Sunrise Alarm Clocks – The BEST Inside Cabin Hack

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If you are considering a cruise in an inside cabin you might be concerned about the lack of daylight and waking up in the dark.

I have stayed in inside cabins on cruises many times and to combat what I believe to be the worst thing about inside cabins, I always bring a sunrise alarm clock.

Why Are Sunrise Alarm Clocks Useful For Inside Cabins?

Inside cabins on cruise ships don’t have any windows so when the lights are turned off, the cabin is completely dark.

There might be a little light coming under the door from the corridor but this is consistent throughout the day and night.

This means that there is no way to know if it is 3 am or 3 pm.

There Are Two Problems That Come With The Complete Darkness of Inside Cabins

1. The first potential issue is that you don’t wake up in the morning. I’m not talking about not ever waking up, I’m talking about sometimes waking up in the afternoon, yes really!
   
   I could easily sleep for 12+ hours in an inside cabin and I have done in the past. I honestly don’t know how long I’d be able to sleep for if I didn’t set an alarm!
   
2. The second issue is that you wake up in the dark and have to turn the lights on. I always try to turn the lights on in stages, starting maybe with a small lamp then moving onto the main cabin lights, even still though, it often makes my eyes sting.

Waking up in the dark or not waking up when I want to always puts me in a bad mood, that’s not what I want when cruising!

Sunrise Alarm Clocks – My First Attempt (Beurer Brand)

I decided to start looking at daylight alarm clocks and bought my first in 2017.

My first daylight alarm clock was a Beurer WL80 Wake-Up Alarm. It cost £100 ($130) and weighed in at 800 grams. I LOVED using the lamp but found that it was too big and heavy to take on cruises regularly.

I have tried a couple of different brands since that time.

	Beurer WL80 Wake-Up Alarm	Forynd (Sunrise Alarm Clock)
Price	£100+	< £40
Weight	800 grams	530 grams
Size	15.5 x 21 x 7.7 cm	18 x 18 x 5 cm

Sunrise Alarm Clocks – My Current Recommendation

I currently use a Forynd brand daylight alarm clock which can be found here:

I had never heard of the brand Forynd before purchasing the clock but as the clock was smaller and lighter than the one I had been using before I decided to give it a go.

There are many things I like about this clock:

• The lamp has any many features as the bigger brands but at around 1/3rd of the price.
  
• You can change the brightness of the lamp and how long it takes to light up, I usually have a 30 minute sunrise.
  • The sunrise can be set from 10-60 minutes.
    
• There are lots of alarm tones, including birds tweeting which is the one I have.
  
• The time on the front screen can be dimmed or turned off completely.
  
• Two alarms can be set at the same time.

The lamp is fairly small but provides a bright light.

On many cruises you’ll find that the electricity to the cabin is turned off when you are not in the room, I’m happy to report that this didn’t matter when using the lamp as it remembered the time and my alarm settings.

The lamp also has a sunset feature which will slowly get darker as time goes on. I haven’t personally used this but I’m sure it works as well as the sunrise.

Since finding daylight alarm clocks I am more likely to book an inside cabin, the price saving when booking an inside cabin can often be hundreds of thousands of pounds so the price of the lamp has been well worth it to me. I use it at home too as it’s so dark in the mornings!

If you’d like to see the lamp in more detail, check out my YouTube video here:

You’ll be seeing the lamp in lots of cabin tours and videos going forward.