Back for the next installment of the Day at Sea entries… Today’s entry is on the Staterooms and Passenger Decks… For this trip, we elected to take our very first Guarantee stateroom (meaning that Princess can place us in any location as long as the category of stateroom is equal or greater than the one we paid for). In this case, we purchased an Oceanview category E stateroom and we ended up upgraded by one category to a D Oceanview stateroom. This placed our location on the vessel on Deck 4 mid-ship. Given some of the ship movement we are having during our days at sea, the mid-ship placement is certainly helpful.
Our room is a generous size (just slightly larger than other rooms we have had in the past) on the Royal, and this is probably due to the conversion of this ship over to Princess from the previous owning ship company. Unlike previous Princess rooms, where the stateroom is divided into two sections, the primary being the bedroom space and the secondary being the closet, storage, and bathroom, our room for this trip is one large rectangle with no breakup of space between the entry door and the oceanview picture window. Two huge floor to ceiling mirrors give the feeling of additional space, and though the closet and drawer space is slightly less than on other Princess vessels, it is sufficient for two people.
Passenger decks on-board the Royal exist on Decks 4, 6, 7, & 8. So, the only passenger sandwiched deck on this vessel is Deck 7. Though this can generally be a source of concern for passengers, our location is generally only impacted by activities related to the Tender process (which generally occurred just below our window), but was always during daytime hours, so there was no impact to our sleeping. In addition, above our cabin, was the Promenade walkway surrounding Deck 5, but this was reasonably well insulated against sound.
There have been some scattered reports of concerns amongst some passengers we’ve spoken to about their locations on Deck 6 (above the main entertainment lounge), and Deck 8 (pool deck chair noise, etc.), so overall we are pretty satisfied at our location on the vessel.
The bathroom is standard Princess layout, though the shower is just a touch smaller than we are accustomed to, but as with everything on-board the Royal — small reductions, with minimal overall impact.
There is also a small coin-op laundromat on Deck 7 (5 washers and 5 dryers for the entire ship), so timing is critical to accomplish your wash, if the requirement presents itself.
A work desk, power plugs, a small refrigerator, and a flat screen TV complete the setup, with standard Princess TV and in-house movie offerings.
Tomorrow – Rocking and Rolling On-board
Leave a reply