Nowhere to Hide: I Stayed in The Weirdest Cruise Ship Cabin

I’ve just disembarked a cruise where I stayed in a cabin that had a feature I never knew existed onboard cruise ships. It certainly was a weird one and I spent most of the week trying to work out why the cruise line made this decision. Normally when you look at cruise ship cabins they are pretty similar across all the cruise lines and all the ships, they’re usually made in the same factories and theres not really all that much variety that can happen in a space that usually around 9 foot wide. They will change the funishings of course but they still have to fit in a bathroom, a bed and some storage and that’s usually most of the space. The ship that I booked this cruise on was the Costa Smeralda which is a relatively new cruise ship built in 2019. I decided to treat myself and booked a balcony cabin and I’m glad I did because thats where I found the bizarre feature. The description for the cabin said ‘Private Bathroom’ but that wasn’t exactly the case. I booked what is called a guaranteed balcony cabin which meant that I didn’t pick the specific location of the cabin. Usually this means that you get the left over cabins that others didn’t pick but it is cheaper and I’ve never regretted the choice to do that before. I’ve had cabins right at the back of the ship, right at the front, underneath nightclubs, you name it. On this cruise though I was surprised by my cabin location.