aft balcony v. ocean suite on victory

[Alli7997]

Hi! My fiance and I are currently booked on the 09/18/11 7 day Victory cruise in an aft balcony room for our honeymoon. While talking to my PVP today, he said we could upgrade to an ocean suite for about $330 total. We will already be platinum on this cruise so wouldnt benefit anymore from the vip boarding of the ocean suite i believe. Do you think this is worth the extra money and not staying in the aft balcony room? Also, we live on the west coast where I believe our choices of ships with aft balcony rooms are limited. Thanks in advance for any decision making help!

[SnoozerCruiser]

I was on victory with a buddy and a group of friends in 2009 and stayed in a suite and again in 2010 and stayed in an aft view. The suite was nice but we didn't spend much time in the room. I'm going again in 2012 with my wife and booked the aft view. The balcony was larger and the view was better. One thing with the aft view is that every morning when entering our port of call the room shook which was fine with me because then I didn't need an alarm clock. Hope this helps!

[shwabob]

I was on the 5/8 sailing on Victory. We had aft balcony room 6436.

 

Pros:

Awesome views every morning and evening when entering and leaving ports, this was even better because we were right next to the aft wrap.

Large enough balcony that I could sit in the chair and my GF could lay out on the deck and not feel crowded.

Balcony got great sun on our sea day...was like having our own slice of lido.

 

Cons:

-This cabin was directly above the Adriatic Aft Lounge, as are all the aft balconies on this deck. On the first night, we could clearly make out the Karaoke going on below until 3am. We usually went to the late comedy show, so no problems that night. One night it was particularly bad, the bass was thumping so much I felt like I was right there. A lesson learned...I'm sure that this wasn't an issue for the people on Deck 7.

When docking in the morning, its like an earthquake in the room. When combined with the noise from the club, there wasn't a lot of sleep since the ship's engines/thrusters were one heck of a wake up call at around 645-730 every morning.

Lack of privacy as a good chunk of the balcony is exposed to the decks above, but we felt it was well worth it.

 

All in all, it's an experience I probably wouldn't do again. I also generally try to get cabins above and below me, and knew I broke my own rule of thumb when I got the no-cost upgrade call. It was very nice, but I'm just fine with a regular balcony in the middle of the ship.

[Alli7997]

thanks for your input! i think we are going to stick with our aft balcony and save the money it would cost to upgrade for other activities on the cruise. i also have wanted to try the aft balcony and i'm not as concerned with the vip embarkation. i really appreciate all your help!