I realize by asking a question about smoking I may be opening a can of worms.... but here it goes anyway. My wife and I are going on a 7 day Bahamas & Key West cruise with Carnival in May, leaving from Galveston. Since we're not having to fly to our embarkation port like we normally do, we decided to splurge and get a balcony stateroom for the 1st time. I've noticed letters in the last 2 issues of Cruise Travel magazine where people were complaining about smokers on the balcony next to theirs "ruining" their cruise. Just wondering if 2nd hand smoke coming from someone on the balcony next to you can really be that much of a problem? Just interested in people's experiences with their own cruises. I would like to keep this thread restricted to the question I've asked, if possible, and not get into whether smoking should be allowed at all. We are both non-smokers so we already have our own opinions about that. The safety and/or health issues of allowing or not allowing smoking in staterooms can be discussed elsewhere if need be. Thanks in advance!

It would not bother me although I am a non-smoker. My wife, however, is really bothered (physically) by second hand smoke and is very anti-smoking. We have never been bothered by folks on the balcony next to ours smoking and I think there have been at least a couple times when someone who was a smoker was next to us. I think that the odds of it being a problem are very small, but I suppose it is possible.

I tend to agree with you about the chances of it bothering us being small. But like I said we've never had a balcony stateroom so I was wondering what other people's experiences were. Thanks for your opinion!

If you are really concerned with this, just wait until the ship has sailed and then light up. The breeze will quickly blow away any smoke and other cabins should have little real reason to complain. Note that on Carnival, you are not allowed to smoke in your room, however. You MUST be out on the balcony or they will get real testy!

BobandJeana

We had the other side of the wind problem- every morning at 6a the people next to us would start smoking and we couldnt leave our balcony door open at all. the smoke would wake us up and then we would have to close the door and keep it close as they throughly enjoyed their smoking right up till bedtime. After the second experience with smokers on each side of us we never get a balcony cabin ( even when we get upgraded we turn it down) It's definetely a personal choice.
Phillyn Bill

I always wondered why they just dont have a non smoking floor for people that are bothered or allergic to smoke .

Philly n Bill

A cruise line tried to do a 'side of the ship', I think, a while ago and it was just too hard to do, logistically, with bookings. I guess you should book Princess now, as we probably won't ever book them again, even though we are Platinum with them, because of the current no smoking policy on balconies. It's a shame because Princess is by far our favorite cruise line.

We're already booked with Carnival this time, so we'll just see how it goes. Hopefully we'll have non-smokers next to us. We have 3 "at sea" days on this cruise so I was looking forward to enjoying some time on the balcony. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for the input!

Some people smoke cigars on the balcony and that can present a real problem! We are non-smokers and prefer the rules against balcony smoking. Most of our cruises have been on Princess and they no longer allow balcony smoking as a balcony fire in the past damaged one of their ships and caused costly repairs.

That fire was SEVERAL years ago, so not sure that is the reason.

They do on some of the Carnival ships - the Splendor, the Magic, the Dream, and the Breeze all have the "Spa cabins" -- these cabins allow unlimited access to the Cloud 9 Spa facilities (treatments still cost) and are ALL non-smoking, including the balconies - you have to sign a form stating that you will pay a $250 fine if you're caught smoking ANYWHERE -- these cabins are usually on the top two Forward decks -- we've stayed in them twice now and LOVE them.

Thanks didn't realize that though we just book the carnival freedom for 2 weeks and yes we did turn down the balcony upgrade again!

Philly n bill

I just posted a report on the Maiden Voyage of the Carnival Breeze. I do not know where the smoke was coming from, but I would say that half of the time there was very noticable cigar smoke on our 9th deck forward balcony. Even with the ship moving and a strong wind, it was still there. This is the first time I have had a major problem with balcony smoking. We were not happy with that.

We returned from our cruise on the Carnival Magic on May 20. I'm happy to report we had no problem with smoke on our balcony. Thouroughly enjoyed our cruise, except for a little too much rain in the Bahamas.