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Getting an Aft Balcony


DRLPP

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General question about scoring an aft balcony. With new schedules coming out, I am very interested in choosing an aft balcony for my next booking. Something new to try out. I seem to be having problems finding availability. General info appreciated. What ships? Tricks to scoring an aft cabin? What level is best? Any feedback is appreciated. Thank you

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If you are referring to the aft balconies that are along the very back of the ship, you would be looking for sailings on almost all of their ships. Some of the more affordable ones would be on freedom, voyager class ships. Oasis and Quantum class ships have aft balconies, but many are star class suites which bring a premium price.

For availability, these are popular stateroom choices for obvious reasons, so the best way to book one of these, is to book EARLY! The next round of Caribbean sailings I believe will be released the week of the 18th. 
 

This is what I will be doing that week too.  Refresh!
16B63405-A041-4C03-B4EC-3C86745B082E.gif.32fd48ca2d7b8eb8284231992475526e.gif

This view is worth it

A30D160B-DA3D-455A-9B01-52F1BFB0DD93.thumb.jpeg.221d57859e8da60650517241448bce07.jpeg

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1 minute ago, emsff02 said:

If you are referring to the aft balconies that are along the very back of the ship, you would be looking for sailings on almost all of their ships. Some of the more affordable ones would be on freedom, voyager class ships. Oasis and Quantum class ships have aft balconies, but many are star class suites which bring a premium price.

For availability, these are popular stateroom choices for obvious reasons, so the best way to book one of these, is to book EARLY! The next round of Caribbean sailings I believe will be released the week of the 18th. 
 

This is what I will be doing that week too.  Refresh!
16B63405-A041-4C03-B4EC-3C86745B082E.gif.32fd48ca2d7b8eb8284231992475526e.gif

This view is worth it

A30D160B-DA3D-455A-9B01-52F1BFB0DD93.thumb.jpeg.221d57859e8da60650517241448bce07.jpeg

Yes, I was referring to a balcony at the very back of ship, with aft view. Basically your info was what I expected. What category(letter/number) should I look under? Standard balcony, Large balcony? Thanks for info.

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Just now, DRLPP said:

Yes, I was referring to a balcony at the very back of ship, with aft view. Basically your info was what I expected. What category(letter/number) should I look under? Standard balcony, Large balcony? Thanks for info.

Find the ship you are interested in and look at the deck plans for that ship on Royal's website.  It will say what category they are on that particular ship.

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Just now, DRLPP said:

Yes, I was referring to a balcony at the very back of ship, with aft view. Basically your info was what I expected. What category(letter/number) should I look under? Standard balcony, Large balcony? Thanks for info.

I believe that would depend on the ship you are on. My picture was from Navigator, and we were in. 2BR Grand Suite. For the other balcony rooms, I would look up the ships you are considering, then peruse the deck plans and look at the categories so you would know what to look for.

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5 minutes ago, emsff02 said:

If you are referring to the aft balconies that are along the very back of the ship, you would be looking for sailings on almost all of their ships. Some of the more affordable ones would be on freedom, voyager class ships. Oasis and Quantum class ships have aft balconies, but many are star class suites which bring a premium price.

For availability, these are popular stateroom choices for obvious reasons, so the best way to book one of these, is to book EARLY! The next round of Caribbean sailings I believe will be released the week of the 18th. 
 

This is what I will be doing that week too.  Refresh!
16B63405-A041-4C03-B4EC-3C86745B082E.gif.32fd48ca2d7b8eb8284231992475526e.gif

This view is worth it

A30D160B-DA3D-455A-9B01-52F1BFB0DD93.thumb.jpeg.221d57859e8da60650517241448bce07.jpeg

Ok have to say you had me cracking up with that first meme!  And I am also pretty jealous of that picture!  I have not had a aft balcony and that is one thats on my bucket list for sure!  Looks like you had an amazing time and judging by your name, I have to say thanks for your service in the fire department!  

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1 minute ago, bhageerah said:

Ok have to say you had me cracking up with that first meme!  And I am also pretty jealous of that picture!  I have not had a aft balcony and that is one thats on my bucket list for sure!  Looks like you had an amazing time and judging by your name, I have to say thanks for your service in the fire department!  

Yes, I am a firefighter. If you are interested to see how the cruise went, I did a live blog that you can see here

 

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40 minutes ago, emsff02 said:

Some of the more affordable ones would be on freedom, voyager class ships

While affordable, I have always had a hard time pulling the trigger on these class of ships. To me, the super structure that is in the way is too distracting (for me) and it takes away from the aft views. 

But also, like @emsff02 mentioned, go to an unobstructed aft view on Quantum and Oasis and it’s mostly star class and expensive.

Hubby and I were really excited to see unobstructed aft JS cabins on Odyssey and so we grabbed one of those for next year. Before that, in about 4 months, we will have our first aft balcony on Oasis. D11 is really looking forward to it.

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The junior suite aft balconies on Navigator were pretty unobstructed as well. One piece of advice through, if you like to sleep in past 6 on port days, the aft can be a problem. Once the tie downs came out we heard everything while on deck 8. 

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We had a JS on deck 10 on Navigator in August. We loved the view. I will say that when we were at our railing, we could see all the balconies below us, so if that is something you wouldn’t like, I would recommend getting a cabin on the highest deck. We didn’t notice any of the noise issues that were mentioned by others  

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We booked the aft corner room on Deck 10 for Mariner next year. Haven't gone yet, so I can't comment on it personally, but the room is a "Spacious Balcony Room" but it looks as big as a JS (i.e. balcony cost).  It's a bit of an odd shape but for four of us, we thought we'd try it.  The balcony is bigger too, but the sides are an on angle if that bothers you. (Again, all comments from pictures and researching from other people's comments). Looking forward to trying it.

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On 11/10/2019 at 7:47 AM, WannaCruise said:

We booked the aft corner room on Deck 10 for Mariner next year. Haven't gone yet, so I can't comment on it personally, but the room is a "Spacious Balcony Room" but it looks as big as a JS (i.e. balcony cost).  It's a bit of an odd shape but for four of us, we thought we'd try it.  The balcony is bigger too, but the sides are an on angle if that bothers you. (Again, all comments from pictures and researching from other people's comments). Looking forward to trying it.

We're just like you and have researched this type of room and we've booked the same aft corner room on Deck 10 on Mariner for next November.  Looking forward to it!

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I haven’t stayed in an Aft balcony before but we have 2 planned-this spring on Oasis and one in summer of 2021 on Rhapsody.  I was super excited today because I got both corner Afts on the Rhapsody for our group.  Thought about being side-by-side but the extra room on the balcony is totally worth the little walk down the hall to see each other. 

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We had a deck 10 JS aft cabin on Radiance to NZ (Port side corner). The most magnificent cabin we ever had and the balcony was absolutely huge!  Fantastic views greeted us everyday from our balcony.  After that, we were totally sold on aft cabins.  Next cruise is Serenade of the Seas from Hawaii to Sydney.  Our cabin is two decks directly below the one on Radiance.  Bottom line is aft cabins are great, very calm, out of the wind and the balconies are usually bigger than normal.  The stern will move up and down gently while underway, but that's ok because I've never been seasick and the gentle movement puts me to sleep like a baby!  I can fully understand why aft cabins are booked very quickly.

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A word of caution about Radiance class aft balcony cabins is that they are booked in the first couple of days.  Was booking 2 on Radiance once and one of the cabins was booked by someone else while we were on the phone the very first day.  We also booked the first day on the Serenade Panama Canal cruise and we couldn't get next to our friends so someone else has the cabin between us.  We love the Radiance class aft balcony cabins because they are JS style balconies at balcony cabin prices.

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13 hours ago, Shari said:

A word of caution about Radiance class aft balcony cabins is that they are booked in the first couple of days.  Was booking 2 on Radiance once and one of the cabins was booked by someone else while we were on the phone the very first day.  We also booked the first day on the Serenade Panama Canal cruise and we couldn't get next to our friends so someone else has the cabin between us.  We love the Radiance class aft balcony cabins because they are JS style balconies at balcony cabin prices.

I agree with this.  From Australia we monitored the US site virtually daily to wait for our chosen cruise to become public and get our first or second choice of aft cabin (we got second).  It sounds ridiculous but the effort is worth it.

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On 11/15/2019 at 4:06 AM, IslandHopperPro said:

We had a deck 10 JS aft cabin on Radiance to NZ (Port side corner). The most magnificent cabin we ever had and the balcony was absolutely huge!  Fantastic views greeted us everyday from our balcony.  After that, we were totally sold on aft cabins.  Next cruise is Serenade of the Seas from Hawaii to Sydney.  Our cabin is two decks directly below the one on Radiance.  Bottom line is aft cabins are great, very calm, out of the wind and the balconies are usually bigger than normal.  The stern will move up and down gently while underway, but that's ok because I've never been seasick and the gentle movement puts me to sleep like a baby!  I can fully understand why aft cabins are booked very quickly.

IMG_1830.thumb.JPG.81c975f2b7050edfe067a3d1bfbb04bc.JPG


 

We have basically the same cabin, starboard side on Rhapsody next year for our Greek Isle cruise. Looking forward to it! No balcony like it for the price!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Are you looking to book for two? We are experienced cruisers but new to RCCL, and in looking to book our first RCCL cruise for June 2020, I came across this issue, but think I figured it out. I called RCCL directly who told me those cabins were not available (on the AoS) for a party of two. After going online and entering three passengers, I saw a bunch ARE available. At an additional $800, I am considering paying for three (need to call this week to confirm we can do this) to secure the cabin we want. An alternative would be to wait to see if they release them closer to the cruise date (she mentioned they sometimes do this if they don't have 3s or 4s book them), but then we risk not getting our second choice.

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We stayed in one. Just picked a balcony, it was available via the deck plans so I picked it for something different we hadn't done before. We liked it.

 

You might could work backwards. Look at the deck plans, see what color/number/class an aft balcony is then go through the reservation process to pick it.

Obviously the earlier you reserve the better the chance you get what you want.

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Thanks Ditch. I did that and then called to confirm,. All held at this time for 3's or more. They did confirm I could book for three and then would be reimbursed the port fees when we check-in/board. On the fence whether to go this route or grab a regular balcony with the possibility to upgrade later.

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  • 3 years later...
3 hours ago, Mosie said:

Is there a way to find aft cabin availability, like a sorting filter ?

The only ways I know of to find them is to do a mock booking until you get to the point where you select a cabin and see what's available.  Otherwise,  you can ask your travel agent. 

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