view of Antarctica from obstructed view balcony
Cabins of the same category are mostly the same from one to another on any given cruise ship, but there are always some within a category that are different. The most obvious difference is accessible cabins, which are usually larger and if fully accessible will have features like roll-in showers and some things lower down like the seamail box outside the door and the clothesline that pulls across the shower. Sometimes there are other differences as well.
Oosterdam in Puerto Chacabuco, Chile
On a lot of ships you find ocean view cabins with partly or fully obstructed views, but it’s not so often that there are obstructed view balcony cabins. The Oosterdam had some though. Being obstructed view they are a slightly different category than standard balcony cabins, and with obstruction comes a lower cost. Obstructed ocean view cabins are generally found behind lifeboats or structural features of the ship. With Oosterdam’s obstructed view balcony cabins it’s the part under the railing that goes across the balcony itself. Generally that is see-through plexiglass, but in these cabins it’s a metal wall. Above the railing there is nothing obstructing the view.
deck 4 open bow on the Oosterdam with a view of Antarctica
The obstructed balcony cabins on the Oosterdam are found near the bow on deck 4. Deck 4 on this class of Holland America ships has a big open balcony where passengers are allowed to go when the ship cruises through scenic places. The metal wall around the bow extends back to the balcony cabins near the bow on that deck.
obstructed view balcony
Furniture inside the cabin is high enough to see over the wall when sitting on it, and there is nothing blocking the view if you stand on the balcony. The only things you can’t see is whatever you would see through the plexiglass that regular balcony cabins have instead of the metal wall. Anything seen above the plexiglass is the same. You can even see the view over the wall when sitting on the deck chairs out on the balcony. Just not the water up close that is usually seen through the plexiglass. Besides the lower price for being obstructed, the benefit of this sort of balcony is that it is nearly double the size of a standard balcony so you have lots of space to stretch out in the deck chairs – which are accompanied by a foot stool for doing so. There’s also a small table on the deck. Standard balconies don’t always have enough space to stretch your feet out before they come in contact with that plexiglass wall.
bathroom cabin 4020
When you first enter the room there is a bathroom on one side and closets on the other. The bathroom has a tub/shower combo so it is slightly larger than bathrooms where there is just a shower. Bathtubs are standard in most cabins except interior and accessible on Holland America. On many cruise lines only suites have tubs. There’s a cabinet above the sink with three shelves inside and a mirror on the door. The space above the sink is also a mirror. A rack above the toilet holds the towels. There’s a shelf running along the wall underneath of the sink that is the biggest storage space in the bathroom. Also some room on the counter to put a few things.
separate shampoo, conditioner, and body wash
It has 2 glasses in holders on the wall as well as two other wall mounted holders that might have been intended to hold soap, but since there is liquid soap in a container mounted on the wall that isn’t necessary so they can be used for other small items. A bottle of hand lotion is mounted on the wall next to the hand soap. The shower has separate shampoo, conditioner, and body wash mounted high enough to be convenient for taking a shower, but too high for taking a bath as you have to stand up to reach them. Nice to have all 3 and not the nasty all-in-one garbage that some ships have. Speaking of garbage, there is a small garbage can in the bathroom and one that has separate sections for garbage and recyclable paper in the main cabin area.
closets
There are 3 closets. Two of them have hanging bars and fold-down shelves that you can put down to use or leave up and not use if you have things that need more space to hang down. There’s also a fixed shelf above the hanging rack. The third closet has shelves and the cabin safe. Some shelf space is taken by lifejackets. Little fleece blankets and bathrobes were also on one shelf in that closet. I have not seen the little blankets in a cruise ship cabin before, but this was a cruise to Antarctica.
view of the room from the balcony end
There’s a curtain you can pull across to block that little hallway from the main cabin area, which is nice at night because there’s a motion light under the closet that will light up if anyone walks past it and also a small light that stays on in the bathroom even if the brighter light is off.
room from the door end
There are 2 large hooks mounted at the top of the wall between the closet and the TV, which is set within a larger wooden frame. The far end of that wall has a desk which has the small refrigerator underneath it and some open space with a cushioned box you can store things inside of as well as use for a stool. There is a mirror above the desk with a light on one side. It has four 115-volt USA style outlets to plug things into and two 220-volt round ones. The hairdryer which is found in a cupboard on the side of the desk uses the round one. There’s also a make-up mirror and wine glasses in that cupboard. There’s an ice bucket and glasses on the desk and if you requested ice on the paper that was in the cabin at check-in the steward will fill the ice bucket for you. The refrigerator comes full of mini-bar items that you have to pay for if you use, but we ask the steward to clear those out and then we can put whatever we want in it.
towel elephant with chocolates for eyes
As is standard on cruise ship cabins, the bed can be set up as one or two. There is a nightstand with two drawers for each bed or each side of the bed if you have it set as one. Each nightstand has a USB port above it and there is also one at the desk. The wall above the bed is a mirror and there is a little reading light on either side. On the other side of the room across from the desk there is a small couch with pillows. In between there’s a little oval table and one chair.
Doors on cruise ship cabins are usually magnetic, but on the Oosterdam the magnetism wasn’t very strong on the door. We had a small door magnet, but it kept sliding down or even falling off when the door opened or closed so we ended up putting it on the much more magnetic frame around the door. The walls in the hallway next to the door were also far more magnetic than the door itself. That is not always the case. On some ships the door is the most magnetic thing in the room.
magnets are useful on cruise ships
Any wall space that isn’t covered by something is magnetic. Magnets are quite useful on cruise ships. We bring magnetic hooks which work for hanging things on the wall in the cabin as well as for holding laundry lines over the tub when there isn’t any structure to tie them too. On some ships the shower or bathtub walls are very strongly magnetic, but on this ship they are pretty weak so it took several magnetic hooks to hold up a line with wet laundry. We also bring small magnets to keep all our paperwork organized on the wall. Holland America uses digital tickets for excursions, but we still have things to hang like a print-out of the itinerary for the cruise, any info we need for anything else, and the daily newsletter of things happening on the ship.
making use of magnets and structures on the shower walls to hang lines for drying laundry
Holland America does not have any self-serve guest laundries and it is expensive to send laundry out for the crew to wash so we bring soap that is intended for handwashing laundry and some extra clotheslines since the built-in one that pulls across the tub doesn’t hold much. One of my lines is made from several braided lines so a bit of the clothes goes between the lines and it doesn’t need any clothespins and the other has built-in clothespins, but it’s still useful to bring a few for use on the built-in one that is just a string or if I have more line space than built-in clothespins on that line. When you get to 4 stars in Holland America’s loyalty program, which takes 200 points, you get free laundry service.
cabin art
Artwork in the room consisted of a painting of nothing. Just a bunch of colors thrown on canvas. One bit sort of resembled a sunflower, but it would take a lot of imagination to make much of anything else. With some imagination it’s possible to see things like ice, snow, or even the sea, but none of those things are actually there. A painting of nothing is better than one of a sinking ship, which is what was in our cabin on the Zaandam.
merpent tile art
The bathroom had a couple decorative tiles. One was a single tile depicting a couple of what looked like old-fashioned Dutch people in an old sailing ship. The other was a double tile with a merpent. That is a cross between the ugliest mermaid ever and a sea serpent. It had a sea serpent tail with a human body top half. The person part was mostly facing forward except that the part where it joined the tail looked like a big bare butt. Above that it had 6-pack abs, naked boobs, and a seriously ugly face with horns on top its head. Maybe it was some sort of mythical old sea god or something. It was also blowing a giant seashell horn. If it didn’t have the boobs it would look more male than female, but those were undeniably female.
This room was located above the theater. We could hear the nightly shows through the floor if we were in the room during performances. We did not hear any of the daytime events in the theater, just the main shows of the evening. The other noisy thing was when it was windy outside it would whistle through where the balcony door didn’t quite seal shut even if it was locked. If it was really windy – which it often was on a cruise to Antarctica – we could sometimes hear the dividers between balconies rattling too.
Overall it’s a nice room and I would book this category again given the opportunity since you get a larger than normal balcony for a lower price.
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