The Pearl is their newest ship and hundreds of rooms have small balconies. Surprised more children or drunk haven’t fallen overboard than just this one.
I was just on a similar (if not identical) ship, The Star, on the Pacific side of Mexico. Yeah, the boozers take over the upper decks, which have more pitch and sway to them than the lower decks. I'm surprised more loadies don't pitch over the side.
Scroll down this page and see all of the different rooms that have these balconies:
http://www.ncl.com/nclweb/fleet/staterooms.html?shipCode=PEARL
There have been a handful of these stories in the last few years. The first I remember hearing about was in 2006, right before my dh and I went on our first cruise.
It happens.