Koningsdam aft balcony questions for Hawaii

[twentyknots]

We are strongly considering a sunset balcony (5219) on the Koningsdam for an 18-day Hawaii cruise in November 2020.  We stayed in a corner suite (5190) on the Oosterdam in 2018 and will have the same cabin on her in June, 2019 for an Alaska trip, so we have some experience with aft cabins.  The corner suite was outstanding and I anticipate that the experience will be very different from a balcony but the suite was just too expensive for 18 days. 

I have some questions and concerns for the Hawaii trip.  Thank you all in advance for your responses.

1.  The Oosterdam cruise in 2018 was in calm waters in the Caribbean, and I expect Alaska will be fairly smooth as well.  I don’t know about Hawaii though especially the 10 days at sea out and back.  Might the aft cabin have considerably more movement in crossovers than a mid-ship balcony?

2.  Are the aft balcony cabins covered?

3.  It appears from the deck plans that the cabins adjacent to the corner suites are maybe slightly larger inside and balcony.  Is that just an illusion?

4.  I notice that the Koningsdam is not showing as many port side cabins available as starboard.  Is that maybe because they haven’t released them yet or port cabins are much more popular and sell out first?

[3rdGenCunarder]

1. I love the corner afts on the Vista ships, but I had one on the K and I was not happy. The ship shimmied in the slightest wind, and when we had following seas (waves toward the aft), that ship slammed into them and banged like crazy. We didn't have terribly rough weather, it was just the bad luck of our heading with respect to the direction of the waves. I don't mind pitching, I can put up with rolling, but the random bang of the aft slapping the waves was very annoying, as was the shimmy. Other people have not had this problem with aft cabins on the K, so it's a matter of luck. But for my second time on the K, I went with midships to avoid the issues I had with the aft. Despite what Balboa thought, the Pacific can get quite rough.

 

2. Balcony cabins are about 2/3 covered. The K doesn't have that one deck with a deep covered balcony like the Vistas have. I've had 5190 on a Vista and it was insanely big. You won't get that on deck 5 of the K.

 

3. don't know

 

4. Don't go by the selection of available cabins that you see in the booking process. For some reason, it rarely shows more than 10, even if more are available. It's a royal PITA, but you can search for specific cabin numbers if you're curious.

 

[sandy1754]

Where can you search for specific cabins ?

Thanks

[3rdGenCunarder]

1 hour ago, sandy1754 said:

Where can you search for specific cabins ?

Thanks

 

Somewhere in the booking process you can enter a specific cabin number. It's somewhere in the process to change your cabin selection, but I'm not sure where. Start the booking and choose a cabin category. Click to choose your cabin, and then you should get a menu of things to change--deck, forward/mid/aft, etc. I think somewhere on that page there will be a place to enter the cabin you want to look for. 

[packercruising]

We just booked today, Deck 7, port side aft. We had to go a bit further forward than we wanted becuase all the ones aft of us were already booked port side. That could also be the situation with deck 5. We are booking the port side to be sure we get to see the volcanoes. Others might also have the same idea.

In the videos I have watched, it does not look like the aft balcony are very well covered from upper deck balconys.