Let me preface this article by saying we enjoyed our cruise – a lot – but we felt this was worthy of some discussion since it’s something that has never happened to us before.
We generally try to pick out good cabins. We google the ship maps to make sure we’re not right under the dance club, under the pool deck when they rearrange the chairs in the early morning, extremely close to the elevators, etc. We thought we had done a good job on this last cruise aboard Carnival Magic: A cove balcony cabin #2298, in the center of the ship. For the most part, it was pretty quiet except for a screaming infant next door (it happens). However, one night, on our return through the Gulf of Mexico, there was loud knocking in our room and then an even more powerful booming noise every 20-30 seconds that would shake entire aft wall of our cabin.
The noise continued until about 2:30am, keeping everyone awake despite being tired from 3 straight port days. To give you an idea of how much the wall was shaking, our camera that was on the counter eventually worked its way over the edge and fell to the floor. The camera isn’t a lightweight either – it’s just over four pounds (Nikon D800 + 24-70 lens; if you’re a camera nerd like us).
The camera cracked and Nikon repair services called it a complete loss. Insurance will help, but there’s still significant out-of-pocket cost. I expected it to be damaged when we were horseback riding in Belize or swimming with the dolphins in Roatan, but I was surprised when it survived all that and was damaged due to our cabin shaking and vibrating so much that night.
We had never experienced this nor even heard of it happening, so we thought we’d at least pass it along as a cautionary tale. I figured the only way I could accurately describe it was by recording the sound – and since I wasn’t sleeping after sadly feeling around the dark floor for the fallen camera – I was able to grab this sound clip of the noise-
Take a listen for yourself