Cabin Review

We opted for a mini suite, at the back of the ship (cabin #8459) which was on the starboard side. The cabin was a decent size, with plenty of cupboard / wardrobe space for clothes, a large double bed, decent sized bathroom, plenty of light thanks to the 3 windows, and a huge L-shaped balcony (which had a table and 2 chairs and a lounger for sunbathing). The ship is only one year old so the cabin was in very good condition. There were however several drawbacks to this cabin (and probably to most cabins situated on this deck) : (1) Deck 9 is a public deck, and passengers above were always looking down on to our balcony, and were often smoking, which made it very unpleasant. Cigarette ash was all over the balcony floor and hand rail and furniture, and the cabin steward didn't clean it as often as he could have done. In hindsight, I should have opted for a mini suite on decks 7 or 6, which were further away from the smoke and overlooking passengers of deck 9.(2) We were woken up every single morning at 6am by a loud 'clanging' noise, which came from the crew stairway which was located next to our cabin door. Unfortunately, there were crew stairways on both the port side and starboard side at the rear of the ship, so there would have been no way of avoiding this disturbance, even if we could have changed cabins.Apart from the above, the cabin was well soundproofed and you could rarely hear any noise from deck 9 above, which is where the adult pool is located, and there was virtually no noise from adjacent cabins or from the outside corridors. Plus, we were oblivious to the noise of the ship's engines, and could hardly notice that we were moving (the sailing was very smooth for this cruise).The cabin was kept relatively clean throughout the cruise. However, the steward would frequently forget to replenish the pool towels (on this ship, 1 shabby-looking pool towel per passenger is given per day, in your cabin, unlike other American ships where they're readily available on the pool decks...). The bedding wasn't changed throughout the cruise, and the balcony was infrequently cleaned.