Stateroom Tours and Ratings: See How My Cabins Compare Across Cruise Lines and Ships

Most Recently Updated January 24, 2026

Originally Published January 9, 2026

Some of the most frequent reoccurring questions I am asked are what are my thoughts on the individual cruise lines, how they compare and what my rooms were like on the ships. Ha! I know I am woefully behind in writing up recaps of all my cruises/trips but I realized that I could tackle/commit to the task of putting together stateroom tours for the time being!

So this will be two-fold. With this as the anchor / comparison post for the different cabins but I will also create posts with individual in-depth tours of the rooms so you can see for yourself what they were like and what the differences are between them.

This will be a project that I will be doing as I continue writing posts for other trips but will add a stateroom every week (or so) – if there’s a pic = tour post is available! Quick note on what may possibly be linked: Ship Name is the full review of the ship) / Stateroom is the tour of stateroom / Sailing links to my Trip Overview post of that specific cruise + links to YouTube tours

HOLLAND AMERICA (HAL)

MSC CRUISES

PRINCESS (PCL)

VIRGIN VOYAGES

STATEROOM + OTHER RANKINGS

STATEROOM RATINGS + RANKINGS

I write in all of the reviews that I do struggle about whether or not I should even be giving out a rating or if I should just keep the posts structured as tours and review. I ultimately decided to include ratings as my goal is always to be honest with you and help give you all the tools I can to help you make the right and fully informed choice for yourselves. IMPORTANT NOTES: Ratings are between the same type of room (interior vs interior not interior vs balcony) and I give a lot more context than the simple summary below the ratings in the reviews/tour post!

I know that some may view this rankings as harsh or overly hard but there are a lot of variance between these rooms based on location, ships, cruise lines, etc and I decided that I would rate them as honestly as possible. And I take things into account from having worked in the hospitality industry, appreciating good design, and spending a lot of time in hotel rooms and cruise cabins which is both good and bad. Note that I am only evaluating this specific stateroom (in industry speak, this is a hard product review ie without taking into account, things like service or the cruise line)

A lower or even low score does not mean that you shouldn’t cruise on this ship or book on of these rooms, it just means that there are some areas or things that I found to be seriously lacking. First this may just mean that this specific subcategory may be something that you should reconsider as I am only rating my very specific room.

And seriously if one of these cabins is the only way that you are able to afford traveling or this is how you are able to manage to visit x country, then I don’t know if this should deter you. What is most important is to know thyself: for some, this will make or break their trip and for others, it’s just going in with managed expectations since they are now aware of what’s in store.

Perhaps the most important take-away should be that I had a great cruise/sailing/trip even if the cabin wasn’t that great for each of these and would still chose to take the same trip even knowing what I know now! Though it should be pointed out that for me itinerary is always how I chose a cruise not the ship or a stateroom (and that almost all of these have been casino comp cruises)

• 9.3: Virgin Voyages Resilient Lady Sea View – Oceanview: When good design happens aboard a cruise ship in so many ways
• 8.4: Princess (PCL) Enchanted Princess – Interior: A very solid product with thoughtful design choices that kept the room feeling spacious and airy even for an interior room but there wasn’t anything spectacular / very special about it.
• 7.1: Holland America (HAL) Nieuw Statendam – Solo Oceanview: The lower rating is entirely due to the location of the cabin on a sailing through the North Sea (which I cannot ignore as I barely slept on the cruise and it was loud/bumpy). But funny enough this sailing really made me like HAL as a line (as in they’re ranked behind Virgin for my favorite cruise line!)
• 6.2: MSC Poesia – Obstructed Oceanview: Outdated and cramped stateroom showing ie when bad design nips you in the bud* The ship is set for a full dry dock so this should improve the cabins as they and the rest of the ship were in desperate need of a refurbishment!

BATHROOM AMENITIES/PRODUCTS RANKING

So the caveat here with this is that I typically just use whatever is the hotel room/cruise stateroom and supplement with my own conditioner and my skin/hair don’t typically suffer too much. But there are quite noticeable differences between the lines and what they have stocked in the bathrooms. The most heavily weighted factors were the product line/the products themselves but what was included or not included did also play a part into the final rankings.

• BEST: Holland America (HAL) with their Elemis products (luxury, premium line) and includes shampoo, conditioner, body wash, hand lotion and hand wash.
• BETTER: Princess (PCL) with their Beekman 1802 products that includes a shampoo/conditioner combination product, body wash, hand lotion and hand wash.
• OKAY: Virgin Voyages (VV) with the red flower line products. While it’s great that there are separate shampoo and conditioner along with body wash and hand wash (but no lotion), the line is okay but I may just be holding Virgin to higher expectations based on the rest of what the line offers!
• WORST: MSC Cruises with their unnamed brand products of shampoo and body/hand wash that necessitate bringing your own products aboard. In addition, there is not a box of tissues in the bathroom. *I forgot to check on my second sailing if you are charged when you request one.