A Room With a View - Porthole Style

The Porthole Cabins on the Fantasy Class ships are by far the best deal for the money. Not only will you pay Inside Cabin prices with an Outside view, but you can choose any of the four cabin decks without a price increase (at least that was our experience). Thus, we landed ourselves on the Empress deck (Deck 7) just a short walk to the Paradise Atrium Plaza ... and all the fun.

While looking at the deck plans, hubby said to me, “I want to be in the first cabin.” Okay, your wish is my command, so I booked E1 ... which is as close as you can get to sleeping on the bow of the ship as passengerly possible.

High above the anchor and directly under the AR in Carnival and over the P in Paradise are two porthole windows. That’s E1.

I’ll have to admit, I was a little concerned about booking this cabin. We stayed in Balcony Cabin #9237 Lido Deck on the Carnival Splendor last year and you know what they say, “Once you go balcony, you can’t go back.” Well, I’m sure someone has said that before. Anyway, the balcony staterooms on Fantasy class ships come at Suite prices (not so sweet, if you ask me). Thus, began my new obsession ... finding the unique or ‘deal’ cabins on every ship. Porthole cabin E1 seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

So, off we went to check out our cabin.

We entered the cabin through a long hall with the closets on the right and bathroom on the left. The deck plan shows this space (as well as other porthole cabins) to be a bit larger than the surrounding ocean views. So, was it bigger? Not so much, unless that space was added to this hallway.

As you can see our cabin was made up with a king size bed ... which basically took up the whole space. Set up as twins, the beds would be against the walls ... one under the portholes and the other along the left-side wall.

Yep, there is that box holding our life preservers! It does take some acrobatics and agility to get over!

Looking from the portholes to the door, you can see we have a desk with a stool and a chair.










Our cabin was situated directly below the stage of the Normandie Lounge. But, we didn't hear any noise from the lounge or the shows. In fact, we were so exhausted the first night, we went back to the cabin at about 10:30, missing the Welcome Aboard show (which I love ... we were that exhausted) and didn't hear a thing from it.

We have heard there was noise issues with these porthole cabins. Now, we have five kids and a couple of cats and have never been bothered by odd noises while sleeping. Here is what I heard from this cabin.

Prior to Sail Away there was a series of eerie creaking sounds - like stress on metal. This was scarier than any sound I could have possibly heard on the haunted Queen Mary!

• Dropping anchor at Catalina sounded like we were crashing into something - only at a distance.
• Docking in Ensenada I heard nothing.
• Docking in Long Beach I heard what I think were thrusters - quite loud and quite often.

None of these sounds bothered me, they just were. These are the only extra sounds I heard from this cabin.

Bon Voyage Surprise!

Waiting for us in the cabin was this lovely little Bon Voyage cake! Prior to our cruise, I ordered this 6-inch chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling from the Bon Voyage Dept. to be delivered to the cabin upon arrival. This was an inexpensive little way (for only $7.95) to place a special mark on the beginning of our cruise for DH. The cake feeds six ... so, it was just enough for the two of us! And boy was it delicious!