French Escapade - Room 201 Ruby Deck Category 4 Cabin on the Emerald

2»

Comments

  • Yes, the loft cabins are great. Unfortunately they aren't available on all ships. None of the French cruises have a ship with that cabin type and only some of the Rhine/Danube/Moselle cruises do. I don't believe Tauck/Scylla uses those ships on the longer cruises due to length. Four out of Tauck's 9 ships have loft cabins.

  • British,I agree with you about the loft. I too like everything on the same level. My daughter and her fiancé (she was married this past Saturday) loved the loft. She said it was more user- friendly than our category 5 room (which I’m still not quite understanding). I believe the loft staterooms still have smaller closets than category 5 or 6. I would be concerned that I would trip or fall on the stairs or my husband might. That thought had crossed my mind. I could also understand that the loft area could be a designated area either for me or my husband; not both of us because we tend to spread our stuff out. I don’t plan on staying in a stateroom for any length of time during the day. What’s the point?

  • On short cruises Tauck generally keeps you busy and you don't have much time in your cabin other than sleeping or dressing. On longer cruises you can have periods during the day of just cruising when it's kind of nice to have a place to chill out. Not everyone wants to be with people all the time.

  • Yes Claudia, I do agree that people don’t want to hang out all the time. I’ve only been on one River cruise and can’t remember how it was with people hanging around in the public places during the day. On my two small ship cruises, when we were at sea during the day, the public places were like a ghost ship. My husband would nap and the cabin was too small for me to do anything, even turning the page of a book wakes him up according to him. So I would head to the lounge at the back of the ship, lounge along a sofa and read or look at the sea. I was always the only one there, so I guess people do spend a lot of time in their cabins, I guess another reason why I still prefer land trips if there is a choice.

  • It's a good thing that there are people who prefer different categories of cabins! It keeps those boats filled.

  • Yes, Cathy, we certainly found we were more often in our cabins in our two small ship cruises with Tauck and definitely in our disappointing part of our Alaska trip, the cruise ship. I don’t recall the same thing on our river cruise because there is more to see because you are on a river and I also found our cabin nicer. I just prefer the land so we can explore more between the included Tauck tours during the day and sometimes evenings depending on where we are.
    I hope we’ve chosen a slightly bigger room for our upcoming Tauck Arabia cruise, I can’t recall our room, we booked it so long ago. Our river cruise next month has at least 20 empty cabins that I can count. I’m so interested to see what the ship and service is like since it costs very little and we have one of the expensive cabins.

  • British, what’s your tip on counting how many empty cabins?

  • The company I am touring with is not Tauck, so we can see exactly which cabins are sold on the ship.

  • We just got back from a cruise on the Emerald (loved it, and loved the Amsterdam to Budapest cruise we did 8 yrs ago). We had a Cat 6 cabin on the Ruby deck and it was quite spacious with a large bathroom and a great shower. Friends we made on the trip had Cabin 301, which I assume has the identical layout to 201. They were unhappy with the size of the bathroom, specifically the shower. If you view the Cabin Categories for the ship, you'll see from the schematic that the shower is a quarter of a circle, rather than square or rectagular, and they felt it was barely adequate. The price is lower, but in my opinion, not low enough to compensate for its shortcomings.

    Proximity to the Compass Rose is just part of the exposure; 201 is a half-deck up from that, and a half-deck down from the lobby area, so everyone passes through there multiple times a day. I don't know how much noise you would hear from those public areas, but I could hear people talking in the hallway as they passed by our room. On the other hand, on our two cruises, things were very quiet at night. If you are counting on afternoon naps (which would mean skipping some tours and activities), that room would probably be a bad bet.

    In your shoes, I would look hard at other dates. But if it were a choice between taking that cabin or not going at all, I would take the cabin!

  • edited May 2023

    We just came home and were in cabin 206 and were pleasantly surprised with the size and storage in the room and bathroom. Our friend, a single, was in 201 and it was fine for her as one person. We had a ton of stuff - 2 (26") suitcases and 2 large carryons - we don't travel light - and had room for everything.

Leave a Comment

BoldItalicStrikethroughOrdered listUnordered list
Emoji
Image
Align leftAlign centerAlign rightToggle HTML viewToggle full pageToggle lights
Drop image/file