Cruise ships have tight quarters and cabins are sometimes shared by parents and their older children, friends, or other people who may not be comfortable changing in front of each other. That can lead to people getting dressed in their room's tiny bathrooms or sending their cabin-mates away while they get ready.
In addition to the people you are traveling with, cruise passengers also have to negotiate with their room steward needing access to their room. A steward, or cabin attendant, always knocks and announces themselves before entering your room, but accidents happen if you're in the shower, bathroom, or otherwise engaged.
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A pair of consenting adults sharing a cabin room also run the risk of being interrupted during more intimate activities if they're sharing a cabin with kids or even other adults. A couple sharing a room with another adult can use a variant of the old tie-on-the-door college dorm room signal or simply block out a period to have the room to themselves.
Cabins with windows and balconies, however, come with additional embarrassment risks. If you leave your curtain open when you hit port, for example, you could inadvertently see yourself looking out at the balcony of another cruise ship.
Carnival Cruise Line, however, has created a new system designed to prevent its passengers from a potentially embarrassing situation involving their balcony window.
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Carnival adds a smart new system
Every cruise line has a rotation for when it cleans windows and balconies. Depending upon the type of cleaning being done, this could be a worker entering through the room, or one working on a platform system on the outside of the ship.
Traditionally, both Carnival and Royal Caribbean have let passengers know that their balcony or window will be cleaned that day by placing a letter in their room. The problem is that cruise lines often leave sales material and other written material in people's cabins and cruisers may ignore them.
That could lead to someone not closing their shades and perhaps showing a person cleaning from outside the ship more than they intended to. Carnival has corrected this with a new system which Brand Ambassador John Heald shared on his Facebook page.
"I wanted to show you the new door cards that are already been placed across the fleet. These are for balcony cabins and for oceanview cabins Remember, we used to put a letter in your cabin to let you know when the wonderful crew were going to wash the balconies or clean the windows and portholes? These have been replaced now with these door hangers," he shared.
The door hangers read "window cleaning tomorrow" or "balcony cleaning tomorrow" with simple graphics.
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Most Carnival passengers like the change
Heald's post was largely met with a positive response.
"I like these more than the letters. These I won't miss," shared Barry Walker.
That sentiment was mirrored by Diane Staup-Kahn.
"We have already experienced these hangers. It is better than a letter for getting your attention," she added.
Some passengers, however, took issue with where the hangers are being placed.
"I think they should be placed on our cabin doors. I had one placed on my balcony door last night. If I hadn't opened the curtains, I wouldn't have known about the cleaning today," wrote Christina Wandell.
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Others were okay with the balcony door placement.
"We had one of these on the Miracle last year. It was hung on the balcony door where we can easily see it," posted Melissa Hughes.
Kathleen Sheridan Jelen pointed out another reason why the new door hangers are a positive.
"Less paper, reusable, and easily noticed — a good change," she wrote.
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