tell me about the front facing cabins...

[marshabear]

I am looking to book a cruise on the Sun...

 

I have never sailed with Norwegian before...

 

What are the pros and cons to booking a front facing balcony cabin??

 

the sailing I am considering is the Mex Riviera/Sea of Cortez out of San Francisco in Oct ' 09...

 

also, since we are from the east coast and have never cruised out of any west coast ports, what kind of weather will we have that time of year???

 

thanks!

 

Marsha

[Don Haynes]

There are a few problems with front facing cabins:

Closing the curtains at night to not affect the bridge personnel

Two doors to the balcony to combat the wind tunnel

Balcony may not be used at sea during rough seas

 

Otherwise in port they are wonderful suites and cabins forward. I don't like them too much because they are usually a long way from the restaurants, and clubs.

[LateCruiser]

We loved our AC suite on the Jewel. The balcony was HUGE:D and we were able to use it most of the time. Don pretty well covered the cons, but I consider those minimal in comparison to the pros.

[electricron]

Having views of both sides of the ship as you approach them is great. But, there are cons as Don mentioned.

 

Just realize the cons exist mainly for safety reasons.

 

An aft facing cabin is much better, without any of the cons for safety. But you are still a long ways away from many facilities placed forward on the ship.

 

I personally like a midships cabin better, but then I don't get views from both sides of the ship.

[Sam The Cat]

My GF and I have traveled on the Dawn and was in suite 9502 after our original suite was destroyed a month earlier by a rogh wave. When the sea was smoth we loved in however we did hit some rough seas and the crew came in and locked the bulk head door which goes out to the balcony and there was a sign due to the weather not to open this door. We did have waves that hit our bulk head door

 

We last traveled on the Spirt and had the owners suite in the aft and we loved it some people posted about noise but we did not hear anything and keep our balcony door open all the time Granted we did not have the weather like on the Dawn but I think that we enjoyed the room/view on the Spirit better of course having the owners suite did not hurt either.

 

We have booked our next cruise on the Gem in April and reserved a penthouse suite in the aft and hoping for another great cruise

[Laoghaire]

I am looking to book a cruise on the Sun...

 

I have never sailed with Norwegian before...

 

What are the pros and cons to booking a front facing balcony cabin??

 

the sailing I am considering is the Mex Riviera/Sea of Cortez out of San Francisco in Oct ' 09...

 

also, since we are from the east coast and have never cruised out of any west coast ports, what kind of weather will we have that time of year???

 

thanks!

 

Marsha

 

Hi Marsha,

 

We usually cruise with RCI, but took a 19 day Panama Canal cruise in April/May aboard the NCL Sun. We loved NCL and the wonderful way they treated us as suite passengers. We had #9202, a forward suite directly below the bridge. You will not have a problem using the huge balcony! It was all windows and with a sliding door. There was no double door to the balcony. We used it all the time. We did not have to close the drapes at night, because the balcony didn't "jut" out below the bridge. It was flush with it. We didn't have any rough seas, but I don't think they would have closed off the veranda if there had been any.

 

We enjoyed our NCL cruise so much, we booked NCL Pearl for Sept of '09, a 14 day Panama Canal from LA to Miami. We booked another forward suite, a AC, which we may well have to close those drapes at night. It won't bother us.

 

Any questions? Feel free to ask.

 

Helen

[cruzinaway]

We loved our owners suite 10504 on the Gem. It faced forward but also wrapped around the side which gave us the use of two balconies. If the forward one became too windy (our first day at sea) we just moved to the side :) .

 

Closing the drapes at night to the forward balcony wasn't a big deal for us. The side balcony doors/drapes could remain open.

 

The noise was minimal and the views coming into port were spectacular. We did feel the motion at night a bit more than when we were mid-ship on other cruises. Other than that one negative, I would say the forward facing balconies are the BEST!

 

Happy cruising.

[Fishbait17]

The forward balconies on the Sun do not have the same "weathertight" doors as the Jewel and Pearl. They are simply sliders. We were in the OS, on the Pool Deck, above the bridge, so we never had to worry about keeping the drapes closed (don't know how much we opened them after dark anyway, only enough to clear the doors anyway). The OS had 3 sliders to the balcony, and we didn't have the same "windtunnel" effect we did on the front of the Pearl and Jewel. We only had one sea day where using the balcony was particularly windy, the other sea day and the port days were great or lightly windy. Phenomenal views. Great sizes.

 

Robin

[maryln]

It was great sitting on our forward suite balcony on the Spirit, especially when entering and leaving ports.

[bige34]

ehy must the curtains be closed? how does this affect the bridge?

[bakerintn]

ehy must the curtains be closed? how does this affect the bridge?

 

 

The lights from the cabin effect their night vision. If you saw the bridge at night, they are operating with red lights to improve their night vision. You bright white lights would seem extra bright to them.

 

This, of course, only applies if the windows are not inset "back of" the front of the bridge.

[ali07]

I think I just answered a similar question on another thread...:)

 

We stayed in 1002 on the Sun and we loved the room. It really is a wonderful view out the front. We even saw a huge group of dolphins swim across the bow.

 

It is pretty private. If you go to the rail and stand on your tippy-toes, you will be able to see the people standing at the rail above you (and they'll want to know how you got down there!) Otherwise, its really quite private, as the side dividers are solid to the ground.

 

The balcony was huge, we even had a lounger (I can't remember if we had one or two), and the deck was made of wood.

 

It was a bit windy on one of the sea days (it was windy everywhere on the ship that day) but it wasn't enough to keep us inside.

 

The stateroom itself is a bit irregular, and since we have only been on this one NCL cruise, I don't know how it compares to other NCL staterooms. We were three women staying in the room and we found places to put all of our stuff but there was less storage than on the RCI ships that I have been on. I remember thinking at the time, it might have been a squeeze to put in the 4th person.

 

Its on the pool deck which is convenient and fun, and near the forward elevators. Its quiet in the hall because you really only get local traffic wandering in the hallways.

 

I loved the stateroom and would book it again.