Elation, Main Deck Portholes, how noisy?

We have the opportunity to split our cabin of 4 in the aft of the empress deck into 2 separate rooms (kids in one, parents in other). We had heard that the Elation was something described as a front drive ship & that the front could be noisy.

Wondering if anyone had any thoughts or opinions on a porthole room at this lower level?

Thank you!

my brother and i had a porthole room (M7) on the imagination. we hardly heard a thing. maybe a little bit while pulling into port, but nothing that could wake us up

I've had port hole rooms on Fantasy class ships ~ the only time I've heard noise was when they let down the anchor. It is loud, but I am thankful for that wake up call!! :) Besides that, no noise. We always book porthole rooms when they're available! Happy sailing!!

Ive been woken up by the stablizers . .. and the waves if you hit big waves. That being said, its such a good value, I would do one again. quiet.. not by a long shot. Been woken at 4:30 am more than once, but Im a light sleeper. The waves can sound like the ship ran aground .. BAM.

We just came off the Elation...room M11...front porthole room. It was noisy when porting and you can definitely hear the water movement. It wasn't horrible but not quiet if you are picky. We loved the room!

We recently stayed (Feb 2012) in R3 on the elation. Porthole room. We heard the thrusters in Progresso but considered it a good wake up call. We were in port!! You will not hear the anchor as the ship ties up to the pier in Progresso and Cozumel. At least it did on our cruise. We like that you can shut the windows tight to block the sun for at sea days to sleep later. R3 was huge compared to a regular stateroom. We consider it to be a good deal since you pay the rate for an inside room.

The waves were not that big on this cruise but we were on the Freedom last year in a porthole room and heard the "boom" sound with bigger waves. We actually thought that was cool. Since the porthole rooms are in the front of the room you seldom hear any hallway noise. We will try to book them on our future cruises. They work really well for us.