Noordam balcony cabin 7020

There are a lot of articles that will tell you where to find the best cabin location on a cruise ship, but really it’s a matter of opinion. One person’s choice location could be another person’s worst option. For instance if you want convenience a cabin near the elevators is a great choice, but if you want quiet far away from elevators works much better. To reduce the amount of the ship’s motion you feel booking low and to the center is the most stable. While cabins near the center are considered more premium by the cruiselines, they also consider higher up better, opposite to where you feel less movement. If you like to be close to the food the back of the ship is the place to be because most ships have both the dining room and the buffet at the stern. Meanwhile if you’d rather be near the spa or gym those are often found near the bow on many vessels. Near the stern you might hear engine noise or feel vibrations from it, but if you have a balcony right on the stern you get the wake view. At the bow you’ll hear when they drop anchor, particularly in the lower-level cabins. Low level bow cabins can also be noisy in rough seas, sometimes sounding and feeling like the ship is bouncing over logs when it’s really just waves. Those same cabins are great for low-to-the water porthole or window views though. We tend to like cabins near the bow because that’s where you’re most likely to spot flying fish as they flee the ship when it moves through the water where they were.

view of the port side docking station from our balcony

Our cabin on the Noordam was close to the bow, just a few rooms back from the bridge on the next deck down. We could see people on the bridge when they came out to the docking station on that side.

standard bathroom for balcony or oceanview cabins

The room was average size for a balcony cabin other than on Holland America you get a bathtub rather than just a shower in everything other than inside cabins. Which is quite nice even if you never actually take a bath because the clothesline is as long as a bathtub that way rather than just crossing a small shower. Plus there is lots of room to string more lines if you bring them. It has some structure on both sides for attaching extra clotheslines, which was especially useful on this ship as the shower walls were not magnetic enough to hold a hook when the line was full of wet laundry. Opposite of some ships where the shower is more magnetic than the walls. Having the extra space of a tub is very useful not only for hanging wet swimming suits, but also for doing your own laundry in the bathroom sink on long cruises if you don’t want to pay for the crew to wash your clothes since there are no self-serve guest laundries onboard the Noordam.

bed

The cabin had a bed which can be set as one or two as is normal for cruise ships. It had 3 closets, but no drawers with available storage space other than a couple small ones in each nightstand. There was a large drawer under the foot of each bed, but since they were full of spare supplies for the room steward that didn’t count as space to store our things. The room had a small couch and table, and a desk with a chair.

bath products

Besides a bathtub with a shower, the bathroom had a full range of bath products with separate shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in the shower and liquid soap and hand lotion by the sink. Many ships have gone to just one useless all-in-one product in the shower and no hand lotion these days so it was nice to have a full range of products.

triple closets

There were bathrobes in the closet without having to ask for them, another thing that used to be pretty standard on a lot of ships, but isn’t anymore. As an added bonus there was a free beach bag waiting on the bed at arrival. There was also a little sheet you could fill out for the steward with requests for things like more hangers or towels, ice morning and/or night, and cleaning service once or twice daily. It also had options for having the beds changed if they were set the opposite of what you wanted as one or two. Later in the cruise they left everyone a second Holland America beach bag.

muster drill on the TV on boarding day

There was a large flat screen TV on the wall opposite the bed and a couple hooks on the wall for hanging things. We bring magnetic hooks to get more hanging space. Also a shelf under the TV where paperwork could be stored, but not anything much thicker than paper. On arrival there were mini bar items on the desk and in the refrigerator that are charged if you use them, but the steward removed them at our request. We always ask for removal of the mini bar items so we can use that space for our own things.

balcony

The balcony was standard size and had two chairs and a small table. Each chair had a footstool that fits under the chair if you don’t want to use it or have it in the way. The chairs backs could be set to recline so with that and the footstool it was something like a deck chair, though it could also just be a chair. That’s pretty handy on a balcony that doesn’t have room for both. It did have room to use a footstool with the chair so definitely not the smallest balcony we’ve had since we’ve had one that had no footstools or space to put them.

flying fish (internet photo)

We saw quite a few flying fish from that balcony when the ship was underway. Also some dolphins while anchored in Kona. In Brisbane we saw a big blue jellyfish, several turtles, a couple pelicans, and a bunch of other birds from our balcony. In Sydney we could see the opera house and all of Circular Quay, but had to go out to the back deck of the ship to see the famous harbor bridge. We were on the port side of the ship, which was facing port at most of our port stops so there was always something to see.

we saw dolphins from our balcony

Noordam is an old enough ship that the air system isn’t individual to each cabin. You can turn the airflow up or down, but you can’t turn it off. The large vent over the bed is quite noisy at night. There was a bit of wind whistling through the balcony door as well the first night, but once we mentioned it to the steward he had maintenance come out to fix it. About halfway through the cruise they apparently forgot they had already fixed it and came out when we weren’t in the room and fixed it again, which did keep the outside handle from moving around as much, but made the wind howl through it like it had before so they had to fix it a third time.

ships tend to have more outlets & USB ports than they used to, but it still doesn’t hurt to bring extras

There were 4 regular American outlets to plug stuff in above the desk and a USB port at either side of the bed above the nightstand as well as one at the desk. I had a 3 outlets on one plug adapter that increased our outlets a bit more, and I always bring a clock that has a couple USB ports so we were good with plenty of places to charge things.

we left something extra for the stewards along with the tip when disembarking

Overall it’s a pretty standard size cabin as balcony cabins on cruise ships go. Bigger than some since this one had both a couch and a desk. We left 3 ducks hidden in the room for future passengers when we disembarked. One in a small bag in a cupboard under the desk that held a mirror, so somebody will probably find that one fairly quickly. One behind the TV, which can be seen if standing close to the wall while hanging something on the hook next to the TV so someone could find it if they happen to look that way while in the right spot. The last one was under a band around a curtain next to the bed that is just there for decoration and doesn’t go far enough for anyone to bother using it so it may be there for awhile. We also left a couple ducks and a towel owl on the table with a tip for the stewards. We brought one big sparkly duck specifically for that purpose, but since the stewards worked as a team of two we left another duck as well. A lot of the crew like finding ducks.

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