I got some terrific news late yesterday afternoon: Bluewater Books & Charts, the premier marine bookstore in the United States, has added my new book about yacht charter to its shelves.

Have the Whole Boat: The Insider’s Guide to Private Yacht Charter Vacations should also become available soon on Bluewater’s website. The book is the first-ever For Dummies-style guide to chartering everything from bareboats to luxury crewed yachts. It’s also the inspiration behind the creation of CharterWave itself.

I’m talking with the folks at Bluewater about doing a book signing in their Fort Lauderdale store this spring. So if you haven’t yet bought your own copy through Charterwave’s links, stay tuned for details about when you can come in person to sunny Florida and get a signed one!

One motoryacht that caught a lot of people’s attention at the recent Antigua Charter Yacht Show was Ellix Too, a 155-footer that’s part of the Fraser Yachts Worldwide fleet. Ellix Too was hard to miss, since her hull is painted bright, brick red. It sure made an impressive statement on the docks next to all the dark blues and grays.

What I remember most about this yacht, though, is a lesson from her interior layout.

The master cabin onboard Ellix Too is actually an entire deck, encompassing the whole space behind the pilothouse. It includes a large dressing room, a massive bathroom, and a bedroom that faces sliding glass doors that open onto a private, outdoor deck. Quite gorgeous.

However, I thought the VIP cabin, located toward the yacht’s bow on a lower deck, was equally beautiful in a different kind of way. The VIP on any yacht is what the designers believe to be the second-best cabin onboard. In this particular case, the VIP happened to be a proper suite with a media and dining room completely separate from the sleeping quarters. In fact, for anyone who prefers watching surround-sound movies to sitting in the open air, the VIP would have been a better choice of “master suite.”

The lesson, then, is that some yachts have VIP cabins that can be as good or better than their master cabins, depending on your personal preferences. Ellix Too is but one example, especially as more and more yachts are being built with suite-style staterooms instead of just basic cabins on every deck.

When trying to decide which cabin to take during your next charter, be sure you ask your charter broker about the design of the VIP suite. You just may decide it’s a better fit for you, and you can give the “real master” to friends or family who will feel even more special because of your generosity.

Back in early December, I posted from the St. Maarten Charter Yacht Exhibition that some of the yachts were advertising themselves as “sleeps 12″ when, in reality, “sleeps 8 comfortably” was a more accurate description of the onboard accommodations. The post was called Pillow Talk.

I want to help you visualize this point with a photograph I snapped onboard a motoryacht at the Antigua Charter Yacht Show. This yacht promotes this space as sleeping six people comfortably:

Your eyes are not deceiving you: That’s two double-size beds jammed against one another at the foot, with two bunk-style Pullman berths above them.

Now, maybe if you’re a 12-year-old girl interested in a slumber party, this cabin indeed would sleep six people comfortably. But for grownups paying the yacht’s weekly base rate of $62,000 per week–about $6,500 per person with average 25-percent expenses included–I’m guessing the accommodations are going to be less than what you imagined.

This is the kind of detail I’m talking about when I suggest that you work with a reputable charter broker when booking a yacht of any kind, in any price range. It’s the job of the broker to get onboard these yachts and know every detail about them, including the configurations of the cabins and beds.

There’s simply no reason to end up in a cabin like this if you have something else in mind. Protect yourself by working with a broker, if only so that you don’t have to play footsie throughout the duration of your charter.