I Stayed in The BIGGEST Cabin on a Cruise Ship

ad – This content was created on a press trip (similar to those travel agents and journalists take). All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Usually, when I cruise, I stay in the cheapest inside cabins.

They don’t have any windows or any outside space, and I often stay in the worst cabin locations on the ship.

On a recent cruise, though, I spent 12 days in the best cabin onboard. My room was so big it had its own doorbell, and that wasn’t the only new thing I had to get used to…

I spent the week doing things I wouldn’t ever normally do at sea – and tried to work out why the cruise line made a few quirky design choices. 

I was, of course, very excited, but I did have some reservations. I didn’t know if bigger would automatically mean better – maybe more parts would just leave me with more things to go wrong.

I was worried about what would happen if I decided that this was the only way I wanted to cruise from now on, and I had visions of me enjoying the cabin so much I’d never actually leave the room and would miss out on the rest of the cruise. Still, I thought it was worth the risk. 

The cabin that I was assigned was cabin 10522, and I went straight to Norwegian’s website to try to find out where it was.

It didn’t take me long to find it on the deck plans towards the front of deck 10. I was a little bit nervous that we’d feel more movement here, given that it was so high and right at the end of the ship.

I also wondered if we would hear a lot of noise being so close to the stairs, and I knew the arrow symbol meant that the room had an adjoining door.

In the past, I’ve heard complaints about those doors not being soundproof on other cruise ships. I did know that the ship I was sailing on, the Norwegian Spirit, had just had a 100 million-dollar upgrade, though, so I hoped that we wouldn’t have any of those problems. 

My cabin was called a Penthouse Suite, and as soon as the announcement was made that our cabins were ready I rushed as fast as I could to go and check it out.

I was out the back enjoying the amazing outside area on deck 10, so all I had to do was to walk along this corridor to the front. Getting around was helped by the fact that there are fish on the carpets and they always swim forwards.

I did find a cheeky little red fish that was swimming backwards when I cruised on the Norwegian Sun, but didn’t spot any on Norwegian Spirit.

As soon as we opened the door I saw why we’d need that doorbell!

Walking into the cabin, we entered what I’d call the lounge/dining room. Having separate rooms on a cruise ship is something I still can’t quite wrap my head around.

The suite was huge, with a separate bathroom and bedroom. This cabin comes in at around 40 square metres, which is more than double the size of the inside cabins I’m used to.

By the door we had a kitchen area with a coffee machine. It was here we found our excursion tickets and our phone. There was a table with enough space to sit four, and the cabin does hold up to 3 people, because the sofa is a sofabed.

Further into the cabin was a chair and a very big sofa. There was a huge TV mounted on the wall and a table in the middle.

The design of the furniture certainly helped to maximise the space, and it all flowed very nicely.

The design was modern and I’ve enjoyed looking at how the cabin started it’s life. They were still classy, but the newer touches like the cushions were really nice.

Given that I liked the pillows you can only imagine how excited I was to walk into the bedroom to see this. I’ve never had a bed with decorative pillows on it, on a ship or on land.

That was quite an experience. I loved how snuggly this separate bedroom area felt. It almost felt to me like an inside cabin, but inside my cabin if that makes sense.

The mirrors stretched infinitely in both directions, which was pretty cool, and there was a TV that I don’t think we ever actually turned on. 

Outside the bedroom was this dressing area with a big mirror and a wardrobe to the side. This pretty much became my wardrobe for the cruise because there was another one in the main cabin for my other half to use.

Spinning around I found the best thing I’ve ever seen, anywhere, ever – this bath. I’ve always dreamed of having a bath on a cruise, I am a massive bath person and have one everyday at home.

When I cruise, I really miss my bath. It’s very rare to get a bath on a ship. They take up a lot of space and are normally only in suites, which I don’t normally cruise in. 

Not only was this a bath, but this was a bath with a view. Behind the door was the shower and behind the other door was the toilet. This was my first time ever having a bathroom with two sinks and that was really nice, I see why people like that now. 

I was a little concerned that there wasn’t a blind or anything in the shower, I saw one above the bath but nothing there. I assumed that it would be frosted from the outside, but I made a note to check on that later! I wasn’t convinced and wasn’t going to take any risks…

It was around now that our luggage arrived. In the bedroom there were little bedside tables on each side where we could put things like our pyjamas and chargers. Across the whole cabin we had more than enough space for what we needed. 

There was one thing taking up space in the wardrobe that could come out instantly, I never put it away again because I loved it so much, and that was the robe.

I’m pretty used to those thin toweling kind of ropes but this was something else entirely, it was fluffy on the inside and a different material on the outside, it was incredible and every time I was in the room I’d put this over me. No matter what I was wearing, this would go on top. 

I hung mine on one of the hooks in the bathroom when I wasn’t wearing it, and to the side of these hooks were spaces for the towels. Striped towels are pool towels, and the white ones are just regular bath towels.

We could have these changed everyday if we wanted to, but we of course didn’t. I’m not sure who at home changes their towels everyday but I certainly don’t. 

The bathroom had lots of storage, too, and I think that because space wasn’t a premium, I just spread everything out more than I usually would.

It was nice not having to think about putting things away all the time. I have shared an inside cabin with four people before, you can’t leave stuff around then. 

Over in the changing room area, there was the perfect “stuff” draw. This is very important in any cabin and it’s where I like to keep random hair clips and chargers. If I don’t have this I do end up with things everywhere. 

There was no door to the bathroom. I did think that was a bit odd, there was a door to the bedroom and to the lounge/dining room area, but there wasn’t to the bathroom.

I don’t know why, but I just found that weird. There is a door on the toilet of course but it isn’t a proper door, it’s open at the top and the bottom. 

I always ended up closing the sliding door whenever I needed to go to the toilet, which felt a bit weird, it was just like announcing I need to go for a wee, goodbye, but it was better than just sitting on the toilet listening to the conversations of whoever was on the sofa.

I did learn more about this door situation later which made it make a lot more sense. This cabin has such an interesting history. 

Find out more in my full cabin tour video here:

We were out of our cabin when we sailed away from our first port of Tokyo, but we did get the chance to watch lots of sail away from the balcony.

Being able to pop out to check the weather was great, and the chairs were very comfortable.

The balcony wasn’t massive, but that’s pretty standard on a ship built in the ’90s.

Big balconies weren’t really a thing back then and you can’t exactly add on a massive balcony extension off the side of a cruise ship. That’d make it very unstable and that isn’t a balcony you’d want to be on. It was just the ticket for the two of us, though. 

Find out more about balconies on older ships here:

How This Ship Added 314 Extra Balcony Cabins 11 Years After Her Launch

Looking right, we could see the bridge and straight down to the sea. It was very peaceful, we never heard anybody else around us when we were here.

I was a little bit worried about that adjoining door but the only time I heard anything was when the person in the room next to us was using the hair dryer, which is totally fair.

Even though our cabin was near the stairs, there really weren’t many cabins beyond us. Nobody walked up there unless they were going to their room. 

I’d give this cabin a 9.9 out of 10 for noise, which is pretty incredible. Perhaps they added some new soundproofing when they refurbished the ship.

I was hopeful that the movement would also be minimal, but there were a few times on this cruise when we crossed big open expanses of ocean. 

Find out more about why cabin location is important here:

The Best and Worst Cruises for Seasick-Prone People

My first bath onboard was the best thing ever. The temperature was good, the bath was big, I put a towel under my head to use as a pillow and I used the body wash as bubble bath, it made some great bubbles.

I decided to pull the blinds down most of the time, unless we were at sea like when I had a mid day bath on the sea day. I kept a towel close by and figured I could grab that if a window cleaner came down, or anything like that. 

The shower without the blind did make me a little nervous. If it was daylight outside I don’t think anybody could see in, but I wasn’t confident enough to just stand there. When a big ship went by opposite me, I literally jumped out of the shower until it had gone, just incase!

It’s not something I’ve ever had to think about in an inside cabin, but I did love this shower, the views were incredible and it really felt like we were high up.

Showering in the dark and looking out at sea, that was just the best. I’d still appreciate a blind though, if Norwegian could put that on their shopping list I’d appreciate it. 

The bed was every bit as comfortable as I imagined. We both had a plug socket by our bed and we decided to close the door which made it really dark. It looks as though this door wasn’t here when the cabin was originally built, so I’m so glad that they added that. 

Looking at the original plans, it looks as though the cabin had a sliding door in the middle, so that makes sense as to why theres’s no bathroom door now.

I imagine that’s hard to retrofit. I think you’ll agree, though, this refurb was done very well, and this layout with the dressing table here works. 

One day I had a headache in the afternoon and decided to take a nap, I closed the door and turned off the lights, it was pitch black, it was like a snuggly nest. 

Our cabin was cleaned every single day of the cruise and our concierge would leave us snacks when we got back from our excursions, I didn’t know that a concierge bought chocolates and crisps but I certainly enjoyed that part.

He also met us in the terminal on embarkation and was around whenever we needed anything – like to book speciality meals or excursions.

We were able to have our breakfast and lunch in the speciality restaurant Cagneys throughout the entire cruise as a perk of this cabin too. The food there was fantastic so we made the most out of that.

Normally if you have a balcony or an inside cabin you are spending all of your time hanging out in what is your bedroom. Here though we only went into the bedroom to sleep and most of the time were sat on the sofa.

I’d sit and do my work on the desk or when I did my onboard YouTube live stream, I’d did that from the bath. That was great fun, thanks to everybody who joined. 

We only had one day of the cruise where we felt a little bit of movement but it wasn’t enough to make any real difference or cause any issues, I’d be more than happy to have a cabin in this location again. 

I don’t doubt that I’ll be back in an inside cabin again soon, but that bath really has changed everything for me.

Add a blind in the shower and maybe a bathroom door and I’d happily move into this cabin and live there forever! 

A cabin is just a tiny part of a cruise. To find out what we got up to around the ship, check out this video next: 

Before You Go

Find out some great tips for packing for an Asia cruise here:

7 Asia Cruise Tips, Packing, Visas & More

Compare my Norwegian Spirit Japan trip with a similar trip I took on Royal Caribbean’s Spectrum of the Seas here:

Cruising in Asia With an American Cruise Line (Differences in Food, Entertainment and More)