The Photographer's Wife Parenting, Disney, Travel, Reviews & Other Randomness
We’ve been on 3 cruises now, which hardly makes us veterans (or does it?), but it’s enough that we’ve really started to learn what we like and don’t like. Unfortunately, those cruises were on 3 different cruise lines, so you can’t necessarily apply everything you like/dislike from a cruise over to a new cruise line, but you can apply quite a bit to help make decisions about the next cruise.
One of those things is that we have always selected our actual room. We have never risked it by booking a guarantee…and trust us, the discount has most certainly enticed us, but we would be so disappointed to book say a guarantee balcony and then get stuck with a balcony that has a severely obstructed view on the 2nd deck. Because, let’s face it, that’s our luck.
We had balconies on our first 2 cruises. After not using it much on the first cruise, we didn’t think we needed it….but Brett convinced me on our second cruise and we used it so much that we thought we would be “Balcony Snobs” from then on. But funny how having a toddler makes you rethink, well, just about everything.
When I first thought about booking a cruise for my birthday, Disney wasn’t even on the radar, let alone anything more than an inside room. Just call me el Cheapo. But, just as he usually does, Brett talked me up to Disney and at least something with a view. Salesman, that sneaky Brett is.
We considered getting a balcony, but Trent was going to be 19 months old at that time…smack dab in the middle of his “I do what I want, climb on everything and throw whatever I can get my hands on” phase. We didn’t need to pay for remotes being thrown overboard, let alone not needing to be a worried mom the entire time, so we opted for an Oceanview.
We were really intrigued by the Category 08A rooms. Category 08A rooms are one category below the balcony rooms, but still considered Oceanview because it’s a “porthole” room. However, we didn’t get just one porthole, we got two very large portholes! These were large enough to sit in and enjoy the view without the worries of a balcony I mentioned above.
Another major benefit of these rooms is the amount of SPACE they have. There was plenty of room for Trent to run around, which is so important at his age…because if they can’t run around and release that energy, it comes out in the form of a tantrum…usually at dinner. So we had plenty of space for storage (all of our suitcases and clothes were completely out of view) and plenty of running-room for Trent. There were also 2 tvs…one for adults and one for Trent 
And the final major benefit I’m going to mention is the bathroom. Although it’s not the split bathroom I’ve heard so many people like that Disney offers, it had an actual tub. The shower and tub were just like at home, just smaller….not one of those stand-up only showers in most cruise bathrooms that hardly allow any wiggle room. There would be no way to give Trent a bath if we didn’t have the tub.
Location: Room 5522 was on Deck 5, Forward Starboard Side. It wasn’t as close to elevators as we would have liked and it definitely took us a day to figure out how to get to our room depending on which elevator we took, since we were near the theater and one of the hallways leading from the mid-elevators to our room was non-existent, so we had to go around the theater to get anywhere on our floor. We could take the forward elevators up to Deck 11 and we would be near the ice cream machines, but everything else required us to walk all the way to the Aft, including Cabana’s, Flo’s and all 3 dining rooms. While we absolutely loved our room, we didn’t like the amount of walking to get to the places we used most…with a toddler. Although, Trent was delighted to press the elevator buttons every time.
You can view the layout for Deck 5 (as well as all the decks on the Disney Dream) on Cruise Critic here.
Well, that’s enough talking, how about some photos?
This first one was taken by the door/bathroom. To the right is the desk/sitting area with 2 chairs and the couch that turns into a single bed. To the far right and not pictured is the very large closet, where each of us had our own section.
This next photo was taken over by the closet. Just look at all that floor space! SOOO much bigger than a typical stateroom. The door on the left is the bathroom and the door by the bed is a connecting door if you had friends/family staying in the connecting room. The fridge is located in that cabinet directly underneath the tv.
If you want the couch made up into a bed at night, just tell your stateroom attendant and he will make sure it is done every night and then made back into a couch for during the day. Also, that little ottoman-like table opens up for more storage.
The next photo gives you a good picture of the entire layout and of how HUGE those portholes are!
Here, you can kind of see the padding on the bottom of the porthole that is supposed to make it comfy to sit on. However, maybe my butt is too wide because I found the width of the “seat” to be a little on the small side to where I couldn’t lay down and relax. There’s lots of storage room underneath the bed for suitcases and such.
Cruise ship bathrooms aren’t known for their spacious luxury (unless you’ve spent the big bucks), but we were pretty happy with this one. The tub/shower combo was perfect for a toddler and us adults had room to move…although Brett said he was about an inch from his head hitting the ceiling, so if you are over 6 feet tall, you may find yourself leaning over for your shower.
You can read my full trip report from this cruise by clicking here, but I wanted to share this post for anyone out there that might be searching for photos and opinions about this room. We looked up forum posts, photos, videos and anything we could find while trying to decide on a room and all of it helped so much…so I hope this helps someone else out there too.
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