Balcony Doors on Coral Princess

[Barbara60]

Is it possible to keep the balcony door open for part of the time.? My husband is allergic to A/C so fresh air is very important to us.

[pms4104]

Anything is possible ... HOWEVER, open balcony door mess up the A/C for many other cabins ... AND Princess and other lines ask that the doors remain closed but for the time it takrd tk exit/re-enter the cabin for the comfort of one's fellow pax

 

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[Cuizer2]

Is it possible to keep the balcony door open for part of the time.? My husband is allergic to A/C so fresh air is very important to us.

 

Yes, you can keep the balcony door open. However, in consideration of you neighbors which are likely sharing the same A/C as you are, please turn off your A/C while the balcony door is open.

[wheezedr]

So how exactly is he allergic to AC? Let’s see, what comes out of the AC is cold air. I guess it must be the cold since regular air is OK.

[Barbara60]

So how exactly is he allergic to AC? Let’s see, what comes out of the AC is cold air. I guess it must be the cold since regular air is OK.

Not necessary. The A/C cools the air with chemicals.

[Cuizer2]

Not necessary. The A/C cools the air with chemicals.

 

But the chemicals are inside a sealed tube.

[pablo222]

Is it possible to keep the balcony door open for part of the time.? My husband is allergic to A/C so fresh air is very important to us.

 

What will he do in the dining room, and other common areas of the ship -- which are air conditioned?

[pablo222]

Not necessary. The A/C cools the air with chemicals.

 

The chief engineer can explain better than me ...

 

But, on a ship, the only thing near your cabin is an air handler which receives chilled liquid (often water)

and has a fan to circulate the air.

 

Any mechanical cooling is far away in a mechanical space.

[travelin.sisters]

yes...we slept with our balcony doors open some nights on the Island (which I believe is the same design) on our Panama canal cruise last year...it was wonderful to listen to the waves & the first couple of nights out of LA it was the only way to be cool enough to sleep (we were the first cruise going south after the Alaska season & it took them a few days to get the AC calibrated) ...always closed them when we left the cabin

[Pam in CA]

Every balcony door has this notice:

 

Groups of cabins share an A/C system with each cabin able to control the air similar to zone A/C. All your cabin is receiving is cooled (or heated) air through a duct. It’s not near the A/C unit itself or any chemicals.

 

When the balcony door is open and if the cabin heats up, resources are directed towards that cabin in an attempt to cool it off. Which means that cabins nearby will probably complain that their A/C isn’t working (and it won’t be for them because it’ll be trying to cool off your cabin.)

 

It must be very difficult being allergic to A/C whether you’re on a ship or home. No restaurants, theaters, movie theaters, malls, stores, gyms, etc. Hopefully you live where the temps are moderate and you can stay outside all the time.

[nukesubsailor]

Be advised that if you have the balcony door open and the cabin's front door opens, there will be a strong breeze that can blow papers out of the cabin. It can also cause the front door to be yanked out of the hand of the person opening it and cause a problem.

[Barbara60]

Thank you all

[cruiserfromalabama]

We did leave our balcony door open a lot on our Alaska cruise as the room was a little too stuffy. We also left it open and tv on while viewing the glaciers so that we could hear the ranger's talking about each glacier. The room was often too warm even with air-conditioning turned down low and all doors left closed. I know people say it messes with the air-conditioning thermostat if you have door open, but we tried keeping the door closed and it never did really cool like it should have, so go figure!

[elliair]

Be advised that if you have the balcony door open and the cabin's front door opens, there will be a strong breeze that can blow papers out of the cabin. It can also cause the front door to be yanked out of the hand of the person opening it and cause a problem.

 

Keep your fingers away from the side of door of they will get slammed into the door jam. Then it's a trip to the infirmary.

[donaldsc]

Not necessary. The A/C cools the air with chemicals.

 

This will give you a very detailed explanation of how AC works - https://home.howstuffworks.com/ac.htm.

 

The bottom line is the chemicals (Freon) are in sealed tubes The warm air passes over the sealed Freon tubes and is cooled by the cool Freon. As you can see, there is zero contact between the cooling chemical and the warm air passing over it. Basically, there is is absolutely no way that the chemicals used in AC units can be impacting your husband's health.

 

DON

[Cuizer2]

We did leave our balcony door open a lot on our Alaska cruise as the room was a little too stuffy. We also left it open and tv on while viewing the glaciers so that we could hear the ranger's talking about each glacier. The room was often too warm even with air-conditioning turned down low and all doors left closed. I know people say it messes with the air-conditioning thermostat if you have door open, but we tried keeping the door closed and it never did really cool like it should have, so go figure!

 

I left my balcony door open a lot during my recent Alaska cruise with the A/C on. However, in my case, and in yours, it did not tax the A/C. Adding colder air to the room helps the A/C. However, doing the same thing in the Caribbean can cause a problem.

[Cuizer2]

This will give you a very detailed explanation of how AC works - https://home.howstuffworks.com/ac.htm.

 

The bottom line is the chemicals (Freon) are in sealed tubes The warm air passes over the sealed Freon tubes and is cooled by the cool Freon. As you can see, there is zero contact between the cooling chemical and the warm air passing over it. Basically, there is is absolutely no way that the chemicals used in AC units can be impacting your husband's health.

 

DON

 

Unless there is a leak in the system.

[chengkp75]

Okay, lets talk about ship's AC systems a bit.

 

Unlike home or even lots of land commercial AC, there is an intermediary step in shipboard AC. The freon refrigerant (the chemicals?) cool fresh water to around 45-50*F down in the engine room of the ship. This fresh water is circulated to all the air handlers around the ship (whole house AC has an air handler where the freon cools the air) and this chilled water cools the air. So, the refrigerant is hundreds of feet away from your cabin, and has the chilled water between it and your cabin air. Now the discussion moves, once again, to air balance and the design of the AC for cabins.

 

Your cabin will have a small air cooler (cooled only by the chilled fresh water), a fan, and some ductwork. This system takes the air in your cabin, passes it over the air cooler, and returns it to the cabin, just like a window AC unit does in your house. This is what is controlled by the thermostat in the cabin, and on most ships, there is a switch on the balcony door that shuts this system only off when the door is open.

 

There is a second AC system that works in your cabin. Unlike your house, which leaks air to the outside to provide some fresh air into the house constantly (or uses an air/air exchanger if a newer "tighter" house), the ship has to maintain positive flow of fresh air to all the cabins. 20% of the cabin volume is supplied as fresh air from outside, and 20% is exhausted to the outside to keep air pressure in balance. Both the fresh air supply and the exhaust air are handled by large fans that move the air for large banks of cabins, probably 30-50, and typically all the cabins on one side of the deck, for each deck, and within each fire zone (where those doors are in the passageway). The fresh air is taken from outside the ship, passes through a chiller where the exhaust air (bathroom exhaust vent) cools it, then to another air cooler where the chilled water cools it, and then it is suppplied to the cabins. The fresh air supply actually provides slightly more air than the exhaust takes away, so that your cabin is under a slight overpressure with regards to the outside and the passageway, in order to keep smoke from entering the cabin in a fire.

 

Now, when you leave your balcony door open, this releases the overpressure in your cabin, and since air, like anything else, takes the path of least resistance, the fresh air supply will push more of this fresh air into your cabin, at the expense of the 30-50 other cabins in the block. This will typically result in a slew of complaints about warm cabins, and we find the culprit fairly easily, as when I walk down a passageway, I can hear the air whistling under the door of the cabin with the balcony door open. It will also create the "wind tunnel" effect of blowing your papers out the cabin when the passageway door is opened, or cause the door to slam as noted in the first line of the Princess warning.

 

So, no, leaving the balcony door open does not tax your cabin's AC, just everyone around you. You actually get more cool air leaving the door open, even if the cabin recirculation system is off, but everyone else gets less.

 

As for cabin temperatures, a blocked filter on the cabin recirculation AC could be a problem, and you should report it and ask that the filter be looked at. Another thing is that unlike your home, the cruise industry has adopted the hotel industry standard that room temperature in the 72*F range is the "guarantee" spot. This means that if the cabin/room is within a couple of degrees of 72*F, no compensation will be given. While many systems will be able to pull a hotel room below 72, they are not guaranteed to do so. The same with ship's cabins. The biggest problem with balcony cabins are the doors, as these are heat magnets, so if you can keep the drapes closed most of the day (you're probably out of the cabin anyway), this will help the system to pull down the temperature.

 

As for getting the "AC calibrated" after an Alaska season, sorry, but that was pure BS given to you. The system that supplies fresh air to the cabins, as well as the fresh air cooling and recirculation cooling to the public spaces have a set temperature to provide a comfortable atmosphere, whether it is heating or cooling. That set point doesn't change whether the ship is in Alaska or Panama, it only affects how hard the system has to work to meet that set temperature, and that is automatic as well, unless they didn't want to put additional chillers on (at 3-4Mw per chiller, a lot of fuel needed) until absolutely necessary.

[floridalover5623]

Princess AC doesn't cut off if the balcony doors are opened & there's no way to manually switch off the thermostat.

The air just keeps blowing out the register at the expense of the ships system & discomfort of other people.

Now if they would install door cutoff switches on every balcony door, they would have a real money saver.

[chengkp75]

Princess AC doesn't cut off if the balcony doors are opened & there's no way to manually switch off the thermostat.

The air just keeps blowing out the register at the expense of the ships system & discomfort of other people.

Now if they would install door cutoff switches on every balcony door, they would have a real money saver.

 

As I noted, you cannot on any ship shut off the fresh air delivery, which typically shares the supply duct (split behind the grille) with the recirculation duct. So, even if the cabin recirculation is shut off (and I think Princess does), there will still be air blowing out the vent grille. And as noted, the door cutoff switch will only affect the recirculation AC, not the fresh air supply, so there is very little money to save, as this would still only save the chilling of the recirculation air, and would still affect the AC in the whole bank of cabins. The whole idea of the door cutoff switch is not to save money on cooling your cabin with the door open, it is about air balance for the whole bank of cabins.

[pablo222]

Princess AC doesn't cut off if the balcony doors are opened & there's no way to manually switch off the thermostat.

 

Princess could certainly fix this 'problem' with a switch.

 

As they don't see it as a probem, why should any passenger?

[chengkp75]

Princess could certainly fix this 'problem' with a switch.

 

As they don't see it as a probem, why should any passenger?

 

And, again, the door switch only accomplishes a partial shut off of AC, it does not eliminate the major problem which is disrupting the air balance for a block of cabins. To try to shut off the fresh air supply to an individual cabin when the balcony door is opened, it would require a motorized damper in the fresh air duct, as well as a variable speed control on the supply air fan to reduce the volume of air supplied by the number of cabins with balcony doors open. This would require considerable capital cost, as well as continuing maintenance cost.

[floridalover5623]

And, again, the door switch only accomplishes a partial shut off of AC, it does not eliminate the major problem which is disrupting the air balance for a block of cabins. To try to shut off the fresh air supply to an individual cabin when the balcony door is opened, it would require a motorized damper in the fresh air duct, as well as a variable speed control on the supply air fan to reduce the volume of air supplied by the number of cabins with balcony doors open. This would require considerable capital cost, as well as continuing maintenance cost.

There you go.

Actually how many people leave their cabin door open to begin with?

Not enough to recoup the money spent to fix the problem I'll bet.

[chengkp75]

There you go.

Actually how many people leave their cabin door open to begin with?

Not enough to recoup the money spent to fix the problem I'll bet.

 

Hard to tell, if no one complains. My experience is that at least 10 per cruise are reported (other cabins getting warm). And the difference in cost between decals and maintenance personnel time (and possibly from removed DSC) and a differently constructed system outweighs the benefit of fewer complaints.

[IECalCruiser]

Hard to tell, if no one complains. My experience is that at least 10 per cruise are reported (other cabins getting warm). And the difference in cost between decals and maintenance personnel time (and possibly from removed DSC) and a differently constructed system outweighs the benefit of fewer complaints.

Thanks for all you contribute to the Princess boards. As you stated so well, there is no “chemical” exposure in AC systems.

 

 

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