Should I book an interior, balcony or suite on my cruise?

The Street

Which type of cabin you book depends on both your needs and your budget.

Transcript

00:00I am Dan Klein, executive editor of Come Cruise With Me.

00:04That is comecruisewith.com or comecruisewith.me, either one of them gets you there.

00:09Chock full of all the latest cruise news, sort of my personal view on how you can have

00:14the best vacation possible.

00:16Lots of things you wouldn't know otherwise.

00:18But we're at Music Hall.

00:20This is a two-floor music venue on Wonder of the Seas.

00:23It's on a lot of Royal Caribbean ships, but it's a little bit different in each one.

00:27This one has a beautiful overview of the Central Park area.

00:32And we're going to talk today about probably one of the two or three biggest questions

00:35when it comes to cruises, is should I book an interior, an ocean view, or a balcony?

00:41We're not going to talk about suites, because that's kind of a different thing.

00:44I'm going to give my own personal view, but I understand that it's different than most

00:48people.

00:49So because I cruise for a living, and I get a lot of free cruises, whether it be from

00:54the cruise line or from the casinos, and I'm alone most of the time.

00:59As many of you know, my wife does not cruise, and my son works full-time.

01:03I am perfectly fine with an interior room.

01:05I don't spend a lot of time in my room.

01:07I'm there for maybe five or six hours a night to sleep, place to take a shower, not a big

01:12deal at all.

01:14But if I had to pick my favorite kind of room, Dennis, do you know my favorite kind of room?

01:18Yep.

01:19It's a boardwalk view window.

01:21I like a window overlooking the interior of the cruise ship, because if you have a

01:25window overlooking the sea, when the sun comes up, it wakes you up really early.

01:30Even though I'm probably going to get up early anyway, I like the option of either the pitch

01:34black of an interior, or it's much easier to block the light out when you have an interior

01:39looking into the ship.

01:40I should probably explain this.

01:42There are outdoor areas on Royal Caribbean ships, the boardwalk and Central Park, a different

01:48one, an icon of the seas, and they have rooms that look into these areas.

01:52There's some balconies or window rooms that look into the Royal Promenade, which is kind

01:58of the central hub of the ship.

02:00That one I don't love, because if you forget to close your curtains, it's a little dicey.

02:04But Dennis, what advice do you give clients when they're talking about, should I get a

02:07balcony, should I get an ocean view, should I get an interior?

02:10Right.

02:11The first thing we do at the agency is qualify people, try to find out what their interests

02:15are, dislikes.

02:16Are they traveling with children and so forth?

02:18And I give a great example with family with small children, a lot of people are afraid

02:22of a balcony.

02:23We recommend an ocean view.

02:25If you don't want an inside, an ocean view saves you a little bit of money.

02:28Then the children can normally sit up there, you can look out, it's safe.

02:33Families that want to hang out on a balcony at night, maybe have coffee or a drink, balconies

02:39are great.

02:40If you want to save a little money though, inside rooms we love, and our kids absolutely

02:45love the inside rooms for one reason.

02:47It's dark, cold, and they can sleep when they want to sleep.

02:50So if they want to take a nap for three hours in the afternoon, it looks like it's at night.

02:55So temperature is a major factor that people don't think about.

02:57I like a cold room, and if you don't tell your stateroom attendant when you have a balcony,

03:03when they clean your room, they will open all the curtains.

03:06So no matter how high your air conditioning is on, if you're in a tropical climate, that's

03:10going to be working against it.

03:11It's going to be hot.

03:12The difference in price between a balcony and an interior can be very dramatic, but

03:17it's also important to note that even though an ocean view should cost more than an interior,

03:22there are times where it doesn't work that way, and there are times where a balcony is

03:27a very minor increase, and that's because the newer the cruise ship, the higher percentage

03:32of the rooms have a balcony of some sort.

03:35And even some refurbished ships like Margaritaville at Seas Islander, something like 70% of their

03:41rooms have some sort of outward look, and that's a very old ship that's been refurbished.

03:46So it's really important that you work with a travel agent to figure out, like, did I

03:50save $5 or did I save $500?

03:54You know, and in some cases, if you don't care about a balcony, it's nice of you to

03:57save $5 and leave that room for someone else.

04:00I know when I have a balcony, I walk outside on it once, I take a picture for my wife,

04:05and maybe sometimes if we're in a pretty port, I take a picture.

04:08But usually, your best pictures are going to be from the pool deck.

04:11And I don't advocate, and I know people feel different, I think you should put your money

04:15into experiences, that your room is where you sleep, and take a shower, and me work

04:21a little bit, but for the most part, I'm going to be in public decks, I'm going to be in

04:24the pool, I'm going to be in the casino, restaurants, wherever it is, and I'd rather book the sushi

04:28restaurant than spend extra money on my room.

04:31No, we agree.

04:32Dan, you bring up some very, very good points.

04:35At the end of the day, you're in your room, you sleep, you want to go out and experience

04:38the ships.

04:39There's two things that we talk about all the time.

04:42Long ago, cruise ships used to take you to a destination, now they've become destinations.

04:47So the time you spend in your room is not as much as it would have been a long time

04:50ago.

04:51And now, when you can get out and do other things, the room saved the money, if you want

04:56to.

04:57Now, the other thing that we didn't say is, my wife always wants to be near an elevator,

05:01so the location of the room matters, and so that's what a good travel agent will look

05:06for.

05:07They will find the right spot for it, and then if you're close to an elevator, you can

05:10get in, get out quick, it makes it a little bit easier navigating the ship.

05:14I will close on the idea here of the ship as the destination.

05:18So let's go through my day today.

05:20Our ship lost an hour, which we weren't aware of.

05:22We moved time zones, so it went from 8 o'clock to 9 o'clock.

05:25So when I woke up to a text from Dennis, it was actually later than I thought it would

05:28be.

05:29Since that time, I've done some work in Boleros, which is the Spanish bar on the ship.

05:35I had a coffee from Cafe Promenade.

05:37We met in Central Park at Park Cafe, had a little bit of food, did a little bit of work.

05:42We had a drink at Trellis Bar, just tonic here, because it's early in the day, and then

05:48we're here at Music Hall.

05:49That's all in just a few hours, and we were working during this.

05:53So forget the people who were just here to have fun.

05:56There is so much to do on a ship like Wonder of the Seas that people often ask me, where

06:00are you going?

06:01And sometimes I say, I don't know.

06:02But that is a topic for a different show.

06:04We will talk about whether the ship or the destination matters, and I think it's different

06:09in the U.S. versus if you're going to go to Europe or Alaska or destination cruises like

06:13that.

06:14If you want to find more information, it is ComeCruiseWith.com.

06:18At ComeCruiseWith.com, you can actually click on a page that will let you fill out a form

06:23so you can actually make an appointment with Amy Post, who is Dennis' partner, but the

06:27more experienced of the two.

06:29I hate to say that, you're both very experienced, but Amy's been doing this a little bit longer.

06:33You can get an appointment on her calendar, no fee, no cost, and she'll answer all your

06:37questions.

06:38She'll help you find the perfect cruise for your family.

06:41And if you have any questions for me, you can always shoot me an email at Dan, very

06:46easy, D-A-N, at ComeCruiseWith.com.

06:49For Dennis Post, I am Dan Klein.

06:51Happy cruising.

06:52Happy cruising.

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