How many doors do cruise ships have? It sounds like a debate you may have when drinking with friends. Knowing how many doors are on a cruise ship takes some real educated guessing, whether you’re talking about Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean, Carnival Cruise Line, or Norwegian Cruise Line.
Here, we tell you about the ins and outs (pun intended) of the number of passengers that can fit on a cruise ship and how many doors these towering vessels have.
In This Article…
How Many Passengers Are on a Cruise Ship?
The average cruise ship can hold between 3,000 and 6,000 passengers. Using some deductive reasoning, we can assume that there are likely 2,000 to 2,500 staterooms aboard a typical cruise ship that houses 3,000 passengers, depending on the cruise line.
How Many Total Doors Are on a Cruise Ship?
Each cruise cabin has a front door, but it also has doors to bedrooms and bathrooms, and if we’re getting technical, we should even count refrigerator and cupboard doors.
If there are 2,000 to 2,500 staterooms on an average cruise ship, each one has one stateroom door. Each stateroom has a bathroom, so that’s another 2,000 to 2,500.
We’re already at a range between 5,000 and 10,000! Each stateroom likely has between four and six cupboard doors, though some cruise lines may vary, and if we average that out at five, that’s another 10,000 to 12,500 doors.
Refrigerator doors count, as well. Add another 2,000 to 2,500. We have a sizable number for our inner-cabin door count alone: between 16,000 and 20,000 doors!
There are a lot of other types of doors to consider, too. Some sections in the lower part of the ship have a watertight door in case of emergencies, and inside hallways may be divided with a sliding door or automatic door.
Then there are entrance doors, doors to each crewmembers’ quarters, storage doors, doors to each of the bars, restaurants, and gyms aboard the ship, and much more.
If each crew member shares a bunk bed with another, and around 1,000 crew members work aboard an average cruise ship, that’s 500 doors. Now add the doors to the selection of restaurants, bars, and fitness clubs – say two dozen for your average cruise ship – and that’s 24 more doors. Not many, comparatively, but they do add up, don’t they?
Now, how many decks are there on your average cruise ship? Here are the facts: there are between 12 and 16 decks on your average cruise ship. The doors to each of these add another 12 to 16 doors to each ship.
There are then galley doors, doors to the engine room, and elevator doors. If there are a dozen restaurants and bars on your average cruise ship, that’s a dozen galley doors–one for each kitchen. Add one more for the engine room and two for each elevator. Fifteen is our final number!
But wait…there’s one last door and a very important one: the wheelhouse, where the captain steers the boat!
Our final total is 16,552 to 20,556! That’s the range of the number of doors on your average cruise ship. Holy smokes! And remember, that is just a ballpark estimate. The bigger the cruise ship, the higher this number will be.
Identifying Doors and Other Door Issues
On a cruise ship with 20,000 doors, it can be tricky to identify which ones are which, particularly if you’ve had a few drinks. Stateroom doors are particularly hard to identify because they all look exactly the same.
Regardless of what kind of cabin you’re staying in, your stateroom door likely looks exactly like the ones on either side of it, which is why a lot of people decorate their cruise ship cabin doors.
Adding some character with cruise door decorations makes your room stand out, and there are a whole host of options for what you can do, from character magnets on a Disney cruise to countries’ flags to soccer jerseys of star players for a given country’s team and more. Choose a door decoration that makes your cabin door stick out so you can easily find your way back to your room.
You can also ask a crewmember to direct you to where you need to go or consult a map of the ship’s deck plan if you get turned around. Many public doors are labeled or are easy to identify. For example, most cruise lines ensure doors to restaurants or lounges are clearly marked.
Read Also: How Do Cruise Ships Get Fresh Water?
Crew and guest areas are typically kept separate, and you’ll likely never see doors to the crew area on the ship. That said, if you find yourself in a hallway with a muted color scheme and plain-colored unmarked doors, you may have wandered into a crew area.
Parts of the ship meant for the crew are not as colorful as the public areas, but they still have a lot of doors to consider. You can always ask a crew member if you want to know more.
They may be able to tell you more about the lower levels of a modern cruise ship so you can get a better idea of how many doors are in the parts of the ship you don’t see.
Conclusion
There are thousands of doors on your average cruise ship, though the exact number will depend on the cruise line and deck plan. These ships are like miniature cities on the sea, so in conceptualizing the number of doors, you have to think about how you would travel through a city with multiple “houses” and restaurants, etc. If you want to compare your stats with ours, you can always try to count them all on your next cruise.
