by Ron Smoak

Created on: July 21, 2009   Last Updated: July 22, 2009

Probably one of many misunderstood issues in cruising is the selection of the cabin you live in for the duration of the cruise. There are those that contend the time you spend in your cabin is minimal, so you should not care what kind of cabin you reserve. Others feel that the cabin can make or break your cruise. Frankly I fall into that category. Do not let anyone tell you the type of cabin is not important.

First let's look at cruise ships in general. Older cruise ships had hundreds of nooks and crannies where designers jammed cabins. In 1982 my wife and I sailed on the Mardi Gras, one of Carnival's original ships originally built in 1961. This was our first cruise and we had an inside cabin neatly tucked underneath a stairway beside the elevator. It was a very cozy cabin (with bunk beds!) for a very inexpensive price. One of the selling points of this ship was that is had fine wood appointments, a shining example of old-world cruising. The fine wood was beautiful throughout the ship. But what that really meant was that the stairs are made of wood. And when you have a cabin under the stairs and people walk up and down stairs at all times of the day and night... well you get a bit of noise... a lot of noise... tons of noise. Add to that being beside the elevator shaft and this was a disastrous cruise. Thank goodness it was only for three days. It took me twelve years to get the wife back on a cruise ship.

Modern cruise ships, those built expressly for vacation cruising, have a much more purposeful layout. Rather than placing cabins around the inter-workings of the ship, the inter-workings of the ship were placed around the cabins. The result is more uniform, spacious cabins and significantly better deck plans. Crew areas are purposely away from customer cabins as well as areas such as stair wells and elevators. This is not to say that all modern cabins are acceptable to all cruisers; they most assuredly are not. That is were the selection comes in. What should you look out for when deciding on your cruise cabin? Let's take a look at several factors that I use to make my choices.

You have decided on the cruise line and the ship you want to sail upon. To many that is a big decision in itself, not one for this discussion. The first thing I do when deciding on a cabin is get the deck plan. Go to your cruise line website and download the deck plans for your ship. If you cannot download them, print them out. This way you can spread

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