Hi - 3 girls (aged 38 - 46) sharing a cabin on Ruby Princess. One bed is a fold down. We have a balcony cabin. What will the space/layout be like? Is the fold down comfortable. We are trying to do 4 nights each on the fold down but are meeting with some resistance from one of our group who has declared they refuse to sleep on the fold down. Will one person feel ripped off if they spend the whole 12 night cruise/ or two sharing 6 nights on the fold down or is it equally as comfortable (if not as convenient to get into) as the "normal beds". Will the fold down be directly over one of the twin beds?

Princess cruiser have slept on the fold down

if you cannot do small or "bunk" beds crammed

up against the ceiling(pretty claustrophobic)

when I did this we roatated the fold down

because it truly sucked better to book an extra

inside to not do this unless extremely budget challenged.

You may be able to find out configuration from the website, but we have found this is not always correct - on a cruise with our teenage daughter we expected a fold-out sofa but ended up with a folding bed rolled in - which reduced the floor space during the day.

Cna't settle the cat fight over who sleeps where, but your plan of 1/3 each sounded fair to me. The issue is not only comfort sleeping, but during the day. Although you will likely spend little time in the cabin, sometimes a nap is nice and people tend to come and go from the cabin, dumping sweaters and stuff on their bed - the fold-down person does not have that option. It is likely that cabin space will be too tight to allow fold-down to be down during the day.

How are you all going to divide up bathroom time for 3 people - I have a bad feeling about this.

Would it help is the person(s) getting the fold down paid a bit less than 1/3 for the cruise?

We have done this on HAL, but had a superior verandah which gave us considerably more room. Also did it on HAL with a regular ocean view room. Worked OK both times, but lost a sofa. Was Mom-Dad-child and little question who slept where, but we really did not feel over cramped - above what one feels on any cruise. Real question here is an ethical one.

Carnival has some a pull downs and all have sleeper sofa in most of their balcony cabins. You can sleep on the sofa if you're not tall or the steward will unfold it for you. The Crown Princess were we just on did not have a sofa but may have room for a roll-a-way.
You can always ask for a roll-way bed which would be colapsed each day. And they will put the matress from the pull down on it too.

Hi thanks for your replies. The cruise was given as a gift so really there is no question about anyone paying any less as none of us are paying anything at all! The bathroom time will just have to work out. I'm not really concerned about this. Also we are all relatives and have other relatives traveling with us who are only 2 to a room and will be much quicker at shower times, so it may be a duck down the hallway to share their shower if things become too awkward. I have spent a lot of time on boats - and we owned our own cruisers from 27 feet up to 40 feet so have no problem sleeping on a bunk bed or in confined space myself. Just more worried about the comfort of the bed and where it will be positioned in the room. None of us are that tall. LOL - maybe I'll just take my pillow and blanket and sleep on the balcony!!

I should also have mentioned that on our itinerary we are only 2 days at sea - every other day we are in port and off the ship on excursions the whole day - so needing the cabin during the day will be minimal - none of us are given to taking nanna naps. I finally found a photo of a Princess ship with the fold aways down and I'm actually thinking I would like to be up in the fold away. Seems a little more cosy and "private" and there did look to be as much space above as there did on the beds below the fold away. I think I would rather this than having someone sleeping over me. So problem solved - I think!

Download the deck plan and start scouting out where the public washrooms are in the public areas. They will come in handy, especially on an early morning arrival port day. Depedning what deck you are on, some of them are maybe close by!

Eschew, thanks for the tip on the public washrooms. Do these generally have a shower facility or at least powerpoints for a hairdryer?

Unfortunately, no. They only have wash basins and cubicles. That will at least help with the teeth celaning and the other morning rituals.

We were at the Ruby in November 2009 when it was brnad new. Beautiful ship. You will enjioy it. Love the INternational Cafe. Can't say enough of it.