Opening Up Balconies

Will be sailing on Getaway on July 1. We have balcony cabins 10766, 10768 and 10770. Can we get our balconies opened for the week?

It is against fire safety regulations on the ship to open balcony dividers.

That being said, if you ask your room steward, nicely, they may open them for you. But, don't be upset if they refuse. When in port, there are times when the maintenance crew open all of the dividers as they wash down all of the balconies. They will close them behind them, and you will have to ask your steward again.

Will be sailing on Getaway on July 1. We have balcony cabins 10766, 10768 and 10770. Can we get our balconies opened for the week?

Party Spoiler Alert !

I don't know the specifics about the Getaway balcony partitions but in most cases opening the partitions is a

fruitless effort as the partition opens directly in front of the cabin door leading to the balcony - it is one or the

other open at a time.

These partitions are heavy panels although the new -AWAY class ships maybe using space age lightweight

plastic. One other thing the deck furniture may have to be moved for access of opening and closing the partition.

On a curious note if you want to do this yourself better take a MacGyver tool to unlock the hex head bolt and

then you become a security risk bringing a weapon of mass destruction capable of dismantling the ship. LOL !

Your new quarters will be an Inside Cabin with no doors windows or partitions to fool with.

Climbing over and around the partitions is not the same thing as the climbing the rock wall deck 16 - no-no

finger wave. LOL !

Best solution to opening party cabin quarters is to get adjacent connecting cabins with a common interior door

between the cabins (only two cabins are possible - not three) - On your location deck 10 there are no

connecting cabins nor on deck 9 or 8. Decks 11 12 and 13 have the connecting cabins on the Getaway.

Party Spoiler Alert !

 

I don't know the specifics about the Getaway balcony partitions but in most cases opening the partitions is a

fruitless effort as the partition opens directly in front of the cabin door leading to the balcony - it is one or the

other open at a time.

These partitions are heavy panels although the new -AWAY class ships maybe using space age lightweight

plastic. One other thing the deck furniture may have to be moved for access of opening and closing the partition.

 

On a curious note if you want to do this yourself better take a MacGyver tool to unlock the hex head bolt and

then you become a security risk bringing a weapon of mass destruction capable of dismantling the ship. LOL !

Your new quarters will be an Inside Cabin with no doors windows or partitions to fool with.

Climbing over and around the partitions is not the same thing as the climbing the rock wall deck 16 - no-no

finger wave. LOL !

 

Best solution to opening party cabin quarters is to get adjacent connecting cabins with a common interior door

between the cabins (only two cabins are possible - not three) - On your location deck 10 there are no

connecting cabins nor on deck 9 or 8. Decks 11 12 and 13 have the connecting cabins on the Getaway.

The partitions will swing either way and may be swung into the fixed panel of a cabin door wall. We did this for three cabins on an Alaska cruise and it was great.

We sail on both NCL and Princess and only Princess allows the balconies to be connected. On the Getaway you would need to get cabins with an interior connecting door. Princess doesn't offer this on most of their ships so that's probably why they allow it.

RCI allowed it for us on Anthem last year....can’t hurt to ask! Good luck.

Thanks everyone for your input. Your too funny dont-use-real-name:'). Ill have to bring a hex thingamajig and see what happens

Not allowed.

From the Getaway dailies...(poor grammar aside :p)

BALCONIES SAFETY PARTITIONS: As per Safety requirement, requests for partitions of adjacent balconies to be opened are not allowed.

Gosh darn it!!!:(

Years past it was allowed. I suspect someone got hit by the partition door, sued NCL and that was that

We book connecting cabins and leave the doors open on the inside

Just off the Dawn and we could not open the partition. We had connecting rooms though so it wasn’t an issue. We were in port with an MSC ship and saw they had balcony dividers opened in quite a few areas so it may just be an ncl rule

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We have never had a problem getting divider opened! Hoping to do it again on the Spirit in 2 weeks! Maybe it depends on the cabin steward?!?!

Just off the Dawn and we could not open the partition. We had connecting rooms though so it wasn’t an issue. We were in port with an MSC ship and saw they had balcony dividers opened in quite a few areas so it may just be an ncl rule

 

 

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If that was the MSC Seaside, those balconies could have been part of the "Family Balcony suites", 3 connected balconies in the Fantastica level of cabins. MSC is very much a family oriented cruise line... not so much for solo cruisers but great for families.

From the Getaway dailies...(poor grammar aside :p)

 

BALCONIES SAFETY PARTITIONS: As per Safety requirement, requests for partitions of adjacent balconies to be opened are not allowed.

I wonder why they call it a safety requirement when it is obviously allowed on other cruise lines. We did it on the Carnival Vista last year with no problem. They even have a website to let you know which balconies connect.

If that was the MSC Seaside, those balconies could have been part of the "Family Balcony suites", 3 connected balconies in the Fantastica level of cabins. MSC is very much a family oriented cruise line... not so much for solo cruisers but great for families.

It wasn’t the seaside but I can’t remember which ship it was. We had friends cruising on the seaside last week and we were never in the same place.

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We have never had a problem getting divider opened! Hoping to do it again on the Spirit in 2 weeks! Maybe it depends on the cabin steward?!?!

Please keep us posted on divider issue

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I wonder why they call it a safety requirement when it is obviously allowed on other cruise lines. We did it on the Carnival Vista last year with no problem. They even have a website to let you know which balconies connect.

It is a safety requirement for all ships on all lines, but there is a mandated maximum number of partitions that can be opened at one time, and a maximum number of partitions in a row that can be opened. NCL used to leave it up to the Captain's decision as to which, how many, and whether, partitions could be opened. This led to complaints when some were allowed, and others not, so the company took it away from the Captain and made a blanket no. This has to do with each Company's ISM (International Safety Management) Code, how it is written, and what the classification society (the insurance underwriters) want to see in the Code. Some class societies, and some P&I insurance clubs are stricter about this than others, which is why it is allowed more on some lines than others.

It is a safety hazard, in that the balcony divider acts as a fire break between cabins, and when you open them, you lose that protection from fire spread. The only reason the dividers were made to open at all was not for passenger convenience, but to allow fire teams to access one balcony from another. When dividers didn't open, this was found to be a contributory factor in the Star Princess fire, leading to the severity of the fire.

Ill update after my July cruise:)

Will be sailing on Getaway on July 1. We have balcony cabins 10766, 10768 and 10770. Can we get our balconies opened for the week?

Welcome back from what I hope was a wonderful cruise! Curious to know what your experience was regarding opening the dividers between the balconies - we will have those exact cabins (10768 and 10770) and are hoping to be able to open them.

If there's anything else of note that you feel is worth sharing about that ship, we'd love to hear about that too. :)

Thanks... Celine

We haven't been able to get balconies open on either Carnival or NCL since 2014. This is a big reason we book larger balconies now, so more of us can get together on one cabin's balcony. For our upcoming Getaway cruise -- not till January 2019, we booked those large balcony mini suites (really a misnomer for being a suite -- just a larger bathroom and slightly larger room -- getting it totally for the balcony) on eight, so a few more people at a time can get together and visit comfortably, as we spend a lot of time on these.