Large Outside Cabin Vs. Balcony

Hi! My family and I will be going on the Voyager this January. I booked the Large Outside cabin --figuring the "211 sq feet" will be okay for my family of four. But within speaking with people a balcony sound intriguing. (a little quiet time w/ Hubby) So I call my travel agent & for $200 more I can get the balcony -- The room is smaller "173 sq feet” My question is --is the smaller space worth the extra cost & the balcony????

Thanks in advance
Sue

[SandraW]

My husband and I like the larger size cabins with a veranda because we enjoy either coffee and rolls in the morning on the veranda...or a quite drink in the evening watching the sunset.

173 sq feet is small for 4 people though, and if you have small children...I'm not sure how comfortable you will be with a veranda.

But a lot will depend on where you are cruising...Will you be spending a lot of time in your cabin, or inside the ship because of cold weather? ( Like Alaska)

Or will you be cruising in warm weather?

But either way, veranda's are very very nice. Once you try it...you may be hard pressed to change back to a cabin with a window only.

[fitzla]

In my opinion, even 211 sqft is too small for a family of 4. 173 sqft is not a big difference at all. I really enjoy having the balcony, so I might go for it. But, 30 some odd sqft might make a difference to some. Its the size of a small walk-in closet.

also the balcony (although small) provides an area that at least one of the four can be outside of the room while everyone is trying to dress, or on nice nights you could actually sleep out on it by putting the chairs together

[momx4]

Do your homework.......Check out every single floor for which cabins are available.
We book a Cat E1, standard balconly cabin, on the Explorer of the Seas for April 06.
The cabin it's self is approx. 173 sq ft, but the veranda is about 200 sq ft. A nice touch.
Our cabin is located on the back corner of the ship (deck 7). Corner cabins are usually small rooms, but have very big balconies. We have #7388 with 3 in this room, more than doable. Check out www.webshots.com, look into the community file and then type in Bonnie Voyager, this lady has some very nice photo that show cabin and balconies on ships. If you can't find your ship, then in same community file, type in your ships name. You will indeed find lots of photo's of it. This site is very useful to us in our cabin selections. Always find photos of almost every cruise line and ship.

If money is not important and kids ages are not young, try 2 rooms. 1 balcony and 1 inside. We have a family of 5, thats what we have to do. We put 2 boys (14 & 13) in the inside and we and 10 yr old take the balcony. Always take an inside cabin right next door. It's great, more space per person and 2 bathrooms. Our 7 night Eastern caribbean cruise for 5 ( 2 rooms) cost us $5900.00 for everything. Not too bad.

Hope this helps and you find a good solution. Just keep looking. RCI is a good company, once you make a deposit and find a room, you can switch it whenever you'd like to another room. Also if balconies looks bigger on the floor plan, it will be bigger in life.

[momx4]

Sue.......just a follow up.
I went and checked it out again. She has good photos of voyager and cabins.
About 4 pages worth. Mostly rear (aft cabins) but these do offer bigger balconies and some are the price of a regular room! Like I said we took cabin #7388, reg. size room, very very large balcony. The balcony has 2 views verses 1. check it out, you'll be happy.

www.webshots.com, click onto community tab on top of screen. Then type in Bonnie Voyager, her list of photo's will appear. Go to photo that says: Stern portside balconies.
Click on that, then find the part on right side of page that say: view entire album.
All her ship photos in that album will appear. Very nice photos.

We have selected various rooms before. Very front of ship, mid ship and rear of ship.
We do not notice any difference in the way we felt. never got sick in any.
Let me know how you made out.

We were recently on the Voyager in a balcony cabin. We have 2 teens. The balcony provided a little more space for 2 people to wait, while the others were getting ready for dinner. Besides... the views are worth the extra money alone. Definitely do the balcony!!!