How many bedrooms are required?

One debate my wife and I always have looking at our next boat is the number of required bedrooms required. On our last boat we had one OSR and the previous two boats we had two bedrooms. During the time we stayed aboard we never had anyone spend the night and the boats worked fine. On our next boat we agreed one large OSR was more practical then a smaller OSR to make room for a second smaller bedroom which would turn into a storage room. We also decided to have a portable salon table built in case someone did spend the night aboard they could sleep on the large sofa with easy access to the day head off the salon.

Just curious how others view this aspect (bedrooms) of their boat layout, what works and what doesn't. thanks

How does that saying go? Parties 10, feed 4, sleeps 2?

When we have Grand Kids over, they tend to crash about anywhere, 'bedrooms' or not. . . .

The admiral says two with two baths, so she can invite another couple from time to time.

Our "ideal" boat will entertain 6, feed 4 and sleep 2 conveniently. Guests can accommodate into what's left or get a room ashore. As stated above kids nest anywhere...

A decadent couples cruiser is how our broker we where working with described our choice.

Drinks for six, dinner for four, sleeping for two. My boat is 31' long if I'm bragging, 28' long if I'm paying for dockage. It's technically possible to convert the table to sleep two more people but we would have to all be really good friends.

Really, it depends on your needs, not somebody else's needs. If you often have more than two people aboard you would want sleeping quarters for them. That might mean buying a larger boat.

My 48 sporty has a very nice OSR, with private bathroom/shower and queen bed. 2 bunks to port and 2 bunks in the fwd v, all large single size. Guest bathroom/shower is large and well appointed. All have seperate zoned AC and heat. My mattress is 6 inches of pure luxury, the "bunks" are all 3 inches of barely adequate. Fish and guests start to stink after a few days !!!!

We have a master stateroom aft with a head and shower and a stateroom forward with a head. In between is the main cabin which has a drop-down table that converts the L-settee to a double berth, although we've never used it.

We think the tri-cabin arrangement in a smaller (30-40) foot boat is ideal as far as having guests is concerned because we and they have our own compartments with heads and neutral ground in between. So we or the guests can get up, make coffee, read, whatever, without disturbing the others.

kulas44 said:

... the "bunks" are all 3 inches of barely adequate.

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a.k.a. "4-day foam"

As long as you are willing to live with people occupying "temporary sleeping quarters" such as the saloon...then one stateroom is fine.

Most people will tell you kids/grandkids sleep just as well on the floor or flying bridge as anyplace so just a decent fold out in the saloon for their parents/adults usually takes care of things.

But if you are the type to occasionally take another couple up in their years...another stateroom with private or semi-private head seems to be the way to go based on most of the cruisers I have discussed it with. And another vote for the tri-cabin arrangement.

We have two cabins, two heads. The second cabin had bunk beds but the PO cut the top one back to a bookshelf and the lower bunk is like a super twin. We expect my mother in law to cruise with us sometimes and this will work perfect. If another couple joins us they will likely sleep in the saloon. We will have a curtain that closes off the saloon from the galley, helm and forward cabins and heads.

N4061 said:

One debate my wife and I always have looking at our next boat is the number of required bedrooms required. On our last boat we had one OSR and the previous two boats we had two bedrooms. During the time we stayed aboard we never had anyone spend the night and the boats worked fine. On our next boat we agreed one large OSR was more practical then a smaller OSR to make room for a second smaller bedroom which would turn into a storage room. We also decided to have a portable salon table built in case someone did spend the night aboard they could sleep on the large sofa with easy access to the day head off the salon.

Just curious how others view this aspect (bedrooms) of their boat layout, what works and what doesn't. thanks

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If you've never had anyone stay aboard and nothing significant has changed then one sounds fine. Now, for that off time that someone else stays, I encourage an air mattress or air mattresses. They take up very little space but the good ones are actually very comfortable just placed on a floor or table or whatever.

BandB said:

If you've never had anyone stay aboard and nothing significant has changed then one sounds fine. Now, for that off time that someone else stays, I encourage an air mattress or air mattresses. They take up very little space but the good ones are actually very comfortable just placed on a floor or table or whatever.

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And after one night they won't want to stay a second!

:lol:
I couldn't imagine not having a second stateroom ..
(boats have staterooms not bedrooms) for occasional guests overnight.. We love to share the boating thing with friends..and to use as a storage space for cushions, chairs, and overflow stuff.

HOLLYWOOD

hollywood8118 said:

And after one night they won't want to stay a second!

:lol:
I couldn't imagine not having a second stateroom ..
(boats have staterooms not bedrooms) for occasional guests overnight.. We love to share the boating thing with friends..and to use as a storage space for cushions, chairs, and overflow stuff.

HOLLYWOOD

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But this isn't for you, it's for him. And he said they'd never had overnight guests. We always have a boat full. Now my real thought was if he had guests, they would get the stateroom and he would be on the air mattress. And the quality air mattresses are quite comfortable.

BandB said:

But this isn't for you, it's for him. And he said they'd never had overnight guests. We always have a boat full. Now my real thought was if he had guests, they would get the stateroom and he would be on the air mattress. And the quality air mattresses are quite comfortable.

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Yep.. Just what everybody wants to hear...

Welcome aboard our Yacht.. " here is you air mattress "!

HOLLYWOOD

hollywood8118 said:

Yep.. Just what everybody wants to hear...

Welcome aboard our Yacht.. " here is you air mattress "!

HOLLYWOOD

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No the owners take the air mattress, but are you missing the part where he claims they've never had overnight guests?

And compared to someone's 3" mattress an 8" air mattress is great.

Personally I like having three bedrooms and two baths.

But that's because of how we use our boat, and how we intend to use it as time goes on.

We use the third bedroom for storage most of the time. It has bunk beds and they make a great place to stash stuff.

The second bedroom gets used fairly frequently with guests. Certainly not all the time or even most of the time but it does get used.

I cannot fathom having a large boat and not being able to accommodate a guest and let them have heir own stateroom.

Just posted something the other day on another forum on the subject, so here's a little cu and paste on how we, for our personal situation, went about it. This was for a full time liveaboard (no home on land) full time cruising scenario:

Have you evaluated how much you really expect the forward stateroom to be used? Not wanting to clutter the ERs or generator room (which I used for a lot of storage already) any further, we used the forward SR drawers and cabinets, and a fair amount of the bunks, for tool storage as well as Ann's silver and china and similar stuff. The forward shower was used to store ironing board, vacuum, Shark steam mop and misc other cleaning supplies. On the few occasions when that SR was going to have someone sleeping in it, we were able to do a little rearranging for a few days worth of stay. I have seen boats where the forward SR and shower were permanently turned into office and storage space.

The typical scenario for us was one couple or guest at a time. But we had just a few times when both of our adult kids visited, or we had two other couples on board. So three SR, 3 bath boat made sense for us. Since we have officially swallowed the anchor and in the future will be more typical vacation/weekend boaters, a one, maybe two SR boat makes much more sense as we won't need anything remotely near as much storage nor will it be our home that family and guests are visiting.

Remember, the definition of cruising is "fixing your boat in exotic places", boy was it nice being almost entirely self sufficient while living in luxury.

N4061

Worry about you confort. The others, if they come, will crash anywhere. Believe me!

N4061

You mention never having used the second stateroom when you had one, so a one-stateroom boat should be fine. That said, I would also consider resale when making the choice. If a boat is 35' or less, I don't think prospective buyers will mind so much a one-stateroom boat - but if bigger, I think they would like to see more than just one stateroom. I know I would.

IMO the owners sr should not be in the bow and should have at least areal queen sized island bed

bayview said:

IMO the owners sr should not be in the bow and should have at least areal queen sized island bed

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love my aft cabin and it comes with no water slap in the middle of the night.

mahal said:

N4061

You mention never having used the second stateroom when you had one, so a one-stateroom boat should be fine. That said, I would also consider resale when making the choice. If a boat is 35' or less, I don't think prospective buyers will mind so much a one-stateroom boat - but if bigger, I think they would like to see more than just one stateroom. I know I would.

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We looked at a very nice 40 Willard Pilothouse. Very well kept boat. Great price!

On this two stateroom model one of the staterooms had been converted to a utility room. Washer/dryer deep freeze, storage, etc... Very nicely done.

We passed on the boat because it only had one stateroom. The thought was that we don't have guests often but we weren't going to buy a bigger boat with LESS sleeping areas than our 28' boat which had a huge vee berth plus a regular stateroom.

One of the few features that might make me consider another boat is a full-beam master, with room for a household (meaning regular dimensions, not boat shapes)queen-size adjustable "sleep #" bed or equivalent.

If we had to have a second stateroom because of the resulting boat's size, I guess we could live with it... and in that case, it'd probably be OK if it were an island queen in the bow.

But I think this isn't a question about the number of stateroom; it's more about your social preferences. If you like company, guest staterooms are probably useful. If you're like us, you go out of your way to avoid using the existing second stateroom. Others are maybe somewhere in the middle...

We do have a second stateroom now; I keep trying to think of some way to convert it to something useful... while at the same time, making it "returnable" to original in case some future buyer might actually want it as a guest stateroom.

And having a fold-out settee in the salon sucks, for us. Can't get around it, pain in the a$$... So that sees even less use as a temporary bed. In fact, we probably only keep it because I haven't shopped for replacement easy chairs yet. Think I've only sat on the thing 4-5 times in the last 9 years... Pain in the a$$...

-Chris

Indeed, we added a full queenairadjustable mattress. admiral is happy so captain is happy.
No camping type creature comfort concessions.

windmill29130 said:

love my aft cabin and it comes with no water slap in the middle of the night.

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My previous boat was a sedan type and had a bow owner SR. I always admired boats with aft OSR - so when I switched boats, that was a consideration and ended up with a GB36C, an aft-cabin boat.

Now, I very much miss the sedan layout, where the cockpit is, in a way, part of the saloon. It's nice when someone in the saloon could have a conversation with someone in the cockpit. It is also easier to go from the cockpit to the galley making important refills easier. Also missed greatly, is the ability to open a transom door and just step out into the swimstep then to the dinghy.

I would love to own a sedan type again. But this time, I would like the OSR to be midship, maybe under a raised pilothouse. Dreams are free.

mahal said:

My previous boat was a sedan type and had a bow owner SR. I always admired boats with aft OSR - so when I switched boats, that was a consideration and ended up with a GB36C, an aft-cabin boat.

Now, I very much miss the sedan layout, where the cockpit is, in a way, part of the saloon. It's nice when someone in the saloon could have a conversation with someone in the cockpit. It is also easier to go from the cockpit to the galley making important refills easier. Also missed greatly, is the ability to open a transom door and just step out into the swimstep then to the dinghy.

I would love to own a sedan type again. But this time, I would like the OSR to be midship, maybe under a raised pilothouse. Dreams are free.

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I too like the sedan layout, but hate sleeping in the bow of the boat. No charge for dreams!

How about flexible space. The Krogens have a second stateroom set up like a den or office with pullman style bunks. I like it. Our boat has a side stateroom that I use as an office, or just a place to nap and read. It is nice to have two living spaces for a little separation. TV in the saloon---a quiet space to read and nap. Works for me. Very large staterooms and heads are nice, but really how much space does it take to sleep or----------never mind.

The best 2nd stateroom is the one where it's up in the motel/B&B and your slip is 1/2 price because your guests were so gracious to book that room.

And you get full use of the pool, spa, golf curse, etc...etc...

Our boat is equipped to entertain 6 for happy hour, host 4 for dinner and sleep 2. This works great for us! .......... Guests are welcome to book a hotel.

Same here, Beans.