Solo travel, while challenging at times, can be incredibly rewarding experience. It provides opportunity to meet new people while exploring the world through your own itinerary. At times, it is not the easiest finding the safest but also exciting solo travel options that offer the freedom you’re looking for, while providing the choices of adventures.
But imagine sailing away to your dream destination, amongst like-minded travellers, with multiple dining and entertainment options, hopping from port to port, coming back to your own, private accommodation. Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) is here to help make that a reality.
NCl was one of the first cruise lines to introduce solo cabins and common areas for solo cruisers. When booking one of those cabins, you can expect to pay less for it than the traditional double occupancy rooms (per person). Depending on the ship, NCL offers different solo cabin types: Inside (Studio), Oceanview and Balcony, sailing to many destinations such as Asia, Africa, America, Australia and Europe.
Access to those studios is key card controlled and allows access to the share studio Lounge too – a common area for travellers to meet, unwind throughout the stay, as well as enjoy complimentary refreshments on offer.
Solo Cabins on Norwegian Bliss
For my first solo cruise, I stayed in a studio/solo inside cabin on Norwegian Bliss, sailing towards scenic Alaska. On that cruise ship, solo cabins are located on Decks 10 – 12 (Inside 10-12, Balcony 11-12), with the Lounge located on Deck 11.
Inside studio is approx. 100 square feet in size (9 meter square) and includes everything you might need – full sized bed, bathroom, sink, shower, TV, closet and a screen, showing the live view of the outside.
In comparison, Balcony cabins are over double in size, with a little bigger bed, and additionally include access to private balcony behind glass doors, and a couch. If you want to check out the Balcony room in more details, I recommend visiting NCL’s website, as I will only review the Inside room I stayed in.
Solo Inside Studio on Norwegian Bliss
The room is spacious for one person. The bed is a little bit bigger in size that a single, which was more that enough for me, and it was fairly comfortable. The cabin also offers two sliding cabinets and a good few cabinets/drawers/shelves to put your belonging into.
The bathroom takes getting used to – in essence, it has a fancy portable toilet aesthetic to it, although the toilet itself was like any other. We’re going to get real here for a second too – the problem I personally had with it, there was no trash bin, only a bag provided to dispose of hygiene products into. There was a trash dedicated drawer, but located in the main room area, which I didn’t like.
Another thing, the quality of the toiler paper was horrible, leading, in my case, to chafing. My delicate tushy would have preferred a different product. The shower was fine, did the job just fine, I never had any issues with it, hot water was flowing and basic products were provided – such as shower gel and shampoo.
Overall, I’m incredibly happy with the room, it had all the amenities I needed, for lower price than usual double occupancy room (for which I’d have to pay for two people regardless of how many are staying). The TV with the outside view was a lovely touch, to be able to gauge the weather and see where we are, even when deep inside the ship. Considering I did not sail away on a cruise to stay in the cabin all day, all those basic amenities were more than enough for me.
The Lounge for solo cruisers aboard Norwegian Bliss
From my room on Deck 12, it was just a few steps down to get to the Lounge common room on Deck 11, accessible only to solo cabin occupants. It is here where I met the majority of people I hung out with for the remainder of the cruise. This is also where, daily, NCL organised meet-and-greet for solo travellers took place. I must say, it was a lovely initiative for everyone to meet like minded people to enjoy the travel with. Those meetings included games and icebreakers, as well as organised activities such as dinners or go-karts.
It is super NCL provides such service. I saw for myself how many travellers benefitted from that. I went few times and had a fine time, however having said that, it was not my jam. And that’s ok, everyone is different. Instead of introducing myself in turn or playing Pictionary, I much rather chat people up over a drink about the game that’s currently on TV, or make conversation over shared dinner table. Hands down, my favourite activity is to meet new people in the smoking area, where the conversations are flowing, easily and often involving deep topics which everyone contributes to (we’re nosy like that). But you know, don’t smoke, it’s bad for you.
So while I do things a little differently to others and while they work for me, I can appreciate NCL’s effort to help solo travellers find people to make memories with.
I was in the lounge quite frequently though, primarily because it was open 24 hrs, it had coffee machine (making cappuccinos), as well as fresh fruit, sweet treats and juices. The only beverage you had to pay for in the Lounge was wine, the remaining were complimentary, and changed everyday.
Outside of food and drink, the Lounge also housed multiple books and traditional boardgames (classics such as scrabble or dominoes, etc.) for people to pick from. It provided solo travellers with a space to relax outside of their cabins but also to meet each other and it turned out to be an amazing place for both.
Overall, overwhelmingly positive experience solo cruising with NCL on Norwegian Bliss in terms of studio cabins and the Lounge. It provided me with basic necessities and opportunities to make my solo Norwegian Cruise Line cruise to Alaska a success and a memory to cherish.
The Roaming Wolf 
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