Cabin Review

The stateroom:

Met its needs with only a few “hick-ups” that I found throughout our trip. This was a “Disability” Balcony room (I was travelling with my grandmother who uses a walker to get around).

The room was very spacious, with extra room provided so a walker or wheelchair could get around the room with easy. Due to the extra space requirement the room didn’t have one of the small sofas, as is typical of a “normal” balcony room. Offered instead was a normal height table and chair (just one chair though, we would later get a set of two, but not for the whole cruise) which wasn’t a deal killer and make sense given the disability setup of the room. There was a 3rd bunk bed, which was wall mounted, with a access step ladder in the closet.

The room had adequate storage for two people, with a pull down closet hanging rod for someone who can’t reach up to place hangers (Note: the hangers themselves are a bit clumsy to use in my opinion, where I had to play a game of leap frog to get the right hanger positioned where I wanted it within the closet),

The balcony for the disability rooms has a double railing, this is due to a raised steel-plate floor installed outside to be flush with a ramp leading to it, and a minimum height requirement presumably. The space was quite nice and slightly large than a standard balcony, Only flaw I did notice was there was some painters tape around the outside balcony light seemingly leftover when the ship’s maintenance must have doing to touching up, again goes to those little details.

There are only two US plugs in the room, one in the desk/vanity and one in the bathroom, I brought a power strip and extension cord (a tip a read here on CC) and it made life much easier.

Also our mini-fridge didn’t have a handle on it, so that made it a little awkward trying to pry open from the time to time that we utilized it, but wasn’t a hindrance large enough, at least for us, to bring up.

All in all with a location just off the Aft elevator bank, this was a great room, which reminds me speaking of elevators, one crux with the Dawn’s design is that there is only one elevator that gives non-stair access to the Venetian dining room via Level 6, this caused a huge choke point with all those needing to use this particular elevator to come and go. I did notice there seemed to be some way to put in one’s room card and call for an elevator car, however I don’t recall seeing any particular write up regard this feature or its use when related to disability access, if that is the case, that information would have been most helpful for use over our trip.

I did note a few issues that Norwegian (again, if they see this) might want to consider improving or addressing when it comes to the disability rooms, though I can only speak to this specific room, as I have not stayed in any others:

1) there is a ramp that runs up from the level floor into the bathroom, the sides of this ramp, curve back and slope to the floor causing an uneven walking surface on either side of this ramp, however because these sides are carpeted to match the entirety of the rooms floor, if you aren’t really paying close attention to each step, this can cause a slight stumble and potential fall hazard, this stumbling repeatedly occurred for my grandmother as she was traversing around the room, thankfully she didn’t fall, but perhaps some kind of slight marking to denote that “unevenness” of the floor would have been helpful in hindsight.

2) Another hazard I felt should be addressed though not sure what the solution would be, was our staterooms bathroom door, which at times swung wildly while out at sea. This was due to our door not being attached to the hydraulic piston that would normally put pressure on the door to automatically close the door shut when not in use, this “non pressure” of course makes sense in times when someone is trying to transition from the stateroom up a small ramp into the bathroom area, but not easily in wavey/rocky conditions, as illustrated when my lightweight of a grandmother was hit by the heavy swinging door several times while making such a transition, one time resulting in a fairly large bruise on her arm… Norwegian should really look into some kind of locking door piston system for their disability rooms, which ideally would hold the bathroom door into a hard fixed location when in adverse sea conditions, and could then be released when that person has finished transitioning to their intended area on either side of the door.

3) My last suggestion for Norwegian to potential address is the height (or length) of the shower curtain, in at least our cabin bathroom, there was a 3 inch or so “gap” from the bottom of the curtain to the floor, which is good for seeing if anyone is in the shower and I suppose the flow of air, however this allows a water to spray outward across the floor in roughly a 6 inch range on the other side of the entire length of the shower’s border catch drain, I found myself having to wipe up this excess water spray with my towel as to avoid any possible slip hazard… so I wonder if the shower curtain were to stretch down the entire length to the floor border drain, if this spray and potential slip issue would be eliminate.

Outside of the few above-noted issues, it was a most enjoyable cruise and in my opinion, a great cabin, for it's location and available amenities, that can only get better!