If noone in the group is handicapped, they should not be requesting an ADA cabin. There are so few of these cabins available and should be kept open for handicapped passengers to book. Also, a thing to remember, if you book into an ADA cabin without needing it, the cruiseline can bump you if necessary! Same procedure as booking a large family aft cabin, on some of the cruiselines, with a reservation for less than 4 pax. And the Alaska cruises have lots of families aboard.

I am not disabled. I just don't agree with advising the OP to book an ADA cabin.

My first cruise was on a Princess ship to Alaska. My parents were in one inside cabin, and I was with my grandparents (who were in their 60s) in another inside cabin with bunkbeds.

I agree with Mike 100%. I doubt your 14-year old is gonna be in the cabin that much. He'll basically just show up to change clothes for dinner and to sleep. The scenery is beautiful, and the ships are a wonderful experience - so get out of your room and experience them.

I understand this point of view but that's one of the things that I liked the most when I booked a balcony on one of my Alaska cruises. How else are you going to have a photo of you and companions from that angle? Interesting.

So the potential desire of a few for the photo (and the ship's desire to make more money) strips away the reasonable expectation of privacy? Sorry, I don't see that at all. Beside a dock I know anything on a balcony might be observed, but when you're cruising open water I do expect privacy on the balcony.

I would also point out that very few of the photos sold - almost all of them were still in the racks as we disembarked.

Unfortunalely, when you sign up for a cruise, you pretty much give up that right.

You are not well informed. Princess' fleet contains very different TYPES of ships. While the Dawn (and Sun/Sea) Princess ships may not have terraced balconies, a number of their other (more recent) ships DO have them, such as the Star Princess (and her sister ships). From my Aloha deck balcony cabin on the Star, I could look down at certain of the balcony levels below (the Caribe and Dolphin levels), which jutted out. Also, of course those on the Caribe and Dolphin levels could look up and see those in balconies above them (not that they actually did so very often ). I don't think anyone out on their balconies on these types of ships could reasonably have any expectation of complete privacy.

See the two photos here (courtesy of a poster on CruiseCritic):

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo...03442853TnzlLM