Guest Post by Rachel Shingleton 

Time for another…lovely day, lovely day, lovely day at Coco Cay!

We started off the day by taking advantage of one of our Suite Perks – breakfast at Chops! I’m not much of a breakfast person, but this food was GOOD! Look at those eggs. Definitely not from a carton.


While eating breakfast we observed one of the Covid protocols that had been driving me and Judy crazy. As one would expect, every other table in restaurants and lounges is marked as unavailable for social distancing purposes. The unavailable tables are marked with these highly visible tents –

Cabin layouts in cruise ships don't vary much from ship to ship or cruise line to cruise line.  This is likely because every cruise line is trying to maximize the number of staterooms on the ship, therefore increasing the occupancy, and there are only so many ways to configure a stateroom.  However, the Norwegian Epic challenged the basic rectangular cabin with its "wave" layout.



I sailed in a wave balcony stateroom with my sister in May on our Mediterranean cruise.  I had read on Cruise Critic that the aft balconies had bad engine vibrations, and while I did notice it when we were entering and leaving port, it didn’t bother me at all. I loved the view from the aft – it was great to be able to look to either side of the ship. The only downside was that we did have some smokers neighboring us, so it was annoying to be on the balcony and smell smoke. I realize that there are very limited smoking areas on the ship and that smokers get the balcony stateroom for the luxury of being able to smoke on it. I just wish it didn’t smell so bad to non-smokers. I think this is a problem that is going to eliminate itself over the next few decades.