Secret cabins at front of Royal Princess

[cruiseypop]

Does anyone know what the secret cabins are at the front of Royal Princess?  They do not show on deck plans, but simply empty space, yet the windows are there.  Also, the suites in the corners have the deck on the side, but no window, so it appears even the end windows are to something else?

 

Anyone know what these are?

 

 

[BarbinMich]

Perhaps cabin for crew, esp. officers who work on the bridge?  Although 24 cabins would seem like more than needed for them.  Perhaps other staff/crew?  Seems like I've seen a door at the end of the hall(s) up there that says "Crew only".  There are pax cabins up there on Marina and Lido decks.

Edited November 13, 2019 by BarbinMich

[cruiseypop]

And from the deck plans it is deep, so there could even be 3 deep of interior cabins behind it.  There could be as many as 72 cabins in this space.  It  may even have it's own elevators from lower decks and/or to the bridge!

 

Seems pretty cool.  I've always wondered what the captains cabin looks like.

 

Captain Stubings was fancy with wood paneling.

 

[franktown]

27 minutes ago, cruiseypop said:

Does anyone know what the secret cabins are at the front of Royal Princess?  They do not show on deck plans, but simply empty space, yet the windows are there.  Also, the suites in the corners have the deck on the side, but no window, so it appears even the end windows are to something else?

 

Anyone know what these are?

 

 

The suites on deck 9-12 do have a front facing window in the bedroom and a deck on the side in the sitting room. Stayed in Baja 102.  Do not recall what the blank space was.

[skynight]

Crew cabins.

[Schrute Bucks]

Officer Cabins

[XBGuy]

As a couple previous posters have already said. the foreward suites on the the various decks do have foreward-facing windows in addition to side-facing balconies.  I took your picture and added an arrow to the window we had in Suite B101 in September.

 

 

Mrs. XBGuy absolutely loved that window on our Alaska cruise.

 

So, the outboard windows are all attached to suites, and, as, again, others have posted, I'm pretty sure that the eight inboard windows are senior officer quarters.  There is another possibility.  I have been told that the highest paid person on most cruise ships is the Art Auction Manager.  I can see that a primo cabin might also be part of that persons contract.

 

[voljeep]

I heard two crew members talking about meeting at the crew bar by the bowling alleys ... maybe that's there also

[Vexorg]

Not sure about the Royal class ships, but when I did the Ultimate Ship Tour on the Ruby we walked by some of the crew cabins on the way to the bridge, and it looks like a lot of them go ships officers or department heads (cruise director, hotel manager), but some of the "headliner" entertainers (such as the Crooners piano player, members of the house band, possibly the production show performers) had cabins in this section as well.  I believe that guest entertainers generally get put in passenger cabins though.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Vexorg

[Colo Cruiser]

1 hour ago, voljeep said:

I heard two crew members talking about meeting at the crew bar by the bowling alleys ... maybe that's there also

Yes!!  The bowling alley.

Where all the barrel chairs were taken.

[DrivesLikeMario]

This is for anyone who is wondering what is above that section you circled in red.

[Vexorg]

Another interesting thing to note is that the two Mitsubishi ships (Diamond and Sapphire) have passenger cabins at the front of the ship on the Caribe and Dolphin decks.  They're listed as "Premium Oceanview" but they have balconies, although said balconies cannot be used when the ship is underway.  If I recall correctly your cabin steward would have to unlock them for you when you're in port, and I'm not sure if they even do that anymore.

 

I was going to sail in one of these on my last Sapphire trip, but ended up getting upgraded to an actual balcony so I never found out how it worked.

[Waynetor]

The lower bow area below the windows is crew cabin area.  I had a friend that worked the customer service desk and her cabin was in behind the theater on deck 7.  There were stairs that led down to deck 5 to get to work area.  

[PrincessMate]

When I was going over the new Sky Princess deck plans a few months ago (before her maiden voyage) I had a similar question. I documented the attached info and reached out to Don's Family Vacations (a YouTube Creator) with my question who in turn reached out to Princess. The true answer was rather disappointing. 

"The area is a combination of storage and ship controls like piping, duct work, navigation controls ect.  the Regal, Royal, and Majestic have the same thing.   The widows are there to make the ship visually more pleasing than just a window on each side."

 

It's so sad that nobody gets to enjoy those windows, but that is the sad truth.

[cruiseypop]

It never fails to amaze me the wealth of information that can be had from Cruise Critic when one asks a question!  Thanks everyone!

 

[geoherb]

2 hours ago, Vexorg said:

Another interesting thing to note is that the two Mitsubishi ships (Diamond and Sapphire) have passenger cabins at the front of the ship on the Caribe and Dolphin decks.  They're listed as "Premium Oceanview" but they have balconies, although said balconies cannot be used when the ship is underway.  If I recall correctly your cabin steward would have to unlock them for you when you're in port, and I'm not sure if they even do that anymore.

 

We had one of those cabins on the Sapphire in Alaska. The balcony door had a decal on it about being locked while the ship was in motion, but it never was. We asked our cabin steward about it the first day. He said we could go out there anytime, even when the ship was moving. But at night, we had to keep the lights off or the curtains drawn so that light would not interfere with the officers on the bridge.

 

We were in one of the Royal's suites with the forward facing window. Our cabin steward let us keep the blinds on it open. The angled ceiling was a little bit in the way, but we loved having a suite for the other perks.

[Colo Cruiser]

4 hours ago, Vexorg said:

Another interesting thing to note is that the two Mitsubishi ships (Diamond and Sapphire) have passenger cabins at the front of the ship on the Caribe and Dolphin decks.  They're listed as "Premium Oceanview" but they have balconies, although said balconies cannot be used when the ship is underway.  If I recall correctly your cabin steward would have to unlock them for you when you're in port, and I'm not sure if they even do that anymore.

 

I was going to sail in one of these on my last Sapphire trip, but ended up getting upgraded to an actual balcony so I never found out how it worked.

We have sailed in these.

No locks.

Just a suggestion/sticker/notice.

[DrivesLikeMario]

19 hours ago, PrincessMate said:

When I was going over the new Sky Princess deck plans a few months ago (before her maiden voyage) I had a similar question. I documented the attached info and reached out to Don's Family Vacations (a YouTube Creator) with my question who in turn reached out to Princess. The true answer was rather disappointing. 

"The area is a combination of storage and ship controls like piping, duct work, navigation controls ect.  the Regal, Royal, and Majestic have the same thing.   The widows are there to make the ship visually more pleasing than just a window on each side."

 

It's so sad that nobody gets to enjoy those windows, but that is the sad truth.

"Who has access to these windows?"  Crew members.  I believe they are higher-level crew quarters.