When we were finished eating, the staterooms were ready so we headed to our rooms on Deck 14 forward. Deck 14 is the highest regular deck with staterooms (aside from the uber-pricey Loft Suites on Deck 16-17). Being a family of 5 we had the option of booking one of the family staterooms that hold up to 6, or our normal configuration of an inside room across from a balcony room. For more space, a lower price, and more toilets, we chose the latter. We liked the location of Deck 14 for the proximity to the pool decks (one flight up), and our rooms were literally feet from Adventure Ocean, the kids' club.
Our children had #14575, a Category L inside:
The beds were supposed to be apart, and after meeting with our awesome stateroom host Anthony he quickly fixed the room setup, and it did seem much more spacious that way.
This stateroom is 172 square feet- rather small. Compared to Cat 11 on the Dream (169 SF) and the Magic (189 SF) it was in actuality pretty similar. It seemed larger to us than the room the kids had last on the Magic, though, and I think this impression was solely due to the separated beds.
The kids’ room did have a pull –out sofa, but since we wanted Sarah to sleep with us, we elected not to use it.
The dual ipod/iphone dock-in every room was awesome. Be aware if you have some older model ipods they might not fit well. My husband has a first generation itouch and it did not sit right in the dock-we had to wiggle it and almost force it in. But once we used a lot of pressure, it did work. My iphone 4 fit perfectly.
In the bathroom, the sink counter and console was much shallower in depth than I expected. It wasn’t really a problem-just something I hadn’t noticed in pictures I had seen previously. Don’t expect to keep a lot of items in the cabinets below the sink. They don’t hold much. Maybe we are just high maintenance, but we just kept our toiletry duffel on the floor and used it to store our bathroom items rather than unpack all of our toiletries, sunscreens, and supplies. There is no clothesline, which I missed, but there are plenty of hooks for hanging wet bathing suits; Six in the bathroom alone (2 on the wall, one in the shower and 3 behind the door), and a few more on the wall in the room.
Shower- the standard Royal Caribbean “toothpaste tube”. It seemed slightly roomier than I remembered from Freedom class. And as much as I loved this awesome bar to rest my legs on while shaving, I hated the basket that held our shampoo and other bathing items. It had very wide wire and leaned at an angle and our shampoo and conditioner- despite being very large bottles-constantly slipped though the wire to the floor. Not a huge deal- just annoying. Also no soap dish or shelf inside the shower, so we had to prop our soap elsewhere. I did like that there was no shower curtain to stick to my behind.
Close up of the basket that holds virtually nothing:
And woman's best friend: the shaving bar:
The toiletries- not great, standard hotel toiletry fare. Blah. My daughter liked using the shampoo and conditioner and I did use the shower gel. Of course these will not stay put in the aforementioned toiletry basket, so you have to keep them on the floor or propped on top of the “all-in-one” mystery liquid dispenser standard on Royal fleetwide (it’s actually 2 in 1 shampoo/conditioner but it’s more fun to call it mystery soap.)
No comparison here to the much larger and much higher quality H20 line of products on
DCL that we love. The smell of those H20 products will trigger amazing cruise thoughts in my brain for probably the rest of my life.
Biggest pet peeve: no trash can (that I saw) in the bathroom. I was not used to that, but by the end of the week we were in the habit of taking the short walk to the only other stateroom garbage can to dispose of our tissues, wrappers, and empty product containers. (Who knew there was a little one there all along inside the door of the 8-inch deep cabinet below the sink(!)
One thing we did like: turn the bathroom light off at night and it automatically switches to a non-obtrusive night-light setting!
Our stateroom was directly across the hall, 14574 -a Cat. D2 Balcony, and appointments were very similar. It was noticeably larger than the inside room, but also noticeably smaller than Freedom Class.
At 235 total SF (182 interior SF plus a 53 SF Balcony), this room was also quite smaller than our previous Cat. 5 on the Magic (268 total SF , including balcony). These rooms on the Dream (Cat 6) are a little smaller than the Magic and only a tad bigger than Allure at- 249 SF with Balcony!) Overall pretty comparable.
It had the bed by the closet- which we did know ahead of time. (On Allure and Oasis each room alternates, one has the bed by the closet and the next has the bed by the balcony). Not sure if we preferred that setup or not. Yes, getting into the closet was a bit of a hassle, but we did like having the couch area near the balcony, like we were used to on DCL. The bed was super comfortable- very soft!
As with all other
Royal Caribbean ships, there is a refrigerator stocked with mini-bar drinks and snacks. We removed these items and placed them on the shelf over the TV so we could utilize the refrigerator.
Also like the magazine rack to store all of that in-cabin reading. We would also find this area quite useful for our small day to day use items like batteries and sunscreen.
Storage is not as ample in these rooms as either DCL or Freedom class. The desk drawer space is limited, although there is pretty ample shelf storage in the closet for folded clothing. We found it sufficient for the three of us, and the kids had plenty of room for the two of them, but for 3 or more....it would be very, very tight. I also prefer nightstands with drawers to the small bedside tables with open shelves. I was always knocking stuff on the floor here. No storage trunk like on DCL, for sure missed that!
We did, unfortunately have smokers next to us, and the smoke was quite heavy on the balcony when they were out there smoking. We are sensitive to smoke so this was disappointing. I wish Royal would at the very least make one side of the ship no-smoking on balconies. No offense to the smokers out there. There were not out there all the time though so we did still enjoy our balcony. We are bona fide balcony snobs, no doubt about it.
The smoke did bother Ron quite a bit. And even though they were downwind from us, we really could smell it on our balcony. It was a younger couple in the next room, I’d say in their early 20’s , and they were from another country: my guess Spain, or Italy somewhere in Europe. I couldn’t quite discern their language. But of course Ron had a solution. If they were going to smoke, well, we were going to fart. Okay , if they were going to smoke, RON was going to fart because everyone knows girls don’t fart! Now I don’t know that any actual gas blasting occurred out there- just the “announcement” of that intention, joke or not left me quite embarrassed, and if so it wasn’t very effective since they did not curtail their smoking at all (not that I expected them to). I’m sure they got a laugh out of it. And of course I saw them constantly the rest of the week. I'm sure each time they thought "Oh, look one of the farters!" So embarrassing!
Just as a note, there does seem to be quite a lot more smoking on this ship-both in public areas and on balconies. I attribute it to the VERY high international population of the cruisers. Americans very well may be in the minority on this ship, as they are marketed very heavily in Europe and South America. Up on deck it’s easy enough to avoid but if you get stuck playing the balcony smoker roulette, oh well…sorry ‘bout yer luck kid. I wish both RCCL and DCL would just make one side of the ship balconies smoking and the other side non-smoking. It would be a win-win and encourage early booking. Anyway, off my soapbox!
Our stateroom did have 2 robes. I think this may be that they are only provided for adults- the other room had all of the kids booked in it, and they didn’t get the robes. I loved these, very nice!
**Continued**
Those sandwiches look incredible!
LOL!
"Dis Moms 6: Stop the Bar, I Want to Get Off." Coming soon to a TR board near you!!!
I am already thinking that I might have to cross over to the dark side, even though Jim says if he's paying for a cruise it will be Disney. 
