying. After the first night though we got used to it and didn’t really notice it anymore. Occasionally it also seemed like there was metal banging coming from behind the wall at the bed head. We were surprised because there are no staterooms there. We worked out though that it must be crew access to things like underneath the pools and hot tubs. It wasn’t a big deal though as it was only very occasionally so didn’t really disturb us.
The virtual balcony is a huge screen on one wall which does have curtains and a remote. During the day it offers a very good imitation of a window, and when you see it in one of the mirrors it even fools your brain into thinking it really is a window and you are really seeing that view. There is a balcony superimposed over the screen which I think is unneeded, but I guess it does add to the impression of a virtual balcony. Overall I think it is a brilliant idea that really improves the feeling of an interior room, making it feel much more open and spacious and letting you see what’s happening outside. One possible downside, or upside depending on what you like, is that even when you turn the screen off there is a faint glow which is only noticed with the lights out. It is great at night because it means you can see your way to the bathroom in the dark without tripping over things and without it being a disturbance to sleep since it is so faint. The remote does have a volume control and there is indication it should be able to make noise but we couldn’t get it to work.
The bed was very, very comfortable, it’s just unfortunate that when you are using it as a king, it has a join in it. That said, it is not an uncomfortable join, it’s just a join you notice when you are across it. The pillows are also quite comfortable along with the sheets and quilt. We did notice each of the quilt covers we had during the cruise did seem to have a stain of some sort on them. They had obviously been cleaned, but as a result, the stains were quite obvious. Not a big deal but it was something we noticed.
The flat screen TV is connected to a number of channels and has an iTV service that lets you order room service, order shore excursions, see your account statement and a lot more through it which is great. You have access to:
- Stateroom messages
- Account review
- Ordering room service
- Booking shore excursions
- See what’s happening with the ships location and movements including a map and webcam
- Digital Cruise Compass
- See what activities and facilities are available on the ship and find out more about them
Throughout the 12 days our stateroom attendant, Rommell, was very attentive and always remembered our names. Every couple of days we found a new towel animal in our room and were always impressed at how clean he kept our room.
The wifi covers the entire room and bathroom so you can pick up the Internet anywhere if you have paid for access to it (which you can do from your wifi capable device). The Internet itself is not brilliant, especially for uploads, but it does enable most general uses. I got to speak to the ship’s IT manager for a little bit about some of the issues I observed with the wifi and he confirmed my suspicion. There are too many devices on the wifi for what it was designed to handle. He indicated that there is about 2 wifi devices per person connected to the ship wifi and it is flooded. As a result, the Internet runs much better via cable in the library, though it still isn’t fast at least it doesn’t drop out every so often.
We had room service many times, often just for little things like a hot chocolate or a cheese plate, and sometimes for a full meal like breakfast or dinner when we didn’t have time to go to the dining room or when we just needed a rest. It was almost always delivered very quickly. We were usually quoted 30-45 minutes and occasionally 55 minutes but we found that all bar one time it was delivered in about 20 minutes. The one time it took about 55 minutes was when we ordered at 11:45 pm. Unfortunate since we did want to get to bed, but not a big deal. The food was always very good and of a very high standard.
So overall the room, it’s services and our attendant were great, we were very comfortable, well looked after, and never found anything we were unhappy about except for the irritation with the wifi from time to time.
