Balcony Pros and Cons

[declansdad]

We call room service for pick up when we are done, or if in the morning take them up to Lido with us.

 

 

I have never heard of anyone doing that before. It is pretty common to see trays left in the hall for pick-up in halls of ships and hotels.

 

 

We too see no cons to the balconies.

[mitsugirly]

I normally sail with NCL, which has sliding glass doors, and the only Carnival I have been on was an interior, so no balcony door.

 

Our upcoming cruise on the Pride, we have a balcony. After all these complaints about them having an actual door, that slams, has got me SUPER worried...especially knowing that we are also sailing during Spring Break/Easter weekend. :eek:

[2 cruzen]

For us, there are no cons.

 

We can deal with slamming doors (as the interior doors can also be loud) and the cost is not a big deal because we realize the benefits come at a premium.

 

We love what feels like extra space...kind of something to get away to. We open the door with a bungee cord to let fresh air inside. We hang a hammock between the partitions and my wife rocks herself to sleep for naps on sea days. We have breakfast out there every morning.

 

Definitely nothing but pros for us in regards to balconies, but to each their own...

 

I would love to hang a hammock but DH doesn't think it would be secure enough. :(

[keith75]

Question...I always thought that you were supposed to leave the detriments of your meal outside your door for pick-up. What are we supposed to do with it?

 

Just sit it outside the door of the oink-oink people cabin....I think that would be awesome.

[keith75]

The only con to a balcony cabin for most, is after you do it once it's no going back.

[momof4boys]

Each time we sail we ask our steward what he would like us to do with our room service dishes (usually coffe and toast). We have always been told to leave it in our cabin.

 

Love a balcony! Never had a problem with slamming doors. I have been disturbed many times firm kids running the halls outside my room and in the halls on the deck above us!!

[TerReuv]

We've never had slobs in a cabin next to us - except for the ones who leave their plates and glasses outside their door with half eaten food on them. I make the oink-oink noise as we walk by. I can only imagine what their floor looks like at their house.:eek:

 

Wow! This is just so rude! I have read on JH's FB page that it is fine to leave your tray outside the cabin door. I agree with the poster who said to leave the trays outside the oinker's room!

 

We have no cons to a balcony either. We love having the area to sit outside and enjoy it ourselves and have not had any issues with the others next to us.

[srlafleur]

We can hardly imagine not having a balcony anymore. We've done inside and ocean view a couple of times. I can't stay awake in an inside, and the ocean view is just a tease.

 

If we are leaving our room, say, for an excursion after room-service breakfast, we will leave the dishes in the room. If we are staying in, for example, after a late-night snack, we will put them outside our door.

If we were told to do otherwise, either by our steward or the cruise line, we would comply.

Edited March 16, 2015 by srlafleur

[JimAOk1945]

We always leave our room service items in our room. They are picked up during the day.

 

We always have a balcony.

[crzndeb]

 

We've never had slobs in a cabin next to us - except for the ones who leave their plates and glasses outside their door with half eaten food on them. I make the oink-oink noise as we walk by. I can only imagine what their floor looks like at their house.:eek:

 

Before you start making generalizations, I have always left my plates in my room. But there have been times when I have come back and the room steward has put them in the hall. I will see the room service crew coming down the hallways with their carts and picking everything up. It is probably different on every ship how this is handled.

[RaiderCruiser]

We decided to try an interior room last year after several trips with a balcony. It will be a balcony from now on. We don't spend that much time in our room, but we do enjoy the balcony for the morning coffee and while the wife gets ready.

I consider myself lucky, from the stories I've read, never even heard my neighbors, voices or doors.

[arkjeweler]

Some people also like to "sunbathe" if you get the drift.

[keh13jlw12]

We are kinda funny when it comes to balconies. I always say that I don't need one, but then, I always get one, lol.

On our Alaskan cruise, the balcony was a no brainer, and a MUST. To sit out and look at the glaciers, wildlife, and scenery was absolutely amazing. Well worth it.

Typically we take cruises to the Caribbean, and I always tell my wife there's no point in having a balcony, yet we decide to get one. To me, it just isn't as exciting to sit on the balcony, and watch the water roll by. We honestly don't use it that often, yet, we just get it to have it "incase" we want to use it, lol. And after every cruise, up the the booking of each next cruise, I say, no point in a balcony.....the process repeats itself, lol

[rudechuck]

In addition to morning coffee/room service and evening cocktails/wine, the biggest "pro" for me is I'm an intermittent sleeper.

 

My wife shuts her eyes and she's out cold until morning. I will wake up two or three times in the middle of the night, (quietly) go out to the balcony and just watch the stars, moon and sea.

 

After a few minutes, I'm totally relaxed and go back to bed and sleep (at least for a couple of hours :o).

[Butterbean1000]

I cannot think of a single con.

[dezertspray]

I will wake up two or three times in the middle of the night, (quietly) go out to the balcony and just watch the stars, moon and sea.

 

What a lovely visual this gave me! I can imagine standing out on our balcony doing the exact same thing.

[jtwitch]

I think that I would not want to cruise without a balcony... being able to be up while the other is sleeping... or to have a place to watch port activity while the other is getting ready... or simply to watch the ocean/sun/stars/birds. (On our last cruise, we had a bird fly alongside us for at least 30 minutes as we were leaving St. Thomas (Maybe even almost an hour... it was still flying with us when the sun set and I couldn't see it anymore)).

 

However, I did have the unfortunate occurance of hearing our neighbors decide to get a divorce... having decided that they had nothing in common and really didn't enjoy each other's company. Clearly, I left the balcony and went back inside.

 

Having said all of that, balconies are more expensive, and I suppose we could cruise more often if we skipped that luxury. On this last cruise, we didn't use it a lot, as it was a very port intensive cruise... however, I was still glad we had it.

[fshstck]

We just got back from our first Carnival cruise (we had been on Royal Caribbean with a porthole room and 3 kids once before) For Carnival I booked an iside guarantee and was assigned a interior on second deck aft. I got a call from the 'upgrade fairy' and was offered a 8th floor balcony for $250 more. I jumped at the chance. We loved it. We are early risers and would get OJ and Coffee delivered to the room at 6:00 am and sit on the balcony and leisurely got ready for the day. We spent a lot of time out there, we had perfect weather for it. I cannot think of any cons. Our neighbors were quiet and non smokers.

[Saltz]

Psh. I would have kicked those beer cans right back over to their side!

[LitchfieldParkCruisers]

Love the balcony....won't book a cruise any other way. We always order room service breakfast, then eat and drink coffee on the balcony together while our son sleeps. Then he gets up and eats on the balcony while we get ready for the day. So relaxing, and really establishes that you are miles from land, in the middle of the ocean. The sound of the waves, the sights of the approaching port...can't wait till our next cruise!!

 

LPC

[bunchesofun]

We've been on three cruises. Twice on the Pride in a Premium balcony we adored. Third cruise on Valor with an Aft. This time we are going less expensively but have booked a French Door "interior". We like having a balcony, but find we don't use it as much as we could and not enough to justify the additional cost at this point in our lives. We'd go outside a few times to watch the waves, and just look around, but didn't spend any significant time out there. We had no trouble with noisy or smoking neighbors. I've also hear people say their neighbors left their balcony light on all night long. Didn't have that problem either.

[Carbri]

Had a balcony last 2 cruises and loved it.. only con we found on our last cruise, our neighbour left their balcony light on - for the first 3 nights..

 

I had read hear before my cruise how some members found that annoying but always thought, that would not bother me, but after actually experiencing it, it did.. :(

 

YES, the balcony light being left on kills me. Plus the smoking. On our last trip we had a hillbilly family of about 500 members next to us and across the hall. The older kids lived on the balcony next to us and complained all day long about being bored. Trashed up the place and made it the daycare for the babies of the group so they screamed all day long. Very annoying. We basically were driven off our GS balcony. I wouldn't let my husband confront them bc of all the teens in the group. I did not want revenge exacted on us. So we stayed on the Serenity Deck. My next trip we are on same ship in a OV.

[mothermary]

I normally sail with NCL, which has sliding glass doors, and the only Carnival I have been on was an interior, so no balcony door.

 

Our upcoming cruise on the Pride, we have a balcony. After all these complaints about them having an actual door, that slams, has got me SUPER worried...especially knowing that we are also sailing during Spring Break/Easter weekend. :eek:

 

 

I think you'll see that the pros ourweigh the cons on a Carnival Balcony.

You'll have a great time. We did!

[thomas.snyder.7923]

We love a balcony too. Wonderful to enjoy the view, sunrise, sunset, ect. Check out the stars b4 bed.

Unfortunately last week on splendor we had extreme door slamming competition between the hoard of people beside us and the child above us that liked to slide the furniture screeching across the balcony. Oh and the neighbors on the other side still smoked.

That chased us inside a few times. It was a very noisy cruise. Hopefully Pride in May will b better.😊

[v3cruiser]

I certainly love a balcony but after 4 cruises my 5th cruise was an OV and quite honestly I didnt miss the balcony, i just hung out on other areas of the ship. I think for the most part have had good neighbors. For my next cruise, couldnt afford a balcony so Im cruising on the wild side going with a 4J room with the front deck of the ship just a few steps away. I think i am going to be finding myself trying all sorts of rooms while taking future cruises.:)