Carnival Firenze Aft Balcony Terrazza Cabin Tour · Cabin 9490

This was our first ever Terrazza suite, and we booked cabin 9490 on the Carnival Firenze specifically for that enormous aft facing balcony. The color palette is slightly different from the standard rooms on the Venezia and the Firenze, but it is still beautiful, and the balcony is the reason you book this room.

We ran cabin 9490 through our Great Cabin Checklist, the same objective scoring system we use on every room we sail, and it landed at 20 out of a possible 34 points. That puts it in our Smooth Sailing category: a pretty great room, not perfect, but definitely a nice one. Here is everything we found.

Walking In: Storage and Closets

The first thing you see walking in is a set of hooks, which are handy for coats, lanyards, and if you are one of those people who wears a phone on a strap, that too. Past the hooks there is a nice big closet with two very good robes, slippers on the floor, and hanging space. The bar can be raised if you have long hanging items or left down and used as a shelf, so it works either way.

The second closet has shelf space, the life jackets, a safe, some drawers, and laundry bags if you plan to use the laundry service. There is also a small mini fridge in here, though we want to be clear about what that means: it is a cooler, not a refrigerator. Do not expect anything to get properly cold in there. One drawer holds the hair dryer, and beyond that you get three shelves for open storage.

The Vanity, Power, and Outlets

The vanity area has a lighted mirror, a telephone, and a genuinely good spread of power: two USB ports, one 220 volt outlet, two 120 volt outlets for those of us in the States, plus a 230 volt, and the switch for the vanity light.

This is also where all your paperwork lands. Ours included an envelope with the Terrazza wristbands, which is what gets you out onto the exclusive Terrazza patio area and into the sail away party. A quick note on the bottled water sitting on the desk: they will charge you for that. If you are at a loyalty level that includes complimentary water, the free bottles are noticeably bigger, so wait for yours or just ask at a bar.

The nightstand on one side has a nightlight and a cabinet but no outlets or USB at all. The other side, next to the balcony window, has the nightlight, the cabinet, two USB ports, and the master light switch. So power by the bed exists, but only on one side.

Bed, Couch, and a Genuine First

The bed is a full king configuration and it is comfortable, with room underneath for suitcases once you have unpacked. The television angles so you can watch it from the bed or the couch.

The couch is the one thing we could not settle on the tour. We put it down as a hard definite maybe on convertibility, and on the final scoring we credited it as converting to a bed. Alongside it there is a small coffee table you can use for storage or for eating a meal, a stool that serves as the desk chair, a waste basket, glasses, and an ice bucket.

Two details we had not seen before. First, these Terrazza rooms come with their own Terrazza stateroom towels. We have seen the yellow Cloud 9 spa towels and the standard blue ones, and the new blue and red, but never Terrazza branded towels. Second, and this genuinely surprised us, the cabin came with binoculars. We have heard of that on an Alaska sailing with Princess, but never on a Carnival ship, and this was a Mexico itinerary in the wrong season for whales entirely.

The artwork is lovely too. We are fairly certain that is the Italian coast, which fits the whole fun Italian style theme.

The Bathroom

The light switch for the bathroom is on the outside, so know that before you walk in. There is a large step up at the door. The shower has a real door, plastic rather than glass but a door all the same, not a curtain, and that matters more than people think.

Inside the shower you get an adjustable shower head, a clothesline for drying swimsuits, some shelves, and a combined shampoo and shower gel dispenser. Christina’s advice stands: if you care at all about your hair, bring your own shampoo and conditioner. A three in one only counts as body wash in our book.

The sink is small but has shelves on both sides, which we appreciate, plus cups, a razor outlet, a nice lighted mirror, and a magnifying makeup mirror. There is a snooze sign for the door if you want to sleep in on a sea day.

The Balcony: The Reason You Book This Room

The balcony is very large and it is very private. You could put a proper table out here and eat a meal. As it comes, you get one lounger, two reclining chairs, and a table. Above you there is a solid cover, which is not great for sun tanning but excellent for privacy, and that suits Christina perfectly.

The door is worth mentioning: it swings rather than slides, and there is a child lock up high if you are traveling with little ones.

The sound situation genuinely impressed us during the tour. Standing inside with the door closed, we could not hear any music from the Lido deck at all. Out on the balcony you can see the rest of the Terrazza aft suites below and around you, and you get that full wake view.

The Noise Reality, After Three Nights

We want to be straight with you about this, because the tour was filmed on embarkation day and the full picture took a few nights.

Cabin 9490 sits on Deck 9, directly below Deck 10, which is the aft pool and Lido deck area. That means chair scraping overhead, particularly in the evening and through the day. More significantly, the room shook noticeably at night. It is a jarring, jolting sensation, and being from Southern California our first instinct every time was earthquake. We are not people who are easily bothered by vibration or the motion of a ship, and this still woke us up several times each night.

If you want the Terrazza experience without that, we would look at a Terrazza cabin further forward, or accept one deck lower and trade some privacy for a quieter night. If it were us booking again, we would absolutely do Terrazza again, but we would probably pick a regular balcony location on the side rather than this aft position.

The Great Cabin Checklist Score: 20 out of 34

Here is how cabin 9490 earned its points.

Tech and power. Points for USB next to the bed, desk space with an outlet, a master light switch by the bed, and magnetic walls. Worth knowing: the walls are magnetic, but you will need a strong magnet to make them useful.

Sleeping comfort. A nightstand on each side of the bed, and an automatic nightlight that comes on if you get up to use the restroom in the night. That one did not make the tour footage because it only happens in the dark, but it is there and we like it.

Bathroom and storage. Points for a shower door instead of a curtain, the magnifying makeup mirror, space under the bed, usable drawers and shoe storage, a mini fridge or cooler, and drinking glasses. No full length mirror, but that is okay.

Safety and extras. A child lock on the balcony door, plus a bonus point for the writing utensil and notepad, which we found in a drawer after we had already finished filming.

The deduction. You need a key card in the slot for power and air conditioning in the room, which costs it a point.

Twenty out of thirty four lands it in Smooth Sailing. It is a pretty great room. Not perfect, but definitely nice, and the balcony carries a lot of that score on its own.

One Tip From Our Embarkation Day

This is not about the cabin, but it saved us nothing and cost everyone else time, so learn from it. Four hours after boarding, the cruise director came on to announce that the ship could not leave because 1,476 people still had not completed their muster drill. Not seven hundred. Fourteen hundred and seventy six.

Do yourself a favor. When you get on board, go straight to your muster station, check in, and then go party. You will not have to think about it again, and the rest of us can sail on time.

Would We Book 9490 Again?

For the balcony alone, we understand exactly why people chase these rooms. It is big, it is covered, it is properly private, and the wake view is excellent. The Terrazza perks that come with it, the exclusive deck, the lounge, and the included breakfast, made the sailing feel like more than a three day getaway.

What we would change is the location, not the category. The vibration and the chair scraping from the pool deck above are real, and on a longer sailing they would wear on us. Book Terrazza again? Absolutely. Book this exact aft position again? Probably not.