Is a Balcony Worth the Extra Cost?

If you’re planning your first cruise, no doubt you’ve pondered this question. The truth is, once you get your first balcony, you’ll never turn back.

Your budget may be tight and a balcony may not be an option. But if it is, consider springing for one.

Here’s why:

No better way to nap. The slap of the water against the ship is a built-in noise machine. Add a glass of wine and you’ve got napping nirvana.

Voilà, a two-room stateroom. Spouse still sleeping? Slip out onto the balcony. He can keep sleeping. And you’ve got your personal space.


Ft. Lauderdale sail-away from the balcony of Celebrity's Constellation

Breakfast and the balcony are made for each other. Slide open the doors, step outside in your robe and breakfast by the sea. A great way to begin the day!

The quiet! Many people get balconies, but hardly anyone uses them. Oh, you’ll see lots of folks on the verandahs on sail-away day. But after that, they’re too busy in the casino, shops and around the pool to hang out on their balconies.

The smoke’s all gone. With most of the cruise lines banning smoking on the balcony, you can now breathe deeply with no ciggie smoke blowing by.

You’ll see things others won’t. The balcony allows you to be at the right place at the right time, camera in hand, fired up and ready to go. We’ve captured some amazing shots, like stupendous sunsets. A rainbow over the Dominica mountains. A schooner checking out St. Lucia’s Petons just as the sky explodes with color. And we didn’t need to jockey for position on a crowded deck to capture it all. 

St. Lucia and the schooner from the balcony of HAL's Noordam

Soak up the sun away from view. While your balcony may not always be on the sunny side of the ship, when it is, you get to bathe in the warmth without being shoulder-to-shoulder with your fellow cruisers.

Get out of the cold. We debated whether to get a balcony on our Alaskan cruise, but were glad we did. In late May, Glacier Bay was a toasty 49 degrees. We took in the glaciers from our verandah, and then bopped back into the room to feel our fingers again.



On the balcony of the Caribbean Princess.

Stargazer’s delight. The night sky, unbroken by trees or power lines, presents a planetarium-worth view of what’s above you. 

Entertaining Thoughts

Think entertainment, and you usually picture a stage. But a lot of cruise ship entertainment takes place off stage and in the most unlikely of places. Here are just a few:
 
Bartender as showman. Juggling, it seems, is a new prerequisite for bartending. Many a cruise lounge features a bartender right out of Cocktail, sending glasses and bottles swirling into the air to a squealing and appreciative crowd. One “Quest” event’s opening act featured bartenders outdoing each other in their alcohol antics.
 
Crew talent night. We’ve seen these on Holland America (HAL), but the listing is buried in the newsletter and the events are late at night. But they’re well worth staying up for and great for the crew, too. They get to show they can do more than clean rooms and deliver food. And it can be a real treat to hear an unassuming room steward from Indonesia suddenly fill the room with a heart-stopping rendition of “O Sole Mia.”
 
Food for fun. I talked about this one in an earlier blog post, how the ships have taken the lead from TV and turned cooking into entertainment. We’ve seen “Iron Chef” knockoffs on HAL, kitchen crew skits on Princess, and been to countless food demos through HAL’s partnership with Food and Wine magazine, and on Celebrity’s ships as well.
 
Towel animals. Alas, towel animals are becoming a dying breed, as the ships try to better manage

room stewards’ workloads. Cruise veterans know the surprise of coming back from dinner to be greeted by a white elephant or swan sitting serenely on the bed, or a cotton monkey dangling from the ceiling. Our last menagerie was recently on Allure of the Seas.
 
Offbeat and memorable. We tend to think of ship captains as a serious lot, but one in particular smashed that misconception forever. He and another senior crew member delighted a loyalty club audience with their mimicry of two bulked-up acrobats.
 
Next to you at dinner, in the bar or the lounge chair. In the end, few forms of entertainment can beat watching your fellow passengers. There was the plump, white-bearded elderly man on a December cruise who showed up each day wearing a red stocking hat. The 30-something partyer who grabbed a wild iguana off the rocks in St. Thomas’ Crown Bay. Formal night’s kilts and kimonos. Bow-tied tots and five-inch stilettos.

The formal entertainment, food and ports on a cruise are a given. But it’s the unexpected that you really remember. And in the end, isn’t that what travel’s all about?