Giving out twelve doors to twenty guests

Start with arithmetic that a sleepy person can follow. Vhale has eight cabins with a queen bed, two each of Atlantic, Azure, Oceanic and Pacific, and each of them sleeps two on standard beds. That is sixteen guests. Add the four Coral cabins, bunk rooms with one double and one single bed that sleep three apiece, and the sum reaches twenty-eight. That figure is the capacity we quote, because it needs nothing but the beds the cabins already have.

We do not quote the larger number that the cabin ranges would add up to if every extra bed were made up. Extra beds exist in three of the five kinds, they are by request, and they are confirmed in writing, so they belong to a conversation and not to a headline. Twelve doors, twenty-eight beds.

Twenty guests do not fill the boat, and that is a kindness. Put two in each of the eight queen cabins and sixteen are asleep in the proper beds. The remaining four go into two of the Coral bunk rooms, two to a room, which leaves a double bed below and a single above for each pair to arrange as they like. Ten of the twelve doors are in use. Two Coral doors stay shut.

The sensible giving-out follows the party and not a chart. Couples and the oldest guests take the queen cabins; the Atlantic pair have the private balconies and suit grandparents or whoever has been planning for a year. Friends and cousins take Coral, where bunks are no hardship. Twenty-four fills every cabin at two. Twenty-eight puts three into each Coral room. A whole-boat fare is the same at every one of these sizes.

An extra bed is the thing people ask about when the numbers do not divide. In Atlantic the queen bed and an extra bed sleep 2 to 4, and Azure and Oceanic sleep 2 or 3 on the same beds. Pacific is a queen cabin for exactly two and has no third place. Coral holds three on its own beds and has no extra bed to add.

The price of an extra bed is not published, and we will not quote one from memory. It depends on the cabin and the date, and you have the answer on paper before any payment. Ask for it early if you know that a grandmother, a nanny or a teenager needs to go in a particular cabin; it is easier to arrange in October than at the pier in November.

Three decks hold the twelve. The upper deck carries the two Atlantic cabins and the two Azure cabins. The main deck carries the two Oceanic and the two Pacific. The lower deck carries the four Coral. The dining rooms, the outdoor chill area with its day bed and the sundeck are the places where the party meets in the daytime, so where a cabin sits matters at bedtime and matters little before it.

The strip below shows the facilities beside the cabins. The rooms are air-conditioned; the arrangement of the night itself and the window in each cabin are confirmed in writing. Those answers come in writing, cabin by cabin, if you ask. Steps between three decks are a fact of the boat, and a guest who finds stairs hard should say so when the cabins are given out.

Ask before choosing if you are a couple wanting privacy, since a Coral bunk room is not that, and if a guest finds stairs hard. Ask if a baby is coming, because a cot is confirmed case by case, and ask us which bathroom arrangement your cabin has whenever the cabin is Azure or Coral. The answer is never the same in every list we hold, so we confirm it in writing and do not assume it.

Two people can book a family cabin, and four can share one, but only in Atlantic, which takes up to four with its extra bed on request. Nobody sleeps four in Pacific, and Coral stops at three. A family of five or six therefore takes two doors, and a good deal of the fun of the plan is choosing which two. Write to us with the ages and we propose it.