In your cabin you will find a Cabin Guide , much like a Hotel Directory, that tells you all about what services, shops, restaurants and lounges are available on the ship as well as shipboard policies on safety and general guidelines you need to know.  This is also where you will find the Room Service menu!  (Don't pass up the BLT's, they're great!) TIP: For breakfast specify the "Fresh Melon", if you say "Fruit" you might get Chunky Fruit Cocktail.  While your ship's details will be somewhat different than this one taken from the Carnival Legend, you'll get the idea by browsing through these pages.

Category 1A is the where the list begins on cabin numbers.  By no means should this cabin, on a Carnival ship, be called the "bottom" of the list.  For two people it is spacious, has plenty of storage and kids love the upper/lower bunk bed setup.  Of this category has been said

"I never sleep good in hotels, but let me tell you...I slept great on the ship. We had to get wakeup calls or we would have slept until noon everyday!"

We commonly book a balcony cabin of some sort for us and a Category 1 or 4 for the kids.  Booking-wise we have to book an adult in each cabin but then we cheat and switch places. 

Other inside cabin categories, say 4A through 4E will be 185 square feet but not have the upper/lower setup and are more appropriate for adults or those who are scared of heights.  A Category 4 is also apt to have life preservers stored in a space in the corner where the two beds meet, an ideal hiding place when pirates come aboard to plunder.

Oceanview Cabins, Categories 5 and 6, are about the same as inside cabins except they have a window.  The window does not open but yet people spray fake snow on them on the Christmas cruises to simulate thier home in Minnesota.  Not sure what the allure of that is.  Be careful about oceanview cabins that say "obstructed view".  Most of the time it may be a that a lifeboat is in the way but you can still see what the weather is like outside without leaving your cabin.  I guess for those prone to claustrophobia, an inside, even one with an obstructed view, would take care of that.  Then, when the ship sinks and water comes up and covers your window you can holler out into the hallway to those poor fools sleeping disaster away in thier lightless inside cabins. You may be designated Giant Octopus or Killer Squid lookout.  It is customary to accept this designation cheerfully and to be granted free booze for the rest of the cruise.  Just go to any lounge and tell the bartender I said so.  Better yet, bring a friend with a video cam to record the great honor you will receive.

The aft location of this cabin was great for a number of reasons.  First, there was hardly any foot traffic in this part of the ship.   We like it quiet most of the time and this cabin provided just that.  Second, the view is great.  Leaving port, backing into ports or just cruising the ocean, the view is wonderful.  Also, it was located just under the Lido deck where the where the buffets and other non-dining room food options are.  A quick snack was just steps away.  And God knows you wouldn't want to be too far away from the food on a cruise right? 

We had previously booked midship cabins thinking there would be less movement and that they would be more centrally located to everything.  I gotta say that there was more movement in this aft cabin but nothing that posed a problem.  I would say it was more like a nice rocking movement which was especially nice when sleeping (to me anyway).  We got hooked on aft cabin and will try to book them from now on as a result of our experience here.  Not that I would pass up a cruise because I couldnt get an aft cabin but we sure do prefer this location.

Many passengers know what cabin they will be in before they board.  Others book "guaanteed"cabins with the location to be added (TBA) by the cruise line later.  

What this means is that they book a cabin that is in a particular category, (that's the guaranteed part) but it could be anywhere on the ship.  The tradeoff for this not knowing where you'll be is that you get a chance to be "upgraded" to a higher (and more expensive) category cabin at no additional charge.  You will never be downgraded.  Chances are if you book a lower category guaranteed cabin that you will be upgraded. 

The most common upgrade is to be upgraded to a "better" cabin within the category you have already paid for.  (Like from a Category 4A to a 4D)  This commonly means a higher deck, under the belief that higher is better.  Technically the "best" part of the ship is the dead center of it in relation of the front to  back and side to side.  Think of a teeter totter.  The people sitting on either end move up and down a lot.  The center part moves very little.  The same basic theory applied to cruise ships in the olden days when they might be tossed about by rogue waves in uncharted seas. 

Today, huge stabilizer bars that extend out the side of the ship under the water line reduce that sort of movement to a minimum.  In fact, on most ships you will probably have to look outside and see the ocean rolling by to know you are moving at all.

If you booked a guaranteed cabin prior to 9/11 security measure implementation, you may found out your cabi location as late as when you reach the pier upon embarkation.  The porters there would  have a manifest of all the cabins and all the lucky winners (or not) and be able to help you re-tag your bags with the appropriate information to insure that yours get to your cabin.  But most guests these days find out this information much earlier, usually some time between when final payment is made and 7 days prior to sailing.

But why would the cruise lines let us pay for a less expensive cabin and give us a more expensive cabin anyway?

In the cruise line business, much like the hotel business,  the name of the game is occupancy.  The cruise lines live and breathe to fill the ships and will do so using a number of strategies.  One strategy is to offer bonus amenities on a particular sailing to entice us to book that one.  Another is to offer free upgrades.  But there is more than the notion of maybe getting somthing more than what we paid for at work here.

The cruise lines want every potential buyer to have a nice selection of cabins to choose from when making their buying decision.  One party might want an inside cabin, another a balcony and yet another an Oceanview cabin.  When they open a sailing for sale, they have a pretty good idea which cabins will sell first; the most expensive and the least expensive.  But much of it depends on us.  A given sailing might happen to sell mostly inexpensive inside cabins to begin with, limiting the number available to sell to others while more expensive inside cabin go unsold.  In order to have that nice selection of all cabin categoris for someone just entering the buying arena, the cruise lines will move up the guests who booked early and bought those first inexpensive inside cabins to a higher category inside cabin, making more space in the inexpensive category. 

Are you with me so far?  Basically a complementary upgrade means you get somehting for nothing.

So if you got upgraded or not might depend on just that.  But when it comes time to dole out the upgrades there may be a limited number available.  That's when they look at other factors to determine who gets the upgrade.  Factors like what you paid, how long the booking has been made and/or past guest status are often considered.  If your cruise was booked 6 months or more in advance you have time on your side and could stand to gain a substantial upgrade at no additional cost to you.

That is an important part of the whole thing.

If you wanted to be very mid-ship and on a certain deck, you may be better off doing what it takes (usually paying full deposit at the time of booking) to lock in to a specific cabin right up front.  The up side of that is that you will know exactly where you are going to be on the ship as far in advance as possible.  The down side is that on most lines it greatly reduces if not eliminates the possibility of a complenentary upgrade.

Prime candidates for assigning cabins up front are those who need a specific location, say by an elevator because they don't want to have to stumble too far back to the cabin, handicapped cabins and suites.  On some ships, cabins with three or more guests may be required to lock in to a specific cabin just because there are a limited number that will hold that many people.

These days though,  most guests benefit from NOT choosing a cabin up front and realize a nice upgrade by the time they sail.  Of course, the only thing guaranteed about a complementary upgrade is that there are no guarantees that it will happen.

Location Location Location

That's the only difference in many cabins.

The cabins are the same. If you were in one, shut your eyes, and had Scotty beam you into the other one, then opened your eyes, you would think you blinked.

One school of thought is that the higher up on the ship that you are the better. I'm not so sure I agree with that, I guess it would depend on the ship and your personal preference.  If you are choosing your first cabin for your first cruise it really won't matter because you don't know any better and everything about your cruise is magical and wonderful.

On many ships all the action is on the upper decks so a higher cabin means you dont have to walk as far to get to the feed bag. Good reasoning if you were a horse but since you walk on two legs, use them, save your money and get a lower deck.

For example, we sailed the Victory several times. The best cabin I think we had was on the lowest deck you could have a cabin on. That was the best IMHO because we were so close to the water. The sound of the ocean swooshing by coming in our bungee corded balcony door was awesome.

Along those lines, there are people who prefer midship cabins thinking the motion in the ocean will be less. That was probably more true of older ships without computer controlled stabilizers that, at times, can make it seem like you never left the dock.

Personally I think the cruise lines just like to have lots of choices to confuse us. That gives them the element of surprize. The really silly Category is the inside cabin category. Who cares where it is? It's not like the view will be better in one over the other.

I think lots of this comes from what we have been conditioned to expect.

If the ship sinks we want to be higher up on the ship because we will get to live a little longer and/or have a chance of sneaking on the insufficient amount of lifeboats with the women and children.

It's kind of like why it is smart to bring lots of extra batteries. Think how much less work the Professor would have had to do trying to coax a little more life out of the radio if Gilligan had thought to stock up before the 3 hour tour?

And if Gavin McLoud had just paid attention to and reacted quickly to Carnival's early marketing plans he would be Admiral Stubbing right now instead of playing dinner theatre in Kansas City

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