Carnival Splendor Cat 8B Balcony Questions

[mathgeek1978]

This will be our first time booking a balcony, and we have a few questions specifically on the Splendor 8B balconies on the Upper/Empress Decks:

 

1. How deep is the balcony? Can you at least stretch your legs sitting down?

 

2. How secure are the balcony doors? Any chance people can get into your room through the balcony? How "private" are the partitions?

 

3. We are both non-smokers. However, I figure that when the ship is sailing at sea, it will be windy enough that even if our neighbors are smokers, we probably won't smell anything. Am I correct?

 

4. For the same price of an 8B balcony, would you prefer Upper or Empress deck?

 

If anyone could post a pic, it would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!

[firefly333]

The balconys are 3.5 x 10 ft for standard balconys. You will only be able to stretch your legs if you dont face the ocean. the partitions no one can climb over them, they go all the way up that Iv seen. They are metal.

 

Some people have smelled smoke from their next door neighbors. The wind might not blow the right direction to blow it away. I never smelled smoke on a ship until I got sick with a cold last cruise and was coughing .... so smoke doesnt usually bother me.

[CRUISING71]

We got 8C balcony Empress. We don't like upper, because below upper there are lots of clubs and lounge and we were worry about the noise level.

 

Empress...was quiet and very nice.

 

You can smell the smoker.

[mathgeek1978]

Thanks for the reply. We are still deciding on Upper midship or Empress aft... Anyone stayed on the Upper deck before? What's the noise level at night like? Thanks in advance.

[firefly333]

Arent the aft balconys extended, so twice as deep? They would be my first choice.. lounge chairs.

[mathgeek1978]

Thanks Fire. The aft I am referring to are port/starboard sides. The aft-facing ones are 9A and a lot more expensive. Considering the 8B balcony has no more legroom than an airline seat, the aft-facing extended balcony is indeed very tempting...

[cherylcorwin]

Thanks for the reply. We are still deciding on Upper midship or Empress aft... Anyone stayed on the Upper deck before? What's the noise level at night like? Thanks in advance.

We were on Upper Deck aft (6453) We ended up right above the disco & some of the other lounges-I think the music was coming up through the bathroom pipes-vibration & music didn't let up til 1-1:30am.

[dogandcatlover]

We stayed on the upper deck on Triumph - directly behind the bank of atrium elevators and above the gift shops on port side. No noise from below or above, and none from elevators. We have booked the same area on the starboard side on Splendor for Jan 2010. Very convenient location.

[shonandsuzie]

This will be our first time booking a balcony, and we have a few questions specifically on the Splendor 8B balconies on the Upper/Empress Decks:

 

If anyone could post a pic, it would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!

The Empress Deck would be much less risky. Some cabins on Upper have a lot of noise. Here is a picture of a balcony on Upper Deck on Splendor. The second picture shows the depth a little better. However, the second picture's balcony is longer b/c it is a cat. 11 but is the same depth as the regular balconies.

(BTW, We did a cabin crawl visiting several cabin types on Splendor and have pictures in our photos in our signiture.)

 

[cooltj]

We booked room 6362 and 6364 no noise at all... It was very convenient to Deck 5 and only 3 up to Lido plus we took the elevators or stairs to black pearl. Perfect location, in fact we booked these exact same rooms for our upcoming trip in April.

 

Balconies are safe and like previously mentioned not enough room to stretch your legs out unless you turn the chairs. We had plenty because we opened the dividers up and presto we had a huge balcony.:eek:

[mathgeek1978]

Thanks everyone for your informative response, and thanks to Shonandsuzie for the awesome pictures. Actually they are a bit deeper than I thought.

 

I checked the deck plan at Carnival's website and there are plenty of bars and discos underneath. However, at the starboard side, right above the Oceanview Promenade might be a good area. It is indeed a very convenient location.

 

There are staterooms available on Empress on port/startboard sides aft, but they are close to the large wrap balconies, which sometimes are the venues of non-stop partying too.