I Paid £50 Extra to Pick my Inside Cabin Because of THIS Feature I’ve Never Seen Before

I recently went on a cruise and stayed in an inside cabin with a very quirky feature. 

The cabin was located right in the middle of deck 11 without any access to daylight or the outside world. I spent most of the week trying to work out if it was worth the money, or if I should have paid more for a balcony upgrade. 

When you look at inside cabins, they are almost always identical, regardless of the ship or the location.

An inside cabin is pretty much two beds, a desk, and a bathroom in the corner. Some might be 30cm wider or have an extra chair, but really, that is about it. 

The cabins are made pre-formed in the factory, so there really isn’t much that can vary between cabins – or so I thought. This cabin didn’t follow that norm at all. 

The cruise line I was sailing with was P&O and I was onboard a ship called Aurora. She was built in the year 2000 and not much has changed since then.

I wondered if the ship being as old as she was might cause us any issues, but I decided to book a very short cruise onboard with my friends to find out.

I figured a short cruise would be a great way to try it without risking too much time or money. 

I really didn’t pay a lot for this cruise though, but more about that later in the article. 

When I was looking at the deck plans I came across this, cabin A297. Compared to all of the other inside cabins it looked quite a bit bigger and also squarer in shape.

It was right above some ladies toilets, and I was curious as to why was it different from all the other rooms and if this extra space would really benefit us.

The traditional cruise ship inside cabin design works very well, so I did wonder if this would be an awkward one that was actually worse.

Maybe they added this one later or converted something else into a cabin? I had no idea. 

It was an extra £50 ($63) to be able to pick my specific cabin location. Because I’d seen this quirky cabin I decided to pay the extra and try it out.

Normally I would choose a “Guaranteed inside cabin” for a short cruise like this. Find out why I like them here:

I Always Book Guaranteed Cabins on Cruise Ships – (Photo Examples, Regrets & More)

It isn’t something I’d usually pay for but I hoped that it would be worth it. Aurora actually has 279 inside cabins onboard ranging from 137 – 181 square feet.

I find it hard to envision those sizes but according to storage calculators that’s between the size of a single and a double garage which sounds about right.

I hoped that I would be staying in my double garage while everybody else was in their regular insides!

There were reviews of this cabin that said it was “very shabby” and even one that said it reminded them of a “worn down ferry”.

At the same time, though, reviews also said it was a “small cosy cabin” and comfortable and very clean”.

One of the main downsides of inside cabins is the lack of natural light and I knew that even if the cabin was bigger than usual it wouldn’t solve that problem.

I was sharing the room with my Mum. I hoped that we would have enough space for our stuff, enough places to charge things and I, as always, was hoping that the location would be quiet.

I would get most of those things, but not all. 

Embarkation was very easy and when we boarded the ship our cabins were already ready.

We actually embarked on this cruise later than planned due to them doing some deep cleaning because of an illness outbreak on the cruise before this one.

*************link to Aurora video*****************

Heading along the corridor, we found our cabin with our cruise cards waiting for us outside the room. This is what you use to charge anything you buy onboard and also what you use to get on and off the ship. 

It was here that I bumped into a friend who was on the cruise and staying in the cabin diagonally opposite me.

I had no idea that he would be on the cruise, let alone so close by, so that was a nice surprise. It felt like a massive coincidence, given that the ship has over 900 cabins and thousands of guests. 

He offered to let us have a look around his balcony cabin room, so we jumped at the chance. 

His room felt spacious and bright, the decor was definitely dated but nothing felt worn or damaged which I always think is the main thing.

The balcony was what is usually called a sheltered or protected balcony, and my friend said that we could watch a sail out from here if we wanted to which was lovely, we did do that later in the cruise. 

The real surprise in his cabin, which I definitely wouldn’t find in my room was that this cabin actually had a little bath.

It was tiny, I suppose the idea is that it’s meant to be for children. But Aurora is an adult-only cruise ship – and I’m an adult who likes baths, so I would have loved this feature. 

I did have a very small bath once on a cruise when I sailed on Fred Olsen’s Bolette. We cruised into the arctic circle in winter and the weather was very rough, I spent a lot of time sat in the bath because that was the only place I didn’t feel unwell at times.

Not great bath cruise memories but still, it’s my dream to have a bath on a cruise. 

Find out about that cruise in the video below:

I hoped that my cabin would be as nice as this one, just without the balcony of course. I didn’t think that we would have a seating area space as inside cabins usually don’t – but apart from that, I was expecting it to be similar. 

After a quick look around we headed across the corridor to my room. I didn’t really know what to expect when I went in but it certainly wasn’t this layout.

The inside cabin felt huge. Absolutely massive. It was probably the same size as a standard balcony cabin – and that isn’t normal for most cruise ships.

The first thing that hit me was that the beds were facing into the cabin and away from the door, I don’t think I’ve ever had a cabin like that before and I wasn’t sure if it would feel weird sleeping with my head right by the entrance.

I wondered why they had made this choice but it made more sense as I started to have a look around. All looked fairly normal on the right hand side of the cabin. We had two beds made up as twins, a couple of bed side tables and a massive wardrobe. Next to that was a desk and so far, so normal.

What wasn’t normal though was that we had a really random extra square of space with a sofa and a kettle.

It was basically like having our own tiny lounge in the room and there was so much floor space in front of it. 

At this point I was really wondering why they did this, I wasn’t sure that this extra space would be a benefit.

Space really is a premium on cruise ships so I didn’t think that they would have made this cabin bigger without a good reason. It was almost like an accessible cabin – but it definitely wasn’t.

Accessible cabins usually have wider doors, and the bathroom is on the same level, which was not the case here. The idea is that you can get a wheelchair or a Zimmer frame around the room.

Your Britishism is the term “Zimmer frame”. In other parts of the world, it’s what is called a walker, and the name originally comes from a company that made the frames.

It’s one of those things where the brand name stuck and now we just call any brand a Zimmer frame. 

Heading into the bathroom I was met by a wall of pink, not just pink but sparkly pink. I saw there the dreaded shower curtain but other than that the cabin looked pretty nice.

I’ve definitely been in smaller cruise ship bathrooms in the past, and I liked the look of the sink and the counter space. 

I know there are a lot of people who hate shower curtains but it doesn’t bother me too much. 

My bed was actually only a metre or so from the bathroom, which suited me fine. I was happy to see that the beds were made up as twins, as when I arrive on cruises, I’ll often find a double bed even though I’ve requested two.

This can almost always be changed if you ask your cabin steward, but I do wish that cruise lines took more notice of the pre-cruise requests because the last thing I want is for the cabin stewards to have more work to do, especially as I’ve already told the cruise line.

It wasn’t too long after this that our suitcases arrived. On a cruise you put a luggage tag on your bag and drop it off in the terminal, it’s then taken to your room.

On a ship like this which is actually considered pretty small they are probably moving around 3000 bags. On a really big cruise ship this could be closer to 8000 or even more.

I’ve never had a cruise line lose my luggage, but an airline did recently when I flew back from Venice. Thankfully, I had an AirTag in my suitcase, so I was able to see that the bag was still in Italy and didn’t wait around forever. 

Find out more about what happened here:

The Airline Lost My Luggage – But it Was Okay

We were only on this cruise for three days so we had far more storage space than clothes.

Aurora has completed multiple world cruises and that means that guest have been onboard for months at a time.

Somewhere, there is somebody who has stayed in this room for three months, and honestly, with this amount of storage, I would be totally okay with that. After three months though, I would probably miss the sun and daylight.

Our cruise just went to Bruges and back and that’s a very common short cruise itinerary.

Way back in 2017, I printed a massive magnetic map of Europe and used it to track a similar cruise I took. The map honestly was quite annoying; the pieces kept falling off, and the name tags were small, but I still loved it.

It started a conversation every time somebody came round. I did actually sell some of these for a while, but I knew that map-making wasn’t my special talent, so I gave it up. 

Fast forward to 2024 and I was introduced to a couple of people who had launched a company called The Cruise Maps, you might have seen them in my video backgrounds. These are maps created from the satellite image of the cruise, including diversions or changes in itinerary.

I am very, very excited to say that I have decided to join the Cruise Maps team. I’m now an official part-owner of the company, and I am so excited. I’ve had so many ideas over the years and never been able to make them happen, and now we finally can.

The artwork in my cabin looked more like a potato waffle than anything else, but it was nice enough. There was a good mix of shelves and hanging space and more storage than I have at home.

There was a mini bar, a safe and a TV which was way up high. When we embarked the cruise this was playing the safety drill video and that’s the only time we watched the TV in the cabin.

We put our suitcases just into the bottom of the wardrobe but they would have fit under the bed too.

It wasn’t until we went to bed that we realised that there was only one useable plug socket in the entire cabin. On modern cruise ships it isn’t uncommon to find 4 or 6 and USBs too but way back in the year 2000 there wasn’t the same demand for plugs.

Luckily I had bought my adapter which allows you to plug multiple things into it so we could both charge our stuff at the same time.

I did look around to see if there were any other plug sockets, sometimes there are where the kettle goes or behind the TV.

The kettle was hard wired in and behind the TV there was a plug on the ceiling – but I’d have to climb up there on a chair and then probably prop up my phone on top of the TV – which didn’t sound ideal. 

Find my travel adapter below:

I did also need the plug to plug in my daylight alarm clock which I use to simulate the sunrise. It helps with the total darkness of inside cabins, because you really can’t tell if it’s 3am or 3pm when you wake up in a room like this. 

Find out more about sunrise alarm clocks here:

Sunrise Alarm Clocks – The BEST Inside Cabin Hack

The kettle was a great addition and came in handy. Cruising with my Mum, she likes to drink a lot of tea so we did have a couple of cups every day. Tea is also available in the buffet for free anytime too. 

It’s pretty rare to get a kettle on an American cruise line unless the ship is sailing out of the UK, but on the british cruise lines like P&O its standard. There would be an outcry if P&O tried to remove their kettles! 

There were a few biscuits here but we would only get one little packet everyday, on my past P&O cruises I’ve always had two, one for each person in the cabin so I guess thats evidence of cost cutting.

I know the Cruise lines have to cut costs, but I’d prefer P&O to do it in another way, rather than taking away my biscuits!

Our room was cleaned once a day every day. Traditionally on cruises, the cabin is cleaned twice a day -once in the morning and once in the evening – but one time suited me just fine. I really don’t make that much mess and if I do I’m more than happy to tidy it up.

Despite our location by the stairs we never heard anybody walking up and down the corridor. We didn’t hear any of our neighbours at any point either and I got used to sleeping so close to the door.

I could see myself in the mirror while I was in bed which was a bit odd, but the bed was very comfortable. The air conditioning worked very well and all in all, I was very comfortable here.

I did wonder if I might feel the movement more given that I was sleeping facing into the ship rather than forwards or backwards which is more normal.

We really didn’t have good weather on this cruise but I’m happy to say we never noticed any motion at all. Our cabin was perfectly calm and comfortable.

We did use the extra space when we gave our friends a tour of the room, but most of the time, if we were in the cabin, we’d just sit on the beds.

For getting changed this extra space was useful and I’m glad we picked this cabin. I feel as though the value of this extra space would only increase if you were doing a longer cruise, but even still, I would book a quirky cabin like this again.

The advertised price of the cruise for the lowest cruise fare was £299 ($380) and that is ordinarily what I would book.

I paid the extra £50 to pick the room bringing it to £349 ($433). That is for a three day cruise, including all tips, entertainment and food. That is based on two people sharing an inside cabin – we both paid that price. 

My friends who stayed in a regular balcony paid £499 per person.

If you didn’t think it was worth the upgrade one thing that you could consider would be an inside cabin with a massive TV screen showing you what is outside. It might not sound real but I promise you it is and I tried it very recently.

There were some downsides I hadn’t ever considered and some pros that I really liked. Watch this video next to find out if it is an overpriced gimmick or if it is actually genius:

Before You Go

Compare this cabin to a more modern inside cabin on P&O’s Mega ship, Iona here:

P&O Iona Inside Cabin Photo Review – Space, Bathroom, Cleanliness and More

Find out about the cheapest inside cabin I booked with the luxury line, Azamara. The bathroom was the smallest I had ever seen on any ship:

I Booked The Cheapest Cabin on a LUXURY CRUISE – Azamara Inside Cabin Review