What are categories all about anyway?

sewut51 · January 7, 2005

Can someone explain the categories? I paid for an oceanview and my TA said I had been upgraded. I am on Upper deck in an oceanview 6A. What is the upgrade? It's still oceanview, isn't it? They are all the same size. And why do they skip from 6A to 11 and 12? What happened to the other categories?

Sewut51 :huh:

Dan · January 7, 2005

Are you sure you are in a 6A, and not a 6B or C etc? When they say upgraded in this sense, it means a higher deck. The letter simply means which deck in that category, with A being the lowest deck for that category.

On Carnival, category 1A is the smaller, upper/lower berth (bunk beds basically), some with portholes, and usually on the very lowest deck. Sometimes they are desirable, depending on the ship. They usually don't have many of these type of cabin on a ship.

4 is the inside cabin.

Category 5 is the obstructed view cabins located behind the lifeboats on the Spirit class of ship. I beleive these have french doors, and a railing. Cat 5's on Fantasy class ships have portholes.

6 is the outside view cabin. The older ships have up to 5 decks of outside cabins, while the newer ships have fewer outsides, because of the large number of balconies.

7 is the obstructed balcony.

8 is the regular balcony.

9 is the large balcony.

I think 10 is skipped.

Cat's 11 and 12 are the suites.

The letter after a category number doesn't refer to a specific deck. For instance, a 4A and an 8A aren't on the same deck. Those letters just start at A and go up in each category.

Carnival is actuallu an easy system of categories. Take a look at the Princess and Holland America brochures, and they start throwing around those A, AA, BB, AS etc.

sewut51 · January 7, 2005

You're right, it's a hot pink one, 6C. If I paid for an oceanview, and I got an oceanview, why did my TA say that I got an upgrade? Are the higher decks more desirable? Wouldn't there be more sway up higher to make you seasick?

Dan · January 7, 2005

I don't know what you originally booked, but if you had booked a 6A, you are getting a 2 category upgrade. But, like you, I don't consider this an upgrade. Going from one category to another (window to balcony for example) is an upgrade in my eye, but that doesn't happen a whole lot.

As for higher up being more suspeptible to seaskickness, you'd have to be really easily made sick for this to be an issue. You are only going up 2 decks, and if I'm reading the deck plans right, you are on Upper Deck, which is still very low on the ship. The ships are very stable, and generally don't sail through very rough weather.