Staterooms are like tiny homes at sea, and choosing your “best” is kinda personal. Your choice also will depend on the company, vessel, room size, type/view, deck location, amenities. Not to forget the special offers with super low-priced promo deals that could change everything you know on the subject.

My personal choice will be mid ship or aft cabin.

Pros

1. The location can make getting around easier since you are located in a more central location to where you want to be.
2. Aft cabins tend to be very popular because they offer wonderful views of the wake of the ship and don’t usually have a lot of neighbours. You still need to be aware of what is around your stateroom though.
3. There are lots of “hidden gems” on a cruise ship and a good cruise/travel agent will know about them. For example, forward oceanview cabins on the upper decks of some Celebrity ships, such as the Celebrity Summit, are much larger than a normal oceanview and the large porthole window offers some fantastic views of the bow of the ship. You can read one of my reviews here.

Cons

1. Don’t chose a cabin under the Lido deck or pool deck. The trouble is that there usually is activity happening there all the time, especially under the buffet area. You may hear jumping, chair scraping, and running.
2. Over or under public areas (casinos, restaurants, bars). Sometimes these venues run till after midnight. And if you are trying to have some quiet time in your stateroom, you may instead be hearing noise from the area below or above your stateroom.
3. Forward staterooms that are up in the front of the ship on a lower deck may seem like they would be out of the way of all the bustle and noise of the ship, but they are subject to a different kind of sound. From here you can usually here the sound of the waves crashing into the side of the ship as it moves through the water. And it isn’t the romantic sound of waves crashing, it can instead be loud and shocking.

Of course there is a lot more that it can be added to the above, but my advice will be to study the deck plans and the cabin pictures, so you can determine what is good and what is not so good.

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