Another consideration when booking a cruise is what deck on the ship you’d like to be on.  As someone who comes from poor Irish stock, I have to tell you, the lower decks on a cruise ship always scared me. Visions of My People on the Titanic, stuck in steerage, unable to get to the life boats – not a good picture in my head when I’m booking a cruise.  I felt it was much better to be closer to the top of the ship, nearer the lifeboats, so that if there was an emergency, I could get there before the ship went down.  I know – not the happiest way to book a cruise.

Well, we took a recent seven day cruise, and our trip was free.  Beggars can’t be choosers, as they say, so while I was pretty upset that were were on Deck 2, there was very little I could do to complain about the location.  We joked about being lower than most of the crew members on the ship, and we were just down the hallway from the shipboard hospital, so I figured we’d be exposed on a daily basis to people walking by with typhoid fever.  But now that we’ve sailed, I have to say, it was one of the best locations we’ve ever had!  We boarded the ship, went to lunch, and were able to go to our cabins at 1:30.  By 2 o’clock, all of our luggage had arrived, and we were able to start unpacking.  This NEVER happens for us!  Usually, we are lucky to get all of our luggage in time to change for dinner.  We experienced very little rocking, despite having some moderately high seas on a couple of the days of our trip.  The rest was peaceful, and except for the occasional squeaking sounds, it was really a great cabin.

We were only a floor below most of the dining rooms, convenient to the elevators to get where we needed to go higher on the ship, and on our last night, our luggage was picked up almost as soon as we put it outside the door.  Awesome location.  So if it means saving a few dollars, making the trip more affordable, don’t hesitate to choose a lower deck – or better yet, just ask for an outside guarantee.  This guarantees you an outside cabin, but they will fill you in where they have available room.  You may get a lower deck, but you might also find yourself upgraded to a verandah cabin!

Next stop on our cruise tips – Free babysitting – !!