Utopia of the Seas Cabins to Avoid (and the Rooms I’d Book Anyway)

Utopia sails three and four nights out of Port Canaveral, and the pool deck is tuned to match. One set of balconies hangs in the open air directly underneath all of that.

You are here to find out whether yours is one of them.

Central Park balconies: the room is fine, the balcony is not

This is the thing I would most want you to get right on this ship. Central Park is an open canyon with no roof, and the pool deck sits at the top of it with a live band, a DJ and a sound system aimed at the sky.

A Central Park view balcony is an inward-facing balcony, hanging over that canyon instead of over the sea. That is the whole appeal of it, and it is also the problem.

All of that falls into the void and lands on these balconies. Late afternoon is the worst of it, roughly 4pm to 6pm, along with the sail-away party on your first evening.

Now the part that should decide your booking.

Out on the balcony it is bad. Inside the room with the sliding door shut, it is mostly fine.

People who paid the park premium describe giving up and going in, and people in the same category say that with the door closed they could not hear a thing. Both of those are true, and they are the same story told from two sides.

So the question is not whether you will sleep. It is whether you will get to use the balcony you paid extra for, on a sailing that is only three nights long.

These are the Central Park view balconies, categories 1J and 2J, and they exist on four decks only:

• Deck 10: 10177 to 10255, and 10577 to 10655
• Deck 11: 11177 to 11255, and 11577 to 11655
• Deck 12: 12177 to 12255, and 12577 to 12655
• Deck 14: 14179 to 14253, and 14577 to 14653

Odd numbers only. If the number in front of you is not in one of those bands, this section is not about you, and you can stop worrying about the park entirely.

Two rooms come up by number: 12629 and 12637, both on deck 12. One belongs to a Royal Caribbean regular who books Central Park balconies everywhere else in the fleet and says she will not do it again here.

The x29 rooms, meaning 10229, 10629, 11229, 12229, 12629, 14229 and 14629, come with the extended double-length balcony. Twice the balcony, same music.

My verdict. If the balcony is why you are buying this room, skip it. If you want the park view from inside, keep the door shut in the afternoon and you will be fine.

What to book instead. An ocean-facing balcony, the 2D and 4D categories, on decks 10 to 12. You face open water instead of a canyon, and you sit two decks clear of the pools.

Be clear about what that swap is, though. It is a different category at its own fare, you are handing back the park view, and what you buy is quiet and a horizon rather than a bigger or better-laid-out room.

If you want Central Park regardless, at least stay off deck 14. That steer is geometry off the deck plan, where 14 sits nearest the speakers, and not a room I can vouch for, because nobody up there has said anything either way.

Boardwalk balconies: you will hear the AquaTheater through a closed door

The Boardwalk is the ship’s other open canyon, with the AquaTheater closing off the aft end like a stage at the end of an alley. The show soundtrack travels up that canyon and into these rooms with the door shut.

That is show times, not all day. One or two performances an evening, and then it stops.

These are categories 1I and 2I, and the banks run:

• Deck 8: 8293 to 8329, and 8695 to 8729
• Decks 9 to 12: x293 to x329, and x693 to x729
• Deck 14: 14293 to 14325, and 14693 to 14725

Cabin 12727, at the aft end of deck 12, got a blunt write-up from the couple who stayed in it: carousel during the day, rehearsals, voices from below, not a quiet room.

11329, the last room on deck 11, has been written up twice. Both write-ups liked the cabin and named the show noise as the price of it.

One person in 10729, also right at the aft end, flatly disagrees. She watched the show from her own balcony, says that once it finished you could not hear a thing, and went back for another aft balcony on purpose.

So this one is split, and the split is really about your bedtime. Putting a four-year-old down at 8pm, it is a problem; still out at 11pm, you got a private box for the show.

My verdict. Book one if the AquaTheater is a draw, and keep small children out of it. This is not a cabin I would pay to move out of.

Every Boardwalk room anyone has named on this ship sits at the aft end of a bank, and two of those three liked it. The forward end is untested rather than proven quieter.

If you want to hedge, the low numbers at the forward end of each bank sit furthest from the speakers, though you move nearer the carousel instead. That is me reading a deck plan rather than anybody’s night.

The Boardwalk balcony is also a goldfish bowl

Two rows of balconies face each other across a narrow gap, with a public promenade on the floor below. The people opposite are looking straight at you, and the people walking the Boardwalk are looking up.

The couple in 12727 ended up keeping the curtain closed. After dark with the lights on, your room is a lit box facing a wall of other balconies.

Nobody has argued the other way on this one, which is unusual. It will not stop me recommending the cabin, but do not book it picturing a private balcony with a coffee and a book.

If you are cross-shopping Star of the Seas, her inward-facing balconies come with the same exposure. It is a design trade on these newer ships rather than a Utopia defect, so it is not a reason to switch.

Deck 14 under the pool deck: the shakiest thing on this page

Deck 14 is the top row of staterooms and the only one lying directly beneath the deck 15 complex, which means the Solarium forward, then the pools and the two-deck Lime & Coconut midship, with the Windjammer aft. Music through the ceiling is a real mechanism there.

Two passengers describe exactly that, music from above, and neither said where they were sleeping. One of them was moved several decks down and it stopped.

A third named deck 14 forward, rated the room itself highly and said the area was too noisy to repeat. That is a deck and an end of the ship, and still not a cabin number.

I cannot hand you a room number here, which is why this sits last instead of first. It is enough to make me choose a lower deck when the fare is the same, and nowhere near enough to make you rebook a cruise you have already paid for.

Rooms you can stop worrying about

Here is the reassuring part, and on a ship with this reputation there is more of it than you would think.

• The party reputation: it lands on the public rooms, not on the cabins. The volume complaints here are about the pool deck, the Promenade and the theaters, and they mostly stop at your door.
• Late-night hallway noise: it does not come up. Nobody comes off this ship complaining about doors slamming at 2am, corridor parties or neighbors through the wall, which on a three-night party sailing is a small miracle.
• Ocean-facing balconies: the bulk of the ship, and almost nobody has a bad word about them. Book one and get on with your day.
• The deck 9 park-view rooms: these have a sealed window onto Central Park and no balcony, and they are the cheap way to buy the outlook. Two of the four people who have written one up call it quiet, one of them while a band played in the park below.
• Anything near the Music Hall, 10666 included: people ask about this room by number, and nobody who has sailed near it has come back with a complaint.
• Connecting rooms: the only person to write one up heard the hallway and nothing else.
• Small cabins: this worry does not survive contact with the people who stayed in them, who mostly say the rooms are bigger than they expected.
• The obstructed-view flag on aft Boardwalk cabins: it is about your slice of sea, which is thin from any Boardwalk balcony. The two people who have stayed in a flagged room, one in 11329 and one in 12727, both treated the outlook as the good part.

Quick answers

Which cabin should I avoid on Utopia of the Seas?

A Central Park view balcony, if the balcony is the reason you are booking it. That is decks 10 to 12 and deck 14, and nothing else here comes close.

Will cabin noise keep me awake on Utopia of the Seas?

Probably not. The complaints cluster in the afternoon and evening and they are about outdoor space, not about sleep.

Is a Boardwalk balcony on Utopia worth it?

Yes if you want the AquaTheater from your own chair and you are a late-ish sleeper. No if you have a toddler going down at 8pm.

Which balcony should I book on Utopia of the Seas?

Ocean-facing, midship, decks 10 to 12. Two decks clear of the pool deck, pointed at the water, no canyon involved.

What I would book

If the balcony is the point of the room, go ocean-facing on decks 10 to 12 and let somebody else have the park view. You will use that balcony every day of a short cruise, which is more than the park people can say.

Central Park is an Oasis-class idea and it repeats across the rest of the Royal Caribbean fleet, where nobody makes this much fuss about it. What is different on Utopia is the pool deck above it, and that is the whole story of this page.

And if Central Park is what you love about this class, take the deck 9 interior view, pocket the difference and sit in the park itself, where the music is supposed to be.