If you’ve ever wanted to take a cruise but don’t want to deal with the THOUSANDS of other people on board, going on a smaller cruise ship is likely the best option for you.

Time to explore the stateroom!

That means you’re going to have to look beyond Disney Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean, and other popular cruise ships, which often have hundreds or even thousands of staterooms on board. However, we’ve got a suggestion for you, and that’s to take a voyage on the National Geographic Orion ship! This ship only has 53 staterooms and allows guests to explore little-known waters and isles in the Pacific Islands, Antarctica, and the Mediterranean to experience each location’s natural and cultural wonders up close. But how do these staterooms compare to others we’ve seen on other ships? Come along for a full tour!

Back in 2022, Disney announced that they’d be partnering with National Geographic to offer unique vacation experiences that take you all around the world with a National Geographic expert.

©National Geographic Expeditions

We got a chance to check out a stateroom aboard one of the ships in this fleet, the National Geographic Orion, and couldn’t help but compare it to other staterooms we’ve stayed in. The layout in our stateroom was actually great! There was plenty of space, and plenty of room to unpack, because the luggage fits under the bed and there are several drawers.

Luggage can fit under the beds!

There are also two large closets that allow for plenty of hanging space, and you’ll also find shelves and additional drawers in the closets, as well as a safe. You’ll also find additional blankets, an ice bucket and two cups, and your life jackets.

Lots of space in the closet

There were two hooks on the wall at the door as you come in that were perfect for hanging purses, lanyards, etc. We personally used them to hang our life jackets which we need almost daily to take the zodiac boats to shore when not docked. There are also a variety of outlets in the room, which we appreciated. At the desk area there are some USB ports, some US outlets and a universal outlet.

Outlets near the desk area

Only one side of the bed has an outlet port, though, but you’ll find USB and multiple types as well. The alarm clock had 2 euro ports on it and we used small adaptors so we could recharge our portable chargers here.

Closer look at different outlets

Inside the bathroom, there are bars of soap and an adorable little zodiac boat soap dish. You’ll also find bamboo lemongrass hand wash and lavender lime lotion by Lather, and all the toiletries have a high end spa feel to them. We also appreciated that the bathroom was pretty spacious with lots of storage. There was a large corner medicine type cabinet with multiple shelves, as well as plenty of counter space. We love the nice makeup mirror, and the cups on the wall make great toothbrush holders. The shower itself is quite spacious, and there’s a retractable clothesline that goes across the top if you need to hang dry anything. We had great water pressure and never ran out of hot water, but very different than Disney Cruise Line is the fact that the toilet is not in a separate room than the shower!

The bathroom!

In the shower there is both Mint Thyme Shampoo and Yuzu Bergamot Conditioner as well as bamboo lemongrass body wash.

Shower amenties

The room has a hairdryer for use as well, which can be found in one of the desk drawers.

Hairdryer

There were plenty of tissues and toilet paper were always available, with refills available, so we never felt like we were missing anything.

Plenty of refills available

As for the beds on this ship, the bed configuration has two options; a king or two twins. The twins seem a little longer than normal twins, and we ended up having the twin configuration and actually liked it. It gave us a little more room to have the nightstand in between the two beds. The beds were also incredibly comfy, and each one had two pillows to choose from, which we also loved. However, staterooms only sleep two people no matter what configuration you have, so that’s important to keep in mind.

We were big fans of these beds and pillows!

We overall loved the layout of this stateroom and would totally book it again! We can’t wait to tell you more about this cruise soon, so stay tuned to DFB!

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Would you think about cruising on this ship? Tell us in the comments!

Disclosure: In nearly all circumstances, Disney Food Blog writers and photographers pay full price for their own travel, hotel, food, beverage, and event tickets. We do this because it’s important to us as journalists to ensure not only that we give you unbiased opinions, but also that you can trust us to do so since we’re paying our own way. On rare occasions, when we are invited by a company to attend a preview as media, and when we choose to accept that invitation, we will always make you, our readers, aware of that situation. We were invited by National Geographic Expeditions to cruise on the Orion. Note that when we attend events as media we are 1) Not required to review that event/food on any of our channels, and 2) Not required to review that event/food favorably. You can always count on DFB to give you a 100% unbiased and honest review of any event that we attend, food that we eat, or beverage that we drink. You can see more in our Disclosure Policy. Thank you for reading. — AJ