First budget crash pads for hanging out at sea
By David G. Molyneaux
In the competition among cruise lines for best budget inside cabins, Norwegian is taking a leap on its newest ship, the Norwegian Epic, which sails into the Caribbean in summer 2010.
Clustered around a large two-story private Living Room will be 128 inside cabins, designed as a series of crash pads for young cruisers, or perhaps several extended families.
Sleeping in an Epic Studio, from USA Today
The cabins -- Norwegian Cruise Line is calling them "studios" -- are tiny by today's standards, at 100 square feet as compared with typical inside cabins on new ships of 150-180 square feet.
The studios are hot and hip, with 32-inch flatscreen TVs, pillows and bolsters that turn the king-size bed into a lounging place, lighting that includes a "love setting" for romantic evenings, a big round window looking toward an interior corridor, and the Living Room, available only to studio passengers.
Inside cabins typically carry the lowest rates on cruise ships. Windowless and sometimes dreary, inside cabins usually are not highly prized, except by passengers on a strict vacation budget.
Studio cabins' shower is back left behind smoky glass, toilet back right behind regular door.
For some cruisers, the inside cabin positive reasoning is: "We won't spend much time in the cabin anyway. We will be eating, sunning and watching the entertainment with everybody else." Budget conscious travelers sometimes book inside cabins on the best ships, instead of an outside cabin on a less fancy ship, to get better food and entertainment bang for the same bucks.
Cruise lines, competing with each other and with land resorts for travelers' vacation dollars, are looking for ways to jazz up the interiors of their new ships and to appeal to young, budget travelers.
Royal Caribbean, for instance, has built an indoor mall of shops and food stops on its massive ships, then placed windows from some inside cabins into the interior mall. Caution: Action on Royal Caribbean's interior malls sometimes pounds deep into the night.
Bar-hopping on Norwegian ships
Norwegian, whose ships sport an East Coast edgy attitude and neighborhood bar-hopping style, began the cruise trend of floating meal times in main dining rooms and alternative restaurants, instead of the traditional style of eating at the same table every night with the same tablemates at the same hour. Now, nearly every ship offers alternative dining choices and times.
Norwegian also is a leader in what it calls "a ship within a ship," starting with its high-style, high-priced Courtyard Villas, in an exclusive area not accessible to other passengers.
On the 4,200-passenger Norwegian Epic, with a dozen restaurants, an Ice Bar -- left, you will surrounded by ice -- and daily shows from the Blue Man Group, the company wanted budget cabins for young people who had never cruised before.
"We were asked to appeal to a younger age group," said London's Paul Priestman, who designed the studios and the Living Room on the Norwegian Epic. Priestman is known as the designer of the hip budget Yotels in Europe (yotels.com).
Priestman's communal living idea is that a group of young friends would be comfortable with small bedrooms and a large living area. Studios have a king bed, which can be split into two beds. A sink slips behind a sliding door. A shower, in the corner, is behind frosted glass. The toilet is behind a regular shut door.
The studios are connected by corridors to the Living Room, right, which will be 1,000 square feet, about the size of two 20-by-25-foot family rooms in a modern house. It will feature a bar, room service, two large TV screens, and a concierge.
"It's like a little village," said Priestman. "Maybe you leave the door open, the window blinds up."
You can imagine life in the Living Room, like life at college, abuzz at 3 a.m. and littered with pizza cartons -- and unlike college, cleaned by the ship staff by 8 a.m.
Studios will be priced for budget travelers, says Norwegian, at the typical price for an inside cabin. In May 2009, advertised rates for seven-day Caribbean cruises in summer 2010 started at $649 per person for two, but discounts were available from travel agents and on the Internet.
The latest on Norwegian Epic by CruiseCritic
For Primary Color, Universal Press Syndicate, July 2009
Pictures from Norwegian Cruise Line
David Molyneaux writes monthly about cruising.
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