Many old movies that took place on trains or ships featured an argument (sometimes comic, sometimes serious) about who gets to sleep in the lower bunk/berth. The one time I was on a ship, my cabin mates insisted we have a drawing for the lower berth. I won, so I never figured out what was so special about it, other than not having to climb up and down to get into bed.
So why was sleeping 24 inches lower considered to be a better accommodation?
WAG-less distance to fall in rough seas? 
It’s hard to get into an upper bearth if you’re older. And you can fall out of one if you sleep wildly. I’ve sat in an old fashioned upper bearth on a train and I didn’t think it was so bad, but I was like 10 years old at the time.
I could see if you’re old (Like Fred and Ethel Mertz) how you wouldn’t want an upper bearth, 'though that is what they got going from LA to NYC
Vivian Vance, the actress who portrayed Ethel Mertz was actually younger than Lucy.
In some area the lower berth is better because it is easier to get into.
In other places the upper berth is prefered. On the training ship golden Bear in the upper berth you did not have someone over you. if you want to turn over you just did. In a lower berth or middle birth the guy above you hung down into your space cutting your room.
The higher the berth, the more accentuated the swaying and rolling of the boat/train … and seasickness.
My only experience is with a train in Kazakhstan. The lower berth was easier to get on to and you had more head room as they were used as seats before bedtime. However, I was told there is the possibility of being sat on.
The upper berth was harder to get on to and had a lot less head room. It was especially hard to get up and down once everyone had gone to bed as you didn’t want to wake the others around you (This went double for me as I always forgot how to apologize in Russian or Kazak). I’m 6’2 and pretty coordinated and it took some effort so I image a lot of people wouldn’t be able to. Plus there is always the chance you’ll fall out.
For boats, does it make all that much difference on anything but a very small vessel? The centre of rotation of all of the movements is likely to be quite far away (and concievable, if the cabin is on a deck below the waterline, the difference, such as it is, may be reversed).
I’d generally choose the upper berth, if there is a choice - for a number of reasons - the lower berth occupant may be subjected to falling materials (books, pillows, vomit, etc.) from the top bunk, and may be exposed to wardrobe malfunction as the top bunk occupant climbs the ladder.
I’ve travelled extensively in trains that had lower and upper berths, and most commonly 3 levels. Bogies with 2 levels were limited to “First Class”.
The advantage of a lower berth is that, on a long distance journey, you can sit in your seat, walk around, look out the window, etc. The upper berth also had very little head-room, so you couldn’t really sit up, you had to lie down. Also, you couldn’t keep your legs dangling, because there were people right below you.
Let me try to help you visualize it:
3 berths:
o
Upper
------------------
Middle
------------------
[]Lower
------------------
= Window
o = fan at ceiling level
During the day, in a long-distance overnight journey, the middle berth folds into the wall, so you have:
o
Upper
------------------
[]Lower
------------------
The bench is long enough for 3 people to sit on, but anytime the persons who have Lower or Middle decide to sleep, the Middle will fold out to look like the first diagram. Once this happens, the Upper guy who was sitting on the Lower bench, has to climb up and stay there through the night. No window (so you never know which station you’re stopped at), and a (sometimes) annoying sounding fan right above your head.
The Lower also had the advantage of access to bags and food stuffed below the Lower bench. The Upper and Middle guys have to carry everything to bed with them once they all fold out.
Personally, I would always prefer Upper because I like to sleep in. Per etiquette, the Middle has to fold early in the morning so that Lower and/or Middle and/or Upper can sit and have chai and biscuits in the morning.
The best berth was the side-lower berth (explained below), which had a special configuration of only 2 levels, with the lower level getting 2 windows and the upper getting none.
In any given compartment, there were 2 sets of the diagram shown above facing each other (for a total of 6 people), and one set at 90 degrees with 2 levels (for 2 more people).
Upper
------------------ . | |
Middle []
------------------ . | |
[]Lower []
------------------ . | |
. = aisle
= windows
o = fan at ceiling level
| | = imagine this bench at 90 degrees to the benches on the left (cross-sectional diagram shown above), but with 2 levels instead of 3. The lower level of this set was always the best seat, because you could sit and get up any time you liked (the Upper in this case had to go up whenever you chose), and you got 2 windows.
New and improved, now with images (so you can see if you understood anything from my diagrams above):
External view:
http://images.suite101.com/263259_dsc00338.jpg
Middle and Lower (backrest of Lower becomes Middle):
http://images.travelpod.com/users/gillip/2.1241385300.on-the-train.jpg
Upper (with fans!):
Aisle:
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(.jpg image)
I think most people here have it right; a lower bunk is just easier to get in and out of, and not so far to fall in rough seas.
However, in my limited time on a ship, I had an upper berth. There was no ladder, so it was a little tricky to climb down in the dark and not wake anyone. Lord knows how I managed to stay in it on some nights, but the guy in the lower berth got up at the wrong moment and went across the cabin and took out some woodwork. I was also closest to the vent, so I probably had the freshest air in the whole main salon.
Yeah, what you REALLY don’t want is the middle. As a young Girl Scout I spent the night on the USS Yorktown, which has triple-stacked bunks. I was an unpopular child, so I got the middle. It was really awful. No room, you get disturbed by activity in both the lower and upper bunks, etc.
Vivian Vance was just over two years older than Lucille Ball.
I went looking for pictures and found this, which was taken on my trip, by my lower bunkmate. See that doorway on the far wall? Just left of that are upper and lower bunks, the curtains on the upper are closed. I might actually be in that bunk when the picture was taken.
There’s another view here. That’s definitely my green towel.
Even in trains, where presumably there wasn’t any serious danger of falling out of an upper berth due to the pitching of the vessel, the lower berth was (and generally still is) considered more desirable just because you didn’t have to climb in order to get into and out of it.
Personally, I loves me an upper berth in a train compartment, cozy comfy tucked-in gently swaying upper berth. Return to the womb, but with scenery and reading material.
A friend of mine was in the Navy. She said the bunks were assigned by seniority and they always chose the upper bunks first. People didn’t sit/step on your bunk and lower bunks had to deal with foot odor.
Gordy Howe originally didn’t want to wear number 9 for the Detroit Red Wings but he took it when he was told it would entitle him to a lower berth.
I was on nuke subs. 688s to be exact. I can verify that on subs the upper bunk is preferred. It’s harder to get into but you gain some storage area. Also less chance of being stepped on like the previous poster said.
Ooops. That’s my mistake quotient for the day.
Military vessels tend to have (A) less individual berth space per occupant and (B) younger and more athletic occupants than commercial vessels.
If you’re young and/or athletic, as noted, it’s no big deal to get into or out of an upper berth. If agility’s not a factor, there are a number of reasons to prefer upper berths, especially in more crowded and/or stuffy bunkrooms.
But for the average commercial passenger, the difficulty of climbing to get into or out of the upper berth is much more likely to outweigh the other advantages.