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People often tell me their cruise cabin is not important as its just a place to sleep and get ready, until they have a bad experience of a noisy cabin that disrupts and affects enjoyment of their cruising vacation. I share 5 key steps to finding and ensuring you get a great cruise cabin on a cruise ship. Discover how to find the best cruise staterooms and exactly how to choose a cruise ship cabin. Also watch my video about cruise upgrades: https://youtu.be/id160Wqmrj0
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Gary Bembridge's Tips For Travellers aims to help you make more of your precious travel time and money on land and when cruising the oceans or rivers of the world. To help you, in every video I draw on my first-hand tips and advice from travelling every month for over 20 years and 60+ cruises.
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0:00
what are the steps you need to take to
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make sure you get an amazing cabin on
0:04
your next cruise hi I'm Gary Bainbridge
0:07
and this is another of my tips for
0:09
travelers a lot of people tell me
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they're not that bothered about the
0:12
cabin they get when they go on a cruise
0:14
because they just use it to sleep in or
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to get ready to go out however that all
0:21
changes when people have a terrible
0:24
cabin experience so I wanna talk about
0:26
the five steps you need to take to
0:28
ensure that you get cabin heaven not
0:31
cabin hell the first step is to book a
0:35
fare which allows you to choose a
0:37
specific cabin rather than a guaranteed
0:40
cabin fare so what's the difference
0:42
between the two if you're booked a
0:43
guaranteed cabin what that means is
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you're simply buying a grade so you
0:48
might say on an inside cabin an ocean
0:50
view a balcony or a suite the cruise
0:53
line then decides which specific cabin
0:55
to allocate you and they normally
0:57
allocate that quite close to the cruise
0:59
going once they know which cabins are
1:01
available so you have no say over the
1:04
specific cabin in that grade that you're
1:05
going to get if you book a fare that
1:08
allows you to choose a cabin it will
1:11
often be a slight premium to a
1:13
guaranteed cabin but the premiums not
1:14
always that great however you then can
1:17
choose a very specific cabin so if you
1:20
want to make sure that you get a great
1:21
cabin choosing a fare where you choose
1:24
the cabin is always going to give you a
1:26
greater chance of getting a great cabin
1:28
remember with a guaranteed cabin fare
1:31
the cruise line will allocate you a
1:34
cabin and you have no say over how good
1:37
or bad or where their cabin is going to
1:39
be and so the second step then once you
1:43
have control over choosing cabins is to
1:45
look at the deck plans of a ship either
1:47
online or in the brochure or by talking
1:51
to your cruise agent and focus on cabins
1:54
that are mid ships so this is in the
1:55
middle of the ship couple of advantage
1:57
to that first of all
1:58
midships means that you're always going
2:00
to be close to the various activities
2:02
all the facilities you know to the front
2:04
of the ship or the back of the ship so
2:05
you don't have those long distances to
2:07
go so you'll normally find that it's a
2:08
great location to get to the various
2:11
facilities wherever they are on the ship
2:12
but
2:13
secondly and probably more importantly
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of all is this is where you're going to
2:16
have the least amount of emotions so if
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you're worried about seasickness or
2:20
motion sickness being in the middle of
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the ship is the best part to be because
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when a ship moves and it moves on the
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axis with the midship being the midpoint
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so as the ship moves up and down the
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middle stays pretty constant and the
2:34
front in the back of the ship move the
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most so you're going to have the least
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amount of motion there also if you are
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particularly concerned about seasickness
2:42
the lower down you go in the ship also
2:45
the least amount of motion ironically
2:48
the highest grades of cabins which of
2:51
the Suites tend to be very high up on
2:53
the ship and that's also where your
2:55
light is have more motion so certainly
2:57
focus on mid ships and if you're
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concerned about motion sickness also
3:01
think about the lower level as you start
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to look at cabins that's the second key
3:06
step to take the third step and the
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third tip is probably the most important
3:14
of all of these tips and it's a very
3:16
simple tip when you look at a cabin look
3:19
at the deck plans and then look for
3:21
cabins which are surrounded on all sides
3:23
by other cabins so you want cabins above
3:26
you you want cabins below you you want
3:29
cabins to either side of you and ideally
3:32
also cabins opposite you if you don't
3:35
have cabins opposite you make sure you
3:37
know what is going to be opposite you
3:39
now the reason for that is you're then
3:41
buffered from noisy venues this is
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probably one of the most critical things
3:47
to do is being surrounded by cabins the
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worst cabins I've ever had are when the
3:52
cabin is above below or next to a venue
3:55
or a place that generates all of noise
3:58
or vibration or some kind of disturbance
4:00
look at the deck plans and make sure if
4:03
any of these kind of venues are opposite
4:06
you above you below you or near you so
4:09
look out for things like the nightclub
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bars which have live music if you're
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directly under the pool deck you'll find
4:17
that you can get ready stoked by perhaps
4:19
deck parties but even more importantly
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people scraping and moving around the
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deck chairs I've been an amazing cabins
4:25
before and an
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pool deck and every morning are being
4:28
woken up really early as the crew starts
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moving around the lounges to set up the
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pool deck and again at the end of the
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day if they might be carrying it for a
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deck party other places to avoid are
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above below or next to the theater
4:41
because you'll find this production
4:43
shows loud music and that can go on at
4:46
all sorts of hours of the day when you
4:48
look at the deck plans and there's
4:49
nothing showing there also figure out if
4:51
the kitchens are there I have lots of
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stories of people who've been disturbed
4:54
at all hours of the day and the night
4:56
with the kitchens bærum a lot of those
4:58
kitchen operations can be 24 hours a day
5:00
as they prepare food can be very very
5:02
noisy another thing to look for is those
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ships which have a big central promenade
5:07
and cabins overlooking those also bear
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in mind they can be quite noisy because
5:12
others will have parties in the central
5:14
atrium or parades and it can get quite
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noisy so a lot of people I know that
5:18
have stayed in those cabins they have
5:20
often use things like white noise
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devices to try and just muffle out some
5:24
of the bass sound and the sound of some
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of the parties going on another area
5:29
that I've been advised to avoid actually
5:30
by crew on a ship is in the front of the
5:33
ship in the bow of the ship if it's
5:35
quite a small cruise ship and you near
5:37
the anchor so I was on an expedition
5:40
cruise on quite a small ship and they'd
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put some of the expedition team right on
5:45
the front of ship because that was very
5:46
noisy because the ship would be mooring
5:48
letting down the anchor at early hours
5:50
of the morning and that noise was very
5:52
disruptive for people trying to sleep
5:54
early in the early hours of the morning
5:56
basically look out for anything on a
5:59
cruise ship where there's likely to be
6:01
lots of concentrations of people and
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noise so absolutely critical very simple
6:06
when you book a cabin
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make sure you're surrounded on every
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single side by other cabins and if
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there's not a cabin opposite you double
6:15
check what is opposite you to make sure
6:17
it's not one of those big noise areas
6:22
my fourth tip is one that I am a little
6:25
bit obsessed about and that's when you
6:26
do book a cabin so if you've done all
6:28
the things so far don't ruin it by
6:30
booking a cabin with an interconnecting
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door now of course if you're traveling
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with people and you do want an
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interconnecting door that's a very
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different story however an
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interconnecting door could be a source
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of a lot of disruption for you because
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they're not that soundproof so if you
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have neighbors next door that like to
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party or play the television really loud
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when you're trying to sleep you'll find
6:51
that can be very very disruptive so if
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you are going to travel by yourself and
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you're not traveling with family or
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friends and you want to be
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interconnected make sure when you look
6:59
at those deck plans are you booking
7:00
through your agent check that there's no
7:02
inter connecting door because you could
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have done all of these other tips have a
7:05
great cabin great location surrounding
7:07
all sides and disrupted by
7:09
interconnecting door and I have been on
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a couple of cruises where the people
7:13
next door have been really disruptive
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and its really kind of put a dampener on
7:16
the cruise because you've been working
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up late at night within parting or
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whatever so it's a very simple thing to
7:22
do but double check you don't have an
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interconnecting door unless you
7:26
absolutely need one because your kids
7:28
are next door or there's friends or
7:30
family and you want to be able to do
7:31
that now my next tip might sound a
7:35
little bit crazy but it's also a really
7:37
important one once you've gone to all of
7:39
the bother of going through these steps
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one of the things I really recommended
7:43
you is refuse an auto upgrade so when
7:46
you book you're often asked either to
7:49
tick a box if you're booking online or
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your agent will ask you do you want to
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accept an auto upgrade now the reason
7:55
for saying no is you have no say over
7:58
that upgrade so if you've said yes to an
8:00
auto upgrade in the cruise line moves
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you from your inside cabin to an ocean
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view or an ocean view to balcony or
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whatever they again decide which cabin
8:09
you moved to and it's extremely unusual
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in fact I don't know any cruise line
8:13
that does it although you may have had
8:15
that experience but normally the cruise
8:17
line will just allocate your new cabott
8:19
and you cannot go back you cannot refuse
8:21
that upgrade so you might find yourself
8:23
put into a theoretically better cabin
8:26
but it's next to a noisy venue it has an
8:28
inter connecting door it's a bad
8:30
location it's the front of ship the back
8:32
of the ship or whatever so one things I
8:35
always to as I refuse them or to upgrade
8:37
our focus on finding a cabin that I'm
8:39
really happy with and I don't accept an
8:41
auto upgrade because I have no say over
8:43
what cabin I'm going to get so you could
8:45
go from what is your cabin heaven into
8:47
your cabin hell even though it's
8:49
theoretically a better cabin I have a
8:52
whole separate video about the whole
8:54
minefield of upgrades so if you want to
8:56
know more about upgrades and when it
8:57
could help or not help take a look at
9:00
that video and discover a lot more
9:01
around how to navigate the whole area of
9:05
upgrades but my main tip is don't take
9:08
the auto upgrade people keep telling me
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that the cabin is not that important
9:16
it's just a place to sleep and get ready
9:18
to go out on excursions or whatever that
9:22
all changes when they have a terrible
9:24
cabin experience and I have hundreds of
9:26
people telling me that they've had
9:28
terrible experiences on a cruise it's
9:30
ruined the cruise because they didn't
9:31
spend time choosing the right cabin
9:33
you're going to spend more time in your
9:35
cabin than anywhere else on the cruise
9:37
you know even if you're only sleeping
9:39
four or five hours a night because
9:41
you're parting that if that four or five
9:43
hours is a terrible night's sleep you're
9:45
not gonna have the energy to then keep
9:47
on partying and going out so really
9:49
focus on these five steps to ensure that
9:52
you get a great cabin and have a great
9:54
cruise I have loads more cruising tips
9:57
loads more cruising advice in videos
9:59
please watch many more of those
10:01
[Music]
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[Applause]
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