Ours was cabin 5609 located on deck 5 midship. And by “our,” I mean my mom and I. This was a bucket list extended family cruise taking place over two holidays and a birthday and in total we booked three cabins, two interiors and one club balcony. My mom drew the short straw and had to share one of the inside cabins with me. I kept arguing that it could have been worse, that she could have been in with the 10 year-old who believes that showering more than once a week is an unspeakable burden or his father who believes sleeping past 4am is excessively lazy.
Still, 16-nights in a tiny cabin with me would tax any relationship. So, were mom and I still speaking at the end of it? Read on to find out!
Before I get into the details of what we loved and didn’t love about our inside cabin on the Star, here’s a complete cabin tour (and you can see a complete tour of my in-laws club balcony cabin HERE):
While the layout of our cabin was atypical, facing horizontally instead of vertically, the space and layout worked well for us.
After 14 days of sharing a room together, I realized I’d accidentally been using my mom’s cell phone as a coaster since day one. That’s to say my mom doesn’t utilize technology much while cruising. However, I write a cruise blog and maintain several related social media accounts for a living. Plus, I require a rechargeable clip fan for the gym and rechargeable heated gloves for any time the temp dips below 50 (and now we know exactly how many sentences out of my mouth it takes the average person to realize I’m a weirdo…lol). Lucky for me, there were four USB chargers that I could hog all for myself – one by each bed and two near the desk area (under the TV).
If you enjoy getting intimate with cloth shower curtains, you’ll be disappointed. But if you’re sharing your inside cabin with a sweaty elephant, you’ll be relieved. Why? Because there’s a solid sliding door on the HUGE shower.
True story. One time my husband spent three days of a cruise on the floor of our cabin looking like something you might find in the reject bin at a pretzel factory. He ended up there after throwing out his back while reaching down to put my emergency dessert in the ground-level mini fridge. Silver lining was that he remained within short reach of the fridge which I remembered to restock for him when a brief pang of guilt struck me upon re-boarding our ship after spending 6 hours at the beach. We won’t get into the details of how he peed, but before you accuse me of being a horrible wife, note that it involved a makeshift urinal that had to be emptied regularly despite my best efforts at limiting his liquid intake. #wifeoftheyear
Has that happened to anyone else? No? Fine. But now you understand why I was so thrilled with our elevated fridge on the Star! It was tucked in below some storage shelves and above some drawers. No bending required! And with a stern warning to my husband (who was sharing a similar cabin with our son) to, FOR THE LOVE, not store his underwear, or ANYTHING for that matter, in that bottom drawer, we avoided earning a repeat honor for “weirdest visit to the medical center.”
You might use the mini-fridge to keep beverages cool, but I used it to store some homemade frosted sugar cookies that traveled 5,504 miles from NY to Buenos Aires. Why, you ask? Because they’re that good and my mother-in-law knew that without their safe delivery to me, she would either not see her grandson at all for our 16-night cruise or, even worse, would be 100% responsible for his care for our 16-nights.
The thermostat in our cabin allowed us to quickly adjust the temperature from hot to cold and it was a good thing, because our itinerary basically included all four seasons. Hand to God we went from wearing shorts and, at times, wondering if we’d spontaneously combusted to each donning enough winter gear to outfit an entire Siberian village in mid-February.
Ours was the closest possible cabin to the midship elevators. Was it loud, you ask? We did hear people congregating near the elevators at times, especially while waiting to disembark at port. However, it also allowed us to meet our goal of logging under 20 steps per day. On balance, worth it!
While there were plenty of USB outlets, there was only one 3-prong American style outlet. You may want to consider packing one of these (these are approved specifically for cruise ships), if you require additional outlets (or bring a European outlet converter if you have one of those already):
While our cabin shower was large enough for an elephant, she’d have to run up and down the halls to air dry (What’s more annoying than screaming children running up and down the halls? An elephant with the zoomies), because we didn’t even receive an adequate number of towels for two small-sized humans. Only two large towels were provided each day even after we asked our steward for more (he provided an additional hand towel, but no large towels). While we do try to minimize our towel use as a small step toward reducing our environmental impact, it was tough to have just two large towels for two people who sometimes needed to shower multiple times per day (after a visit to the gym, pool, etc). I found myself hiding a few larger towels in the closet to dry each night, so our steward wouldn’t take them.
NCL did away with both of these some time ago and while neither are a huge deal to us, we still enjoy having these services on lines that still provide them.
Our steward had so many cabins to clean, often ours wasn’t completed until well into the evening. He was extremely positive and friendly, but the level of service just wasn’t comparable to other lines (no evening turndown service, we asked for extra towels and never received them, etc). My in-laws didn’t receive cabin service at all one day because their (wonderful) steward simply ran out of time to complete all of his assigned cabins.
While this was a very basic stateroom, I’m a very basic gal with very basic needs. A minimum of six cruises per year with at least one of them longer than 14 nights to a bucket list destination. See? Easy! Lol. But seriously, I can afford to cruise as often as I do because I usually book the least expensive cabin category available. And I enjoy the same food, the same entertainment, the same ports, and the same beautiful ocean views as those who spend much, much (much!) more. So would I book this cabin on the Star again? Yes! And were mom and I still speaking at the end of it? Yes! In fact, all of us were still speaking after 16 days together. In-laws from both sides and a kid. Long international flights. Tiny cabins. Dozens of meals seated at a small table together. I mean, what were the chances we’d still like each other at the end of it all? But we did! And we can’t wait to do another long, extended family cruise! And with that…
Class Dismissed!
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Homework (10 points): Ask any questions you may have about our cabin or experience on the Star to the comments.
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