cabin 1014
Carnival Radiance Cabin 1014
We had an inside spa cabin on Carnival Radiance, which is the first inside cabin we have had in years. It came with spa privileges so we got to use the thermal suite. Spa cabins also get some other things. This ship just offered one free yoga class though Carnival’s listed privileges for these cabins say you get two fitness classes. It’s also supposed to include a scrub for use in the steam room, but on most ships you have to ask for that. Discounts on spa treatments also come with the room, but you can’t combine that discount with other offered spa deals so it doesn’t always provide the lowest price. Other amenities include a spa robe and slippers. The spa robe is similar to bathrobes provided by the cruiseline for other cabins and the slippers might fit a sasquatch, but they’re mighty big for a human. That’s not unique to Carnival. All of the spa slippers I’ve seen on any cruise ship were too gigantic for me to even consider attempting to try walking in them.
sauna at the thermal suite
Cruise ship thermal suites usually have some sort of pool and some heated ceramic chairs as their main features. There’s usually a few other features like a sauna, steam room, fancy showers, or relaxation area. This ship had a very small thermal suite that did not include any sort of pool. It did at least have more of the heated ceramic chairs than some ships do. It also had a nice sauna. We would have been pretty disappointed in the lack of any sort of pool there had we bought the thermal suite package rather than it coming with the room.
inside spa cabin
The cabin had 2 closets and 3 drawers for storage space. Also a small refrigerator in a little cabinet. Besides the mirror in the bathroom. there was one small full-length mirror and a mirror above part of the desk. The bathroom was a bit bigger than the standard cruise ship bathroom. It had 2 shelves on each side of the mirror, which was nicer than the ships that just have 3 on one side. The shower had combo shampoo/conditioner and separate body wash. I guess that’s a step above all 3 in one, but since spa cabins are supposed to have upgraded amenities it would be nice if they provided separate shampoo and conditioner.
the bottom drawer doesn’t completely shut
There were several things wrong with this cabin. One of the drawers didn’t quite shut, the USB charging ports didn’t work (luckily I bring a clock that has a couple USB charging ports), there was only one nightstand, and the door on one of the closets folded out rather than opening on a hinge, but it didn’t work right. Shortly after mentioning it to guest services the USB ports were replaced with new ones that worked and another nightstand appeared, so they were on the ball about fixing complaints. Wrestling the closet door open and shut and the drawer sticking out a bit were constant throughout the cruise, but we hadn’t said anything about those so we can’t blame the crew for not fixing them.
towel rabbit
We were not the only ones with stuff wrong in the cabin. We heard other people complain about things in their rooms as well. We also did not have the only room with rollaway beds taking up most of what would otherwise be under the bed storage space even though there is no space in the room to set one of those up. When there are more than two people in a cruise ship cabin the extra beds are usually either bunks that drop down out of the ceiling (or from a wall on older ships) or a couch that converts to a bed. I’ve never seen a rollaway bed used on a cruise ship and have no idea why this one had so many stored under beds in cabins. Especially ones with no space to even set one up. We did once see a whole bunch of mattresses unloaded at a port that were being donated to a facility there, but these beds were never removed so unless they were for donating somewhere on a future cruise that wasn’t it. We also lost storage space in one of the closets in our room which apparently was used for life jacket storage. This was only a two-person cabin and it had 5 or 6 lifejackets hogging up storage space. On the plus side there was still room enough for our suitcases under the bed and we had a good steward. He left a new towel animal each day.
desk and TV
There were only 2 obvious outlets located right next to each other at the desk. Behind the TV there’s an extra one along with the one the TV is plugged into. None by the bed. Besides the bed the only other place to sit was a small stool under the desk. No chair or couch. Not room for one either. Inside cabins are generally the smallest on pretty much any cruise ship. People book them to save money because they are the cheapest or because they like a darker room if they want to sleep when it’s light outside.
duck mailboxes – one with enough magnets to stay on the barely magnetic wall, the other sits on a rail
The walls on this ship were not magnetic enough to hold up anything hung up on even the strongest magnets. The door and wall outside of the room were barely magnetic as well. The strip around the outside of the door was the most magnetic and the place where most people hung their door decorations if they had any small enough to fit in that space. I did have enough magnets on my duck trading mailbox for it to stay on the wall outside of the cabin, but it isn’t very heavy and has a lot of really strong magnets. On this ship it tended to slide down when touched, whereas on the next one it pretty much had to be pried off the wall. John’s duck mailbox had less magnets and had to be tied to a railing to stay on the wall on this ship, but it too stuck tightly on the next one.
one of the upper front bows
Our room was near to the end of a mostly dead end hallway, but still seemed to have more traffic going by than you would expect for the number of rooms between it and the end of the hall. It wasn’t quite a dead end since there was a door there out to one of the ship’s secret upper bows, but not many people knew about that bow access so it didn’t explain the amount of foot traffic in the hallway. Perhaps we had a popular neighbor.
bathroom
A few years ago some ships started adding motion lights by the floor which was annoying enough if not covered up at night. On this one there was a motion light in the ceiling in front of the bathroom which was way worse and not even necessary since enough light came through around the cabin door to not need a light at all to find the bathroom in the dark. It would have been way better to have that light in the bathroom so people didn’t have to turn on the fully bright one if using the bathroom in the night. That may be an unfortunate new trend since the next ship we went on had an overhead motion light in front of the bathroom as well. I suppose whoever decides to add these things considers it a safety feature, but what it really does is insure that nobody can get up to go to the bathroom without waking up everyone else in the cabin unless they magnet a towel over the light to block it. Like the walls, ceilings in cruise ship cabins are usually magnetic.
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