Queen Mary 2 – Atrium View Inside Cabin Review

I’ve recently disembarked a cruise, where I stayed in the smallest cabin on the entire ship.

It has a feature that I’ve never seen on a cruise ship before, and although my cabin is inside, it’s definitely not what you imagine when you hear the words “inside cabin“.

I spent most of the week trying to work out why this cabin existed at all, and if it was worth the price that I paid for it.

Booking a cabin without any outside space at all definitely was a gamble because our cruise was spending eight full days at sea.

The weather turned out to be far worse than I imagined…

I knew that this ship was 20 years old, so I hoped that nothing in the cabin would be broken or damaged.

As with every cruise I take, I’d heard so many horror stories about broken toilets and air conditioning. I really didn’t want to be stuck inside a scruffy room feeling unwell for eight solid days.

I knew when booking this cruise that I wanted to keep the price as low as possible, but I also didn’t want to risk getting a cabin in a location that would have more movement.

When I looked at the deck plans I saw that there were inside cabins that appeared to look out over the Atrium.

The biggest issues with inside cabins are that there is no natural light at all, and they can feel claustrophobic. I wondered if this window would help with that.

I doubted it, honestly, but as it only cost £25 extra for the entire week, I thought it was worth a try. I just hoped that it wouldn’t make me feel more claustrophobic than usual.

I thought even if the window was no help, we would be in the middle of the ship and watching people walk around would be fun.

In reality, the problems that we had weren’t ones that I imagined pre-cruise at all.

We embarked the ship a little later than planned because of an illness outbreak on the cruise before ours. The positive of that was because we boarded later our cabins were already ready.

I was cruising on this ship with my parents, who had a balcony cabin up on deck eleven. We headed there first to take a quick look at the view of New York City. That is something that my cabin definitely wouldn’t have.

I loved the look of the cabin and although the ship is fairly old by cruise ship standards, she didn’t seem in a bad way. There were a few scuffs around of course, but overall I was impressed and the balcony space definitely was nice.

On my parent’s last cruise on Queen Mary 2, they found a big bra down the back of one of the drawers, but no such bad luck this time! Find out more about that trip here:

It might have seemed as though this cabin would be much better than mine, but honestly, I wouldn’t have wanted to upgrade to this cabin.

As the cruise went on and we hit the bad weather, the benefits of my cabin location really became apparent.

I assumed that my cabin would be similar in design to theirs, but I didn’t think that we would have the seating area. I was right about that.

Heading down to deck 6 we were very excited to pick up our cruise cards from outside the room and to let ourselves in.

I first noticed the lovely blue and gold colours on the beds, and although the room seemed quite compact, it had everything in it I’d expect from an inside cabin.

I headed straight to the window to pull up the blind, I hoped that I’d have a great view from here and that I’d be able to people watch – but I was totally prepared to just be staring at a wall opposite, and I would have been fine with that.

I struggled a little with the fiddly blind but eventually got it open. I saw that we could see into the cabins opposite and that everybody else had their blinds down.

There were two blinds, one wooden one and a fabric one. I really wanted to find somebody to wave at at some point during this cruise – but it didn’t seem at this point that the people opposite shared my goal. I decided to make that my cruise mission.

Looking down into the Atrium, I could see a few people – but only if I really tried to. I had to stand on my tiptoes to see them.

I could see a piano at the bottom and I wondered if they would do anything in this atrium area during our cruise, Cunard aren’t really known for nightlife but the last time I cruised with Cunard I was right below the nightclub and it was really quite noisy.

Have a look at my inside cabin on Cunards newest ship, Queen Anne, here. It is interesting to see how Cunard inside cabin design has evolved over the last twenty years:

The beds looked very comfortable, and I was very happy to see that we had a kettle and biscuits.

This was a lovely British touch, as were the UK plug sockets on the desk. At first, they gave us coconut biscuits (which is worse than none at all), but my brother very kindly ate those so that they’d be replaced with something else.

I’m sure that I could have requested other biscuits but there was so much food on this ship that definitely wasn’t something I felt the need to do.

There was also a mini bar fridge and a safe. There was a TV too although we didn’t really use it that much during the cruise.

Soon our bags arrived, and we started to unpack.

Cunard are a formal cruise line, so I had lots more packed than I usually would. Most days, I’d need a day and then a different evening outfit.

I also had masquerade masks in my bag, which definitely isn’t something I’d usually bring along on cruise.

The bells would jingle when we hit the rough seas later on, but I’d usually just throw a jumper on them to get them to be quiet.

The cabin definitely did feel a little smaller than other inside cabins I’ve stayed in, but we had a couple of drawers each and there were two wardrobes, so we took one of those each.

For the week, this was totally fine for us, but I do know people who have taken world cruises in cabins just like this, and that would be a stretch.

I suppose in that situation, you’d have to take advantage of the laundry service. There are self-service laundries onboard that guests can use, and even the washing powder sheets are free, which is very rare. You normally have to buy those.

I was staying in this cabin with my brother so I was happy to see that the beds were made up as two twins, that said though not even Captain Hudson could fit between these beds so I did decide to do a bit of rearranging to give us some space.

I moved the table into the corner and pushed my bed to the side. Our room steward would push them back together everyday when she made the beds, and I’d push them apart again, it became a silent battle.

Whenever we were in the cabins we were sat on our beds anyway so it didn’t matter that everything else was squashed over to one side.

I’m lucky that my brother and I share a cabin very well because it would be tricky to share a space like this with somebody who is on a different schedule or overly messy.

One thing that I thought might make us annoy each other though was the plug socket situation.

I’ve been on cruises in the past on ships as old as this, where there was only one plug socket in the entire cabin. I’m happy to say that this cabin did have two UK sockets and two USA sockets so we both had some.

I’m so glad one was upside down, because my MacBook charger definitely wouldn’t have fit in the socket on the right the usual way around.

On a more modern cruise ship, there are usually sockets by the bed or in the lamps, but there weren’t any on here.

The only real downside of this though was that I’d have to get up to get my phone when the alarm went off in the morning. Given that on this cruise we were passing through 5 different time zones, I thought that making sure I was really awake in the morning might be important.

Nature called, so I decided to go check out the bathroom. It was a fair size and perfectly clean and functional. Nothing seemed damaged to all, but there was a shower curtain, which I know that a lot of people hate.

I only just upgraded from my own shower curtain at home to a door last year so I can’t say it bothers me a lot.

I noticed that the bottom part of the shower was quite deep and that’s something that would come in handy later, when I had a shower this would fill up with water. It wouldn’t ever spill out into the room but it was like standing in a paddling pool.

Cunard provides all bedding and towels. They even provide flannels (washcloths), which is a nice touch.

On a Cunard cruise the cabins are cleaned twice a day, so as we were watching the sail away from the top deck our lovely room steward was making our cabin into night mode.

They put down the blind, moved the little cushions and most importantly, left a chocolate on the pillow. A lot of cruise lines have stopped doing this, but it is a classic cruise ship thing to do.

They also always left us the daily schedule, and I loved getting into bed to read about what was happening the next day.

It is also available in the app, but there is something nice about physically looking through it. I feel like a kid before Christmas circling what they’d like from a catalogue.

The beds were so incredibly comfortable, the covers were so soft and most of the time I slept very well here, usually at night, but occasionally in the day when the motion was too much and I felt unwell.

There are loads of ways to prevent and deal with seasickness but I’ve never found any as good as just going to sleep and waking up when the seas are calmer, it’s like fast forwarding the worst part.

Find out some good ways to prevent and treat seasickness here:

13 Actionable Tips to Prevent and Treat Seasickness on a Cruise

On the first night though, I didn’t know just how rough the seas would get.

As we fell asleep we heard the distant sound of a piano. We assumed that this was a pianist who was sitting in the Atrium playing – but it wasn’t. It was the piano in the Atrium playing, yes… but it wasn’t a person.

The next day we would be wandering by and would see the piano playing itself. We were right above this piano, so it’s not surprising that we could hear it. A ghost pianist!

I’ve stayed in some very loud cabins before above bars or under the theatre, so being above the Atrium piano really wasn’t a problem.

I will say, it wasn’t exactly relaxing piano music, it was a bit sporadic. I think the ghost was so desperate to show off that he was good at the piano than she played any old thing.

As the cabin is over 20 years old I was expecting to see some signs that she was worn down. There was an old hair dryer, and the bathroom had an ashtray, though.

There were a few little stains, but to be honest I’ve seen these on ships that are only a couple of years old too.

We did have a problem with the light, but it was soon fixed. It’s more important to me how a line fixes things than if they go wrong, because they always do.

The main thing for me was that the cabin was functional and clean, and it definitely was those two things. The bedding was all perfectly new, and everything worked.

Some of the drawers were a bit tricky to open, but as these are the original doors from the early 2000s, I think I can forgive that.

We had plenty of hanging space and I put my suitcase under the bed. When I’d worn my clothes I’d just put them under there so the suitcase basically packed itself.

By the bed, we had two bedside tables, which were helpful for keeping our pyjamas and small things like headphones.

On day three, the weather really took a turn for the worse. The Captain said that he’d make sure we were “as comfortable as possible,” which I do appreciate (but it did make me very nervous)

I am somebody who does get seasick, and when I feel seasick, having access to fresh air is so helpful.

They closed off the outside deck spaces so when the weather was bad I couldn’t even go out there to get any fresh air.

That said though, this location in the middle of deck six was fantastic and I wouldn’t have traded it for a balcony in another location even with the addition of fresh air.

I did have to take seasickness pills for a few days on this cruise, but it was January. There was still movement, of course; things would rock around, and the toilet roll even rolled away from me at one point – but the movement was a lot more in my parent’s cabin.

My dad actually spent a full day just laying in my cabin because he felt so seasick. The movement was noticeably less here than in their cabin at the front of deck eleven.

Generally speaking the further down and the more in the middle you are, the less you’ll feel the movement.

Find out more about that here:

What is The Best Cabin Location on a Cruise For Avoiding Seasickness? (I’ve Tried Them All!)

When I booked this cruise, I made sure that I told my travel agent to put a “do not upgrade” note on the booking.

I’m so glad that I did that, and if you are ever booking a specific cabin for the location, make sure you do that too. What a cruise line considers an upgrade isn’t always what we might.

They could have “upgraded” me to an Oceanview cabin at one end, for example, which wouldn’t have been great…

It would have been nice to have been able to see the sea of course, but on a cruise like this it is just ocean in all directions forever.

In an inside cabin there really is no way to know if it’s 3 am or 3 pm because it is pitch black.

There was a little bit of light coming in around the door, but the window didn’t let in any light, which was good as the atrium lights were always on.

There wasn’t really any benefit to us having the window with a view of the Atrium, most of the cruise we just had the blinds down.

Our room steward would put the blinds down whenever she made the room, and we didn’t really bother to open them much.

One time I did though was when I decided I’d have to find my own person to wave at. I’d never seen anybody in any of the cabins opposite, so I sent my dad down to the bottom of the atrium with my phone to wave at me.

Given the price I paid of £809 I was very happy with this room, I do understand that it’s not for everybody though and this cruise route certainly isn’t. I honestly don’t think I’ll be doing a transatlantic again.

To find out what cruise cabins are like at the other end of the scale, I’ll show you around an incredible cabin I had with a bath onboard the Norwegian Spirit.

We certainly didn’t have any problems with ghost pianos on that ship, but there were a few unexpected things we encountered.

Before You Go

Find out more about the balcony cabin my parents had up on deck eleven below. The movement of the rough sea felt very bad there.

Why Wouldn’t Recommend This Balcony Cabin on Queen Mary 2 (Full Cabin Review)

Find out the important differences between Ocean Liners and cruise ships here:

Cruise Ships vs Ocean Liners – Measurable Differences You Need to Know