In England we have quite a network of narrow (and some wider) canals built in the late 1700s and early to mid 1800s. It was the transport system that helped the industrial revolution come about. By the standards of those days, the network cost a fortune to build and one way of keeping building costs down was to limit and standardise the width of bridges over the canal, and similarly limit the width and length of the lock chambers.  The narrow standard (majority of canals) became 7ft wide with locks limited to 72ft in length (a few canals limited locks to 62ft or 58ft in length). The early canal engineers had invented a system for carrying freight by boat - not passengers.

The inherent narrowness does limit possible accommodation on narrowboats. Willow is actually just over 70ft long, fender to fender, and 6'10" wide - allowing an inch either side to fit into the narrowest locks. There are longer hotel narrowboats but none exceed 72ft (they certainly wouldn't fit into the narrow canal system locks). Some of our competitor's boats are actually shorter than 62ft to enable them to cruise the admittedly pretty trans-pennine routes (but we are too long for those locks). There are certainly no narrowboats that are wider than 7ft (that would be too wide for those narrow locks). Take a look at the photo of Willow in the right hand margin - not much room for anything more in that lock. Without a narrowboat you won't be able to explore the majority of the canal system (narrow canals) by boat. It is a bit like suggesting that you can explore narrow mountain trails or paths using an 'RV' or 'motor caravan' - you can't, so you use a horse (the trails were made that way). There are wider boats, but they are restricted to wide canals and rivers - of course there is nothing to stop us cruising wide beam canals and rivers in a narrowboat (we readily cruise parts of the Rivers Weaver, Avon, Thames and Severn).

So we class our accommodation as being spacious by narrowboat standards - but accommodation is nevertheless small by the standards of even UK on-shore hotel rooms. Our guest double bed (some hotel narrowboats provide twin 18 inch wide beds) is a narrowboat standard width of 4ft (to allow for space to pass by the bed in an approx 6ft wide cabin) - whereas a standard UK double bed is 4ft 6ins. One US client, on his own, has told us that 4ft width is the standard single bed width in the US - other US clients have told us that's 'baloney' (their words) - but clients do need to be aware of these things before coming. The en-suite shower room is spacious by other hotel narrowboat standards but, again, undoubtedly small by on-land hotel room standards.