For our two week Caribbean cruise on P&O Arvia we stayed on deck four, in a four-berth family LB grade seaview cabin. Here’s our Arvia cabin review of cabin 4445…
Cabin 4445 on Arvia is a good cabin in our experience and we had no issues and would stay in it again.
We deliberately chose the location on deck four for a few reasons…
One is that it’s low down on the ship, which is where you’re likely to feel the least movement if there are rough seas.
Another is that it’s convenient for getting on and off the ship, as the gangway is just one short set of stairs away on deck 3, so no waiting around for lifts if you’re in a rush to get out on an excursion, or on the sad day of disembarking to go home.
Also, we made sure there was nothing that looked like it could be the source of noise above, below or to the side of the cabin. No public areas above or below, and only other cabins to the side.
And this cabin is conveniently positioned ‘midships’ minimising the amount of walking you need to do to get to either end of the ship.
We stayed in a similar cabin on Iona last year with our two teenage children and back then it was just about tolerable for space with all four of us in there.
This year, the children are a bit older and a bit bigger – aged 14 and 18, and it felt right on the limit of being liveable for the four of us.
If we were coming back again with the four of us, we’d want separate cabins next time.
But, having said that, we spend very little time in the cabin anyway so for sleeping and getting ready, etc in it was fine.
The issues we did have were with storage space (not quite enough wardrobe space for all the clothes and stuff of two females) and with the fold-out bed, which our 15-year-old daughter said she wasn’t comfortable on.
The bed folds down out of the ceiling and is put up and down each morning / night by the cabin steward.
Last year on Iona, our daughter was perfectly happy (aged 13 at that time) and slept all night with no problems.
This year, aged 15, she felt too cramped and that it was too uncomfortable.
However, bizarrely she chose to sleep on the seat by the window, which is definitely smaller and even more cramped, but who were we to argue – she seemed to get full nights’ sleep on that window seat but seems to have reached the size and age limit where the sleeping arrangements in a standard 4-berth cabin are no longer comfortable.
The other bed is a sofa bed, which again the cabin steward will convert from a sofa into a bed each night – and then back again in the morning.
That was perfectly big enough and comfortable enough for our 18-year old.
As for the main double bed, it’s one of the most comfortable beds we’ve ever stayed in away from home anywhere.
I’m 6ft 3in and slept soundly all night every night and we both love the bed and find it extremely comfortable.
As mentioned, there’s a bench seat next to the big portal window which is comfortable and enjoyable to sit on watching the waves outside (as you’re low down in the ship you get a good close up view of the water), not that we spent much time doing this given the stunning weather and views up on the decks.
When we were on Arvia’s sister-ship Iona last year we had a balcony cabin but spent so little time on the balcony that we decided the extra cost wasn’t worth it on this cruise.
We did miss having a balcony a bit, but not so much that the extra cost would’ve been worth it – mainly because we spent so little time in the cabin during the day, preferring to be up on deck or out on shore excursions.
The shower is a good size and water pressure and temperature very decent.
The bed is next to the wardrobe, with the sofa bed being near the window.
Temperature in the cabin is well-regulated by the air conditioning and despite the boiling hot Caribbean days, the cabin was always a comfortable temperature day and night.
USB charging sockets in the bedside lamps are useful (they are USB-A – the older, larger size rather than the small, newer USB-C size) and there’s an adequate amount of standard UK 3-pin plug sockets around).
A kettle with tea and coffee making facilities is included as is a hairdryer (with no diffuser though), a mini fridge, a desk / dressing table with mirror and a chair.
There’s a large flat-screen TV showing movies and TV shows as well as various ship information and a telephone which you can call from any of the many telephones dotted around the decks of the ship, by simply dialling your cabin number.
Very minor complaints with cabin 4445 on Arvia are that, on a couple of nights with particularly rocky seas, there was an occasional repetitive creaking noise from a panel above the bed.
Likewise when the sea got a bit choppy, being so low down and close to the waterline meant you could hear the waves sloshing against the side of the ship, but it was never enough to keep us awake for long.
A set of good quality silicon earplugs (Loop earplugs from Amazon) are very effective at blocking out the minor background noises of any cruise ship cabin.
If we were coming back on Arvia again (which I really hope we do) we would certainly be happy staying in cabin 4445 again, albeit if we were bringing two teenage children along with us (which is unlikely really, given that the eldest is now an adult doing his own holidays) we’d ideally want separate cabins at this age. But for younger children, a family of four in this cabin is no problem at all.