- Where to book
- Midship on deck 9. A deck is only a safe default if it has cabins above it AND cabins below it — plenty of cabins on the deck itself proves nothing. Deck 9 is the cabin-heavy deck that passes it. Deck 10 does NOT get an automatic yes any more, and the reason is a same-deck one rather than a vertical one: Spice H2O now sits on 10 alongside the cabins. Deck 11 needs the check above, with the pool, the Garden Café, the spa and the Spinnaker on 12 — and the Spinnaker runs as a disco at night, which is the part that matters after midnight. Cabins run 5 through 11.
- Motion
- Push hard for midship. Extreme forward is the one to rule out; extreme aft is a negative when there's comparable midship inventory, and more so if vibration also matters to them. Nothing is documented about how this hull rides.
- Vibration
- Lower decks are generally better for motion, not worse — closer to the waterline. The catch is vibration: a low cabin at the back can still pick up the propulsion, so "go low" isn't automatically the right call for a sensitive traveller.
- Obstructed views
- No obstructed-cabin list is published for this ship, and NCL's generic guarantee language is what stands in its place — a guarantee view may be fully obstructed, partially obstructed, a porthole or a picture window, and NCL picks the room. That's a warning about guarantee bookings rather than a list of cabins to avoid. If the view matters to this client, pick the cabin.
- Minors
- On any itinerary touching a US, Canadian or Chinese port, a guest under 21 has to be with someone 21 or over in the same stateroom, a connecting one, or one directly side-by-side. Across the hallway does NOT count here — Royal Caribbean allows that and Norwegian explicitly doesn't, so don't carry the habit across. Guardian minimum is 21, which is looser than Carnival's 25, but the geometry is tighter than both. A guardian who isn't the parent needs a notarised consent letter at the pier.
- Accessibility
- Compact and short-distanced, which helps. I'm deliberately NOT repeating what an earlier version of this record said — that the small cabins leave little turning room for a wheelchair or scooter. That's intuitive and it's arithmetic, not geometry, and an accessibility recommendation has to come from the accessible-cabin specifications rather than from a square-footage figure. Get the actual dimensions and the accessible deck plan for the specific room.
- Height and age rules
- Splash Academy runs Turtles 3–5, Seals 6–9 and Dolphins 10–12, with Entourage for teens 13–17. Guppies covers 6 months to 2 years but it's a parent-participation play session, not drop-off childcare — don't let a couple plan an evening around it. Core programming is free; the Late Night Fun Zone is $10 an hour per child. Registration is a one-time form per child, done on embarkation day.
- Embarkation
- Check-in opens 21 days before sailing, not the 45 Royal gives you, and has to be done at least 3 days out. The arrival window is picked during check-in, and there's a security selfie to upload as part of it — worth warning a less tech-comfortable client about in advance, because eDocs are needed to get onto the pier at all.