Staterooms: 2/5

The staterooms are small like many other cruise ships. However, these are even smaller than the staterooms of some other cruise lines. In addition, the first room that I had on the Sea Princess, A527, was old and outdated. The drawers were broken and did not slide out easily. The temperature settings for the water in the shower did not work well at all. Sometimes after leaving the shower on for a while, the water will get VERY hot, and even setting the water at the lowest temperature will not make any difference. As with any old ship (or building), the walls are very thin. You can hear people in the rooms around you coughing, and can hear conversations in the hallway very clearly. In the morning, expect to wake up to the sounds of housekeeping cleaning the rooms near you.

In our room specifically, A527, there was a spot on the floor that would bend and pop in and out of place. It's as if it was a metal plate that had a bend in it. It couldn't be triggered by just walking around the room, but when the ship was in motion, it would have a loud "pop" when it would go out of place, and then another loud "pop" when it popped back into place. It would be as loud as someone banging on a door or a wall. If it were just the sound, it may not have been as bad, but when it did this, since the foot of the bed was near this spot, it would shake the bed too. During the first half of the cruise, it would only do this every few minutes or so when the ship was in motion, so it somewhat could be ignored (although it still led to nights without good sleep). However, near the end of the cruise, this area would pop in and out of place every few seconds, about 5 to 8 times a minute. This caused us not to get any sleep at all, and we finally got the front desk to switch us to another stateroom. Keep in mind that this cruise was completely sold out, so we were only able to switch to another stateroom because one cleared out after one of the passengers disembarked the ship early. The cruise staff said they would try to fix the issue, but being that this cannot be observed unless the ship were in motion, eventually the customer relations manager took charge and moved us into an upgraded oceanview room E338. This room seemed to not have the issues of the other room. The other room was an inside room, and this was our first time staying in an inside room whereas in other cruises we had always stayed in an oceanview room. However, normally the only difference between the 2 was that one can see the ocean. Still, after staying in the oceanview room during the last few days of our cruise, it is apparent that there are major differences: Read more