I stayed in the cheapest cabin on Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas for $463 a night. Take a look inside my 172-square-foot cabin

I just returned from a spring break cruise onboard the beautiful Harmony of the Seas. During this sailing, we departed from Galveston, Texas, and visited destinations in the Western Caribbean.

My friend joined me on this cruise, and we wanted to stay in the cheapest cabin available. The cheapest option was an interior guarantee, which is usually the case when looking for a cabin on a cruise. This is normally the cheapest option because you cannot select the location of your cabin on the ship – the cruise line assigns you an open cabin.

The cost of our interior guarantee cabin came out to be $3,243.88 for the two of us, and this included prepaid gratuities. In other words, it cost $463 per night, or $232 per person, per night during our seven-night voyage.

Keep in mind that we did book this cruise rather last minute (two months ahead of the sail date) and it was during spring break, so the cost was much higher than the other sailings offered. We were both available to sail only during this certain week, otherwise, if we had sailed a week or so after our sailing, we could’ve saved hundreds of dollars.

Soon after booking this cruise, we were assigned cabin 10673 on deck 10, which is an interior cabin located toward the aft of the ship. When glancing at the floor plans of Harmony of the Seas online, it appeared that this cabin was in an ideal location because it wasn’t too far in the aft or forward of the ship. However, once I discovered our cabin was above Dazzles on deck 9, I was slightly worried about the noise we would hear.

Dazzles is a multi-level venue on Harmony of the Seas with music groups performing live each evening. Although our cabin was located above the venue, I was worried about not being able to sleep at night due to the thumping of the music.

Other than this small worry of mine, I had a feeling our cabin would be just fine for our trip!

Something I noticed once onboard was that the cabins are color-coded on the map and on each cabin door. Our cabin was located in the yellow area of the ship, or the starboard and aft side of the ship. This was something I had never noticed before on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. It was helpful to reference when walking around because we always knew what side of the ship we had to go to get back to our cabin.

My first impression of the 172-square-foot cabin was that it was modern with dark accents. I also felt the cabin was smaller than the recent interior cabin I had on Odyssey of the Seas, but I think this is because of the different layout.

It appeared that a key was needed to power the cabin’s lights and air conditioning. There was already a spare key in the slot on the first day and we never removed it during our voyage.

The cabin’s lights were controlled by a switch near the bathroom. The bathroom light switch was below the main cabin switch, and this often confused my friend and I because we would forget which light switch controlled what! The bathroom light would glow blue when it was switched on, so that was one way we could tell the difference.

The beds were separated based on the request I made prior to the cruise. Our cabin also included a chair, vanity, closet, TV, and bathroom. I thought there was a great amount of storage for our clothes.

Every night of my cruise, I slept well in the bed. I thought it was very comfortable and plush. And if you were wondering, our cabin was not noisy! I never heard music from Dazzles in our cabin, which was a relief.

On both sides of the bed was a small nightstand. My nightstand had the cabin’s phone, which I put on the ground because I wanted to use the top shelf for my own items. There was also a light above each of our beds that could be turned on and off with a small button.

Only one side of the bed had an outlet (my friend’s side). I had an extra long phone charger, so I was able to connect my phone using the vanity’s outlets and still have it charging next to me while I slept. I wish both sides of the bed had an outlet!

Next to my friend’s bed was a small chair and a full-length mirror. On the recent cruises where I’ve sailed in an interior guarantee cabin (like Adventure of the Seas and Grandeur of the Seas), there is usually a couch instead of a chair. I am glad we had somewhere to sit other than the bed, but I think a couch would’ve been more spacious and something we both would’ve used.

The vanity had multiple charging outlets and drawers to store our belongings. The vanity included three US outlets, one European outlet, and two USB outlets. Unfortunately, the USB outlets did not work in our cabin, so we never used them.

There were five drawers on the vanity, and one of them stored the hair dryer, room service menu, and other cruise documents that were meant to stay in the cabin. The largest drawer housed the cabin’s mini cooler, which we used to keep our water cold throughout the cruise.

Above the drawers was a large flat-screen TV. This TV was not able to move or swivel, which I was surprised about because that meant we couldn’t see what was on the TV unless we were sitting on the chair or standing in front of it. If we were in bed, it was hard to see what was on the TV, especially my bed that was on the same side as the TV.

Next to the vanity was a closet. There were essentially two sides to the closet – one with shelves (including a safe) and the other with just hangers.

The closet was large and could fit a lot, but I wish there were more hangers because I would’ve hung up more of my clothes. We only had 12 hangers to share between the two of us. In hindsight, we should’ve asked our cabin steward for more hangers!

Across from the closet was the bathroom. The bathroom was very similar to the other interior cabins I have stayed in – there was a toilet, sink, some shelves, and a shower.

While I usually have no complaints about the cabin bathroom, I will say that I wish there was another towel rack! We had one, but I think having one more would’ve been nice. 

Also, our shower’s drain wasn’t super fast, so every time one of us would shower, a large puddle of water would form below the toilet and near the shower. This isn’t a huge deal, but since we had to use lots of towels to clean up the floor, having another towel rack would’ve been great for hanging up our many used towels.

The bathroom had a built-in nightlight so you could use the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning the main lights on. This was handy!

There were a few areas in the cabin that reflected its age (even though Harmony of the Seas is only eight years old and completed a dry dock in 2021). The headboard and wall near the TV had some dripping stains. We tried to clean them off but they didn’t come off so they must’ve been there for a while! 

There was also a stain on the vanity chair. 

Other than these things, the cabin was in good condition.

If I had the choice, I would certainly stay in this cabin again. I would also recommend it to others who are considering a cruise on Harmony of the Seas. We spent most of our day exploring the ship anyway, so we only spent time in the cabin for sleeping, relaxing, or changing outfits for the day.

Of course, there are a few small things that I wish were different about the cabin, especially the slow shower drain and inoperable USB ports. 

Overall, it was a great home away from home for our seven-night cruise to the Western Caribbean!