My only question was whether the sofa bed might be softer, as it folds down to cushions, while the others don't have anything except the hard surface on which the mattress lays to act as a box spring.
The mattress of the sofa bed rests on a hard surface which is the back of the sofa.
My 5'7" adult sister has slept on both the sofa bed and the murphy bed.
She prefers the murphy bed except for the one time this past cruise she whacked her ankle on the corner of the murphy bed frame ;-)
Some of her comments:
- the sofa bed matress was not as comfortable -- but this could just be a difference in eg an older or newer mattress so is hard to tell if this is a real issue or not
- the "frame" of the sofa bed is the sofa, so it has the high arms on both the head and foot which are probably mostly fine for shorter people, but for taller people will be a problem; plus, you can end up running into them when moving around
- the "frame" of the murphy bed is open on 3 sides so lots of room for moving around and taller people
- the murphy bed has a sizable gap between the top of the mattress and the wall at the head of the bed -- things will fall down it if you are not careful; stuffing pillows into it can solve the problem; ask your stateroom host for extra pillows for this purpose
- the murphy bed frame is solid "wood" [probably not actual wood, but it is finished to look like wood, so we'll call it wood] that extends out a couple inches beyond the mattress, like a platform. BE AWARE of this because it will try to attack you as you innocently walk past ;-) Actually, as noted above, it can be easy to whack into if you are not paying attention or cut it a little too close, so be careful when walking near it when it is down.
- the side of the sofa bed has a gap between where the mattress ends and where the end of the sofa is; my sister found when sitting on the made bed, this gap hit her knees at a bad point that was VERY uncomfortable for sitting, and because the mattress doesnt go right to the edge you couldn't really adjust either to make it comfortable
- the murphy bed is low to the flow, so does not have the uncomfortable sitting issue even with its platform, as you can easily adjust sitting position, at least for an older child or adult.
On our next cruise my sister may be having to use the sofa bed, so we are actively trying to come up with solutions to the issues identified above. Any suggestions are welcome.
SW
