7 Days in The Most Controversial "INSIDE" Cabin at Sea

I'm currently on a cruise and I'm staying in an inside cabin with a feature that I've never seen on a cruise ship before I didn't know my cabin would have this when I booked it and I've spent most of this week trying to work out if I'm convinced by the trick the cruise line I'm currently sailing on is Royal Caribbean and they don't make cabins like this on any of their newer ships I wasn't sure if that meant that there would be downsides that I hadn't thought about or maybe it was just a gimmick that didn't really have any benefits either way I wanted to find out for myself usually when you look at inside cabins on cruise ships they're pretty similar it's basically a big metal box with a bed in it a desk and a bathroom in the corner you might find that the layout is different but there isn't really a lot that you can do in a space this size or so I thought the cabins are made fully formed like this and they're slid into the side of the cruise ship anthem of the Seas actually has 378 cabins just like mine one of the main downsides of inside cabins is the lack of natural light you really do have no idea when you wake up if it's 3:00 a.m. or 3:00 p.m. it looks exactly the same you pretty much have to guess the weather and the temperature too when you're getting dressed in the morning it isn't a big problem but it's definitely nicer to stay in a regular balcony when Royal Caribbean launched what is called a virtual inside this promised to be the solution to these problems the idea being that you would have an inside cabin with a big TV screen on the wall which would show you what was outside and in theory trick you into thinking that you're in a balcony cabin some people did say that this screen actually made them feel seasick which I thought was a bit strange after all it is just a giant TV but maybe it would be more convincing than I thought possibly all that I wanted was to get on this Cruise as cheaply as possible so I booked what is called a guaranteed cabin that means that you're guaranteed to at least get the cabin type that you've paid for but you don't pick the actual location of it there is more of a chance of an upgrade but you do often get left with the less desirable leftover State rooms that no one else has chosen I was cruising with family so I figured I wouldn't be spending a lot of time in my cabin anyway but we were cruising to Norway so I did wonder how much I would make those Norwegian views a few weeks before the cruise I got an email and noticed that my cabin had been assigned I headed straight to Royal Caribbean's website to have a look at the deck plans and I found my cabin towards the front of deck 13 I was assigned cabin 13139 and here it said a interconnecting virtual inside cabin the interconnecting thing was a little bit of a concern I have had cabins like that in the past that have been noisy but I was far more interested in this virtual inside idea virtual did make it sound like some sort of 4D Cinema I could just imagine a fan going maybe they pump in smells and sounds that would be pretty cool I had a quick search to find out what people were saying about the cabin and I found one review that said hate is not a strong enough word to describe how much I loathed it I can't imagine being that upset by a big TV but a few people did say that it stopped the room from being completely dark and I could understand how that would be annoying others said that it was the best thing since sliced bread and I am a massive fan of sliced bread so I really did hope so when we boarded the ship we headed up the stairs to deck 13 from where we came in on Deck 5 there are lifts and elevators of course but I prefer to leave those for people who need them and on this cruise I averaged walking up 37 flights of stairs a day according to my watch so I'm very used to the stairs that doesn't phase me at all we were a little bit further than the forward staircase and I love the modern feel of the corridors and the signs when my six-year-old niece who I was cruising with on this Cruise saw this sign she said we aren't there that's under the ship and she has a very good point that did make me laugh we found our cabin down the middle Corridor and I hope that meant that it would be quiet I've had cabins above nightclubs before underneath bars I've been right at the front of the ship right at the back I'm pretty used to loud cabin locations but I do always hope for quiet there would be no reason for anyone to come down this Corridor unless they had one of these few cabins outside our door were our cruise cards in a little packet and the doors to The Cabins were open these Cruise cards are what you used to charge things to in your room it's how they know who is on and off the ship and when they scan these it does come up with a picture of you so they can't just take and use your card unless I guess they are literally your twin and then perhaps but apart from that don't worry about it the fact that the doors were open meant that I was able to have a little peek into next store's cabin I noticed that theirs was much bigger than ours and it turns out that this is an accessible cabin most modern cruise ships do have accessible cabins which are larger and they don't have a step up into the bathroom the bathrooms are normally more like big wet rooms and there are lots of extra things like grab rails around the room these cabins are limited in number and they do sell out very fast so when people need a room like this they normally need to plan further ahead this cabin was interconnecting with mine meaning that there was a door between the two rooms it's locked of course unless you are cruising together but if you are traveling in a big group it can be really great to have this feature it's not a lot of fun if you have to go out into the corridor in the evening in your pajamas and go into another room to pick up a toothbrush because you've forgotten yours I say that because I did forget to bring a toothbrush on this Cruise even as much as I travel I still do forget things I'm thinking at this point maybe I should just invest in two toothbrushes I haven't done it yet but maybe that's a good idea when I walked into this cabin I said wow and I actually said the word wow I know people often describe things as having a wow factor but this one really did for me I loved the look of the room when I walked in but of course I was instantly drawn to this massive TV screen that goes from floor to ceiling apparently it's 80 in high which for reference my cat Hudson is 13 in high so that's like six Hudsons stacked on top of each other which is an interesting image on the screen I could see the wonderful sits of Southampton England and another cruise ship off in the distance looking at it I was really impressed it was a live feed of outside so if I waited long enough I would see the birds flying by we were heading to Norway on this Cruise so I was looking forward to seeing a lot more interesting scenery than Southampton I was so excited to wake up and to open these curtains in the morning to see where where we were it didn't take me long to realize that the camera view was of the back of the ship but it was on the front wall of our cabin not that you could tell which way the ship was going from inside the cabin anyway but I thought that was interesting to note the cabin next to us had their screen on their back wall which would be the side of the ship the cabin itself felt very spacious the chair there was a little bit awkward but it very quickly became the chair for things that were not really dirty enough to wash but also not really clean enough to put away I'm pretty convinced everyone has a chair like that opposite that was a TV a desk with a massive mirror that lights up and a kettle I definitely let down my British roots on this Cruise because I didn't even have one cup of tea I had an unlimited soda package on this cruise and I was busy making weird and wonderful combinations of drinks from the coke machines the bed looked big and comfortable I noticed that there's a plug by one side so if you do ever stay in a cabin like this make sure you bagsy that one as soon as possible your britishism of the week is the word bagsy and bagsy just means to sort of lay claim on something it's similar to cooling dibs I think that is the same thing but you can ask someone to bag see you a packet of crisps for example crisps being potato chips and we'll do that another day there was storage above the bed and this part did remind me of a caravan a little bit not in a bad way and this cabin was much nicer than any Caravan I've ever stayed in much cleaner too this cabin was spotless it was cleaned every single day we were only on board for 7 days so we didn't really have a lot of stuff but if I did I imagine this extra space would be very useful it was around now that our suitcases arrived in our cabin and we decided to unpack we were very lucky because it only took our bags about an hour to get to our cabin my mom's bag did go walkabouts for about 7 hours no idea where it was during that time but it was a relief when it showed up at her room my mom had a balcony cabin Down On Deck 10 here there was an area for hanging clothes a safe and lots of different shelves at the bottom we found a few big drawers and we used this part at the bottom of the Wardrobe just for the shoes and the bags we put our suitcases under the bed and as the cruise went on I would just wear my clothes and then put them straight into the suitcase that meant that by the end of the cruise I was already 90 95% packed when I do have a balcony cabin I love to watch the sail away from there but I didn't think this screen would really be the same so I headed up to the top deck to watch our Sail Out of Southampton I figured we would have long sains and that I would catch one of those from my bed on the screen later every cruise ship cabin has its own bathroom and ours was a fair size it wasn't the biggest and definitely wasn't the smallest I've had the toilet work the sink worked the shower worked and I don't really think there's anything else I need from a cruise ship bathroom perhaps a towel animal Monkey well one of those did show up in our cabin one day I'm glad I looked in here with the lights on because I can't imagine going to the toilet in the night not knowing that this was here and trying to work out what that was when half asleep that would be very scary we did get the pool towels and bring them to our cabin just cuz they're quite a bit bigger than the regular white ones on Royal Caribbean you do have to return them to the pool deck or you get F $25 so it's definitely important to remember that they're nice but they're not worth $25 our bathroom did have a little NightLight which was great and the light from the balcony did help when trying to find the bathroom at night when we went to sleep this first night I pulled the curtains and I put a chair in front to try and stop the light coming through there still is a bit of light here even though the screen was mostly black but personally I really like it it was convincing at night not so much in the day when I woke up in the middle of the night I could tell if it was night time or if the sun was rising and that was fantastic I know it might sound like a small thing but it really makes a massive difference in the morning I could pull the curtain slightly and let in a little bit of light at a time instead of going from dark to light straight away and I always feel so much better when I start my day like that I guess my eyes just need some time to adjust our first day on board was a SE day so we didn't really see much from the screen apart from this giant towel animal but still I was really enjoying it I did wonder if we could turn off this screen because I knew that some people wouldn't like all of this light at night a few people had told me that the screen had made them feel seasick and I'm not really sure that this screen would ever have that effect on me but we were lucky enough to have very calm seas every day of our cruise I will say though that the camera at the back was at a slight angle and the balcony screen did have a fake balcony overlaid on the top which just highlighted to me how wonky the camera was personally I think it would be better without this pretend rail it wasn't convincing me anyway so if that wasn't there I wasn't going to worry about falling out I was not convinced I did wonder if first if maybe we really were leaning a little but we definitely weren't the camera is just always like this on most cruise ships you are able to see a view like this either from the front or the back on the cabin TV we didn't really use the cabin TV on this cruise but we could see things on there like the daily schedule we could watch some shows on demand Royal Caribbean have an app that lets you check most of those things anyway though so we would normally go for that overt turning on the TV because I was cruising with family on this cruise I was able to spend some time on their balconies and there is no doubt that you can't beat a real balcony the views of Norway like this were just incredible the only way to beat it would be with a suite of course and I did meet a friend on board who invited me to have a look around her Suite it was absolutely amazing it had a huge living room two bedrooms a massive balcony and my favorite part is a bath it has a real bath that is living the dream waking up in our first Port of Bergen and seeing the scenery was fabulous Norway is a beautiful place no matter how you look at it and having the scenery here just made us more excited to get get up and get dressed and go out and have a look outside it was hard to gauge the weather but I did have an internet package and I could at least see on the screen if it was raining the internet on this Cruise was actually the fastest I've ever had at Sea which I didn't expect for a bit of context on most cruises I'm impressed if I get five or six megabits per second and I'm pretty used to having one or two on this cruise I had 110 megabits per second that's very very fast on formal night I did try to pose with the balcony the same way I would if we had a regular balcony and I'm not sure it convinced anybody but it was fun to pretend I have heard since that some people did have remotes to turn off their TV screen but we didn't have one in our cabin and every other person I spoke to on the ship said that they didn't have a remote either I'm guessing you could ask your cabin Sher to turn it off for you if you really wanted it to be very dark but we definitely didn't I much prefer this cabin to a normal completely dark inside if fresh air is important to you but the SE views aren't there is actually a balcony cabin that fits that I know it does not sound possible but it absolutely is I had a cabin just like that on a recent Royal Caribbean cruise to find out what I liked about it and what problems we had check out this video next I'll see you there

Channel: Emma Cruises

Views: 625,384

Keywords: cruise, cruise tips, emma cruises

Id: AKgX8mKjmxU

Length: 12min 42sec (762 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 08 2024