Its sort of like,,,if you never had one you wouldn't miss it but if you had you can't picture a cruise without it. We did. I didn't have a suite, just a verhanda stateroom but I loved the balcony and have had one on my other crusies too. Its great to sit out there on sea days.
But I will tell you on my Alaska trip it seems everthing that was announced (whales etc) were on the opposite side of the ship so we would have to charge down the stairs to get to the Promanade deck and look out. Some friends had an outside cabin on the promonade deck right by the door leading out so all they had to do was leave their cabin to look out, no matter what side of the ship the "attraction" was on.