Anybody experience issues w/smoke from Promenade starboard side on their Emerald mini suite balcony? Need advice fast

[texswamper]

I have booked & paid for E731 for our January 2023 cruise from Galveston. I tried to research before choosing that mini suite & never read anything about the smoking just below in the Promenade deck just outside the Club Fusion doors. Last night, a woman on the Ruby now posted on FB that the smoke from below was bad and hasn’t allowed them to enjoy the balcony or open the door for fresh air. I can change & go back to a Caribe balcony cabin today but want to ask if others have had issues with this. I’ll be disappointed to change but I would be mad at myself if I didn’t change and we couldn’t use the great balcony for E731. 

[SargassoPirate]

I haven't personally had issues with it because I read on CC about others having them and decided not to book one of those cabins even though the price was really enticing.  There's probably a reason why those cabins are available.

 

I've been happy sticking with my rule of "cabins above, below, and across the corridor". 

[putty27]

We are on the Sapphire right now in mini suite E731. Great balcony and views. Haven’t had any problems with smoke from below. 

[texswamper]

2 hours ago, SargassoPirate said:

I haven't personally had issues with it because I read on CC about others having them and decided not to book one of those cabins even though the price was really enticing.  There's probably a reason why those cabins are available.

 

I've been happy sticking with my rule of "cabins above, below, and across the corridor". 

Thanks Pirate, I've always had the same rules for cabin selection.  I was willing to give E731 a try since it had such glowing reviews but I've realized that all of those were pre Covid and the change of the crew smoking area to the entire aft Promenade deck wasn't a issue years ago.  I have decided to go back to a Caribe balcony and not risk it.  I also had not realized that it was a connecting cabin with E729 which I normally avoid. 😞

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by texswamper

[SargassoPirate]

1 hour ago, texswamper said:

Thanks Pirate, I've always had the same rules for cabin selection.  I was willing to give E731 a try since it had such glowing reviews but I've realized that all of those were pre Covid and the change of the crew smoking area to the entire aft Promenade deck wasn't a issue years ago.  I have decided to go back to a Caribe balcony and not risk it.  I also had not realized that it was a connecting cabin with E729 which I normally avoid. 😞

 

After getting caught off guard and surprised early on in my cruising, I now spend an inordinate amount of time studying the deck plans to avoid such things as being above a disco, below the Melanoma deck, across the corridor from a scullery, a cabin with wall-mounted pullman bunks, and connecting rooms.

 

After all of that, I check my booking every day to ensure that I haven't received an unwanted "upgrade".

 

 

[Coral]

I just spoke to someone who had E731 on Emerald in August and they had no problems.

[nini]

We were in B749 (cornet aft) on the Emerald in May 2022.

Yes, the smoke was a PIA and wafted up to us on a regular basis.

And the smoking was mainly taking place on the port side.........

Smoke floats where it wants to go.

[billco]

We are currently in E731 on the Crown Princess (sister ship to Emerald) There is no connecting door to E729). We prefer this cabin to other mini suites, because the balcony is completely covered and extended with an aft view. Dolphin mini suite balconies are not covered and people in the cabins above can look down on them. Once, we sailed in E721 on the Ruby and smoking was an issue, because the balcony is directly above the smoking area. We haven’t experienced a smoking issue yet  in E731and think it would be highly unlikely.

[Yehootu]

1 hour ago, billco said:

We are currently in E731 on the Crown Princess (sister ship to Emerald) There is no connecting door to E729). We prefer this cabin to other mini suites, because the balcony is completely covered and extended with an aft view. Dolphin mini suite balconies are not covered and people in the cabins above can look down on them. Once, we sailed in E721 on the Ruby and smoking was an issue, because the balcony is directly above the smoking area. We haven’t experienced a smoking issue yet  in E731and think it would be highly unlikely.

Have the TVs been moved to flat wall mounting, or are they still on the curved tower? What besides the propulsion problems got done in dry dock? We have a 28day coming up and are in E730. Favorite cabin on the ship, along with E731.

    Mahalo

[texswamper]

7 hours ago, billco said:

We are currently in E731 on the Crown Princess (sister ship to Emerald) There is no connecting door to E729). We prefer this cabin to other mini suites, because the balcony is completely covered and extended with an aft view. Dolphin mini suite balconies are not covered and people in the cabins above can look down on them. Once, we sailed in E721 on the Ruby and smoking was an issue, because the balcony is directly above the smoking area. We haven’t experienced a smoking issue yet  in E731and think it would be highly unlikely.

Thank you for your experience.  We will be on the Ruby and I believe it will have a connecting door but a previous cruiser said they had no issue with noise.  I'm hoping for the best concerning smoking on the Promenade!  I will report back for others who might be wondering when we return after our 1/8 cruise out of Galveston.  

[Thrak]

On our last cruise we were in a Port side Aloha balcony. We had both cigarette and marijuana smoke drifting to our balcony. I was not pleased...

[marden1970]

19 hours ago, Yehootu said:

Have the TVs been moved to flat wall mounting, or are they still on the curved tower? What besides the propulsion problems got done in dry dock? We have a 28day coming up and are in E730. Favorite cabin on the ship, along with E731.

    Mahalo

Yehootu - are you on the March 2023 South Pacific?  We'll be in cabin E733.

[nini]

21 hours ago, Yehootu said:

Have the TVs been moved to flat wall mounting, or are they still on the curved tower? What besides the propulsion problems got done in dry dock? We have a 28day coming up and are in E730. Favorite cabin on the ship, along with E731.

    Mahalo

On the Emerald (May 2022) and the Grand (September 2022), both of our cabins had the flat screen TV mounted on the wall opposite the bed. The cabinetry where the TV used to be, was still there, outlets and all. We used it as a recharging shelf for phones and Kindles.

[Yehootu]

On 11/5/2022 at 7:32 AM, marden1970 said:

Yehootu - are you on the March 2023 South Pacific?  We'll be in cabin E733.

Yes, that's the one. 

[marden1970]

31 minutes ago, Yehootu said:

Yes, that's the one. 

See you on board!

[mellon1]

On 11/4/2022 at 1:36 PM, billco said:

We are currently in E731 on the Crown Princess (sister ship to Emerald) There is no connecting door to E729). We prefer this cabin to other mini suites, because the balcony is completely covered and extended with an aft view. Dolphin mini suite balconies are not covered and people in the cabins above can look down on them. Once, we sailed in E721 on the Ruby and smoking was an issue, because the balcony is directly above the smoking area. We haven’t experienced a smoking issue yet  in E731and think it would be highly unlikely.

Are they still letting the crew smoke aft on promenaede deck?  We are on an aft on Deck 9 corner suite in 2024 and are concerned about the smoke issue if it is still happening.  Thanks.

[nini]

17 hours ago, mellon1 said:

Are they still letting the crew smoke aft on promenaede deck?  We are on an aft on Deck 9 corner suite in 2024 and are concerned about the smoke issue if it is still happening.  Thanks.

 

Yes. Please also see Post # 13.

[texswamper]

On 11/4/2022 at 8:17 PM, texswamper said:

Thank you for your experience.  We will be on the Ruby and I believe it will have a connecting door but a previous cruiser said they had no issue with noise.  I'm hoping for the best concerning smoking on the Promenade!  I will report back for others who might be wondering when we return after our 1/8 cruise out of Galveston.  

Just disembarked from our Ruby Princess cruise yesterday & as promised I wanted to report our experience in E731 mini suite.  We were please with the location of the room & the balcony size was great.  We did see the connecting door upon entering the cabin but I was hopeful that it would not be a problem.  A bit later we saw our neighbors arrive at their cabin & I was immediately concerned because it was 3 young (20's) people.  Two male & one female. With the average age of our cruise at well over 70, I wondered if they had booked the wrong cruise lol.  Our fears became reality on the very first day/night.  They were discernibly loud talkers but when they came in at 1am laughing and carrying on waking us up, I knew we could/would be in for a very long week & of course I was kicking myself for not following my own rule about cabins to book instead of listening to what others experienced.  Long story short, next day I went to the Guest Services desk to ask if anything might be done to keep it from being a nightly issue.  Princess handled it as well or better than we could have hoped however, I also can't help but somewhat feel that we were deprived of having the very thing we booked the cabin for in the first place.  The solution was to move us to D611.  I never book on Dolphin because I don't like the completely uncovered balcony but at this point, sleep became more important than the extended covered balcony.  Our good fortune of a cabin to move to came at the expense of 3 people who for some reason didn't make the cruise.  We were very thankful to have moved to a quiet cabin with undisturbed sleep for the rest of the week but we will never book a cabin with connecting doors.  The only day we used the balcony, we did smell some smoke from deck 7 but it wasn't enough to move us back indoors.  Hope this helps anyone who might be on the fence & to those who noise doesn't bother, it's a nice mini suite and a wonderful extended balcony.