In case you haven’t heard there’s a new Facebook group where folks are posting pictures of the cabins they’ve stayed in. It’s called “Your Cruise Ship Cabin Photos” and it already has nearly 700 members.

I posted some pictures there of the cabin we had for our January cruise on the Carnival Breeze. It’s a one-of-a-kind, oversized ocean view cabin that we featured in an article for our first issue of Fun Time Cruisers digital magazine.

A lot of people were shocked by those pictures, so I decided to repost the original magazine article here on the blog. Even though Carnival has since decided to ban smoking on balconies, we still prefer this cabin whenever we can get it on the Breeze, the Magic or the Dream.

“Secret” Ocean View Suite

Like many other avid cruisers, my wife Janis and I used to always insist upon getting a balcony cabin. Our reasons were pretty typical. We enjoyed being able to occasionally sit out there and enjoy the fresh sea air. We liked that it made the room feel bigger, and that it gave us a larger view whenever we looked out from inside the cabin.

But that was before Carnival changed on board smoking restrictions. The net result was that smokers were understandably more motivated to book a balcony cabin. Like many other non-smoking cruisers, we suddenly found ourselves no longer wanting to be out on the balcony. For us, the smoke coming from all the nearby cabins pretty much negated any of the benefits we previously enjoyed.

So we began looking for other types of cabins that we might like. We started focusing on 4J cabins. These are technically inside cabins. But since they’re on the very front of the ship, they include a window that looks out onto what some people refer to as a “secret deck”.

For the most part we were very happy with this type of cabin. We had one instance when we had to endure some very loud banging sounds during one particular night. We later learned that these were caused by the choppiness of the seas at the time. And so there really wasn’t anything that could be done about it.

So based on our past experiences, we initially booked a 4J cabin for this cruise on the Breeze.

A few months before sailing one of our staffers, Paul, learned about a very special ocean view cabin on the Breeze that had become available. He suggested we take a look at it and we’re really glad we did!

As you can see by the pictures accompanying this article, this is a huge cabin. The floor space is about 50% larger than other typical ocean view cabins. That’s the main reason I started referring to it as our secret ocean view “suite”. It also has two windows and an extra closet.

This cabin also includes two separate bathrooms. That’s not really a unique feature because nearly all of the ocean view cabins on the Breeze are configured that way. The one closest to the cabin entry door is a typical bathroom with a shower, a sink and a toilet. The other one has a small bathtub with shower, plus a sink, but no toilet. 

We previously experienced this type of setup on the Carnival Magic and really loved it, especially in the evenings when we were getting ready for dinner. We could take separate showers at the same time, and Janis was able to use her bathroom to put on her makeup, fix her hair, etc.

This cabin proved to be especially useful in creating content for our Fun Time Cruisers digital magazine. We were able to use the large open space in the cabin to conduct the video interview of Storm‘n Norm that appears in another section of this issue.

During the cruise we showed pictures we had taken with our iPad to many of the other passengers. They were always amazed and of course would typically ask us “Where is that cabin?” 

We decided to have some fun by telling everybody that it’s a “secret” and not letting them know the exact location. As a result, throughout the cruise some people would occasionally follow us and pretend they were secretly spying on us. Everyone, including us, seem to enjoy the pretend cat-and-mouse aspect of the whole deal.

To further extend the fun and mystery we’ve also decided not to reveal the exact cabin number in this article. It really wouldn’t be that hard to figure it out. So if you’re interested, find some deck plans for the Carnival Breeze and give it a shot. 

Epilogue

Along with the pictures we recently posted on the “Your Cruise Ship Cabin Photos” Facebook page we let everyone know that this is Cabin #2485 on the Breeze.