Cruising with teens/cruising in general questions.

Hi everyone. I have cruised before but this year taking A New Years Cruise with the family! Three kids, 12/14/14. Last cruise all was taken care of for us through work. This time we are in charge so I want to be sure to not miss anything. :). Here are my questions:

1. Is there a place to go that tells me all the extras Carnival has to offer their customers.... like the bottomless bubbles, behind the fan tours, etc?

2. We are deciding between the Dream and the Magic. Any preference? How about with teens?

3. Early/late edit we seating?

4. Book direct with Carnival or through TA......advantages/disadvantages?

5. Internet packages with teens? Worth it or not?

6. Ideas on how to keep track of kids on ship that worked or didn't work for your family

7. FTTF......is it worth it?

8. Any other ideas or advise you'd like to share!!!! I'm open to ALL ideas.

Thanks in advance! Kammy

1. Take the time to read the Carnival website...it is a wealth of information.

2. Dream and Magic are essentially the same ship...base your cruise on itinerary, port of departure, and time frame.

3. We like late seating because we hate hurrying the kids back from shore days. We always send them up to the lido deck for a late lunch of pizza or deli or we order some room service and then us oldies take naps and the youngsters can go to the pool or the rope course or the slides while most of the kids and their parents are at early dinner leaving these areas virtually empty.

4. We always use a TA but we have one that has dealt with our world travels for 30 years. We aren't worried about nickle and dimeing and getting price cuts so we figure out what we want to pay, what stateroom area and type and she does the rest. She has lists of all excursions both private and from the cruise line, transfers to the ship both private and from the cruise line, she lets us know well in advance when our payment is due, links all our staterooms, and sends us weekly "you might think about this" emails where she has prepared suggestions for all kinds of things.

5. Its a vacation...no phones, no emails, no internet, no TV.

6. We start taking the kids when they turn 12 and we give them some simple but non-breakable rules. They have a watch, know how to tell time and are given "meeting" times to check in several times a day. Otherwise we trust them to behave well or this cruise could be their last.

7. FTTF...I'm not giving the cruise line $60 bucks for nothing.

I've written scads about later embark and later debark to avoid the herds.

Some Carnival ships now have a social media package which costs $25 for the cruise. If your kids want to use that, I think it's best to use an iPod Touch. That way there is no way to mess up the phone's settings and later get a bill for hundreds or thousands of dollars from your cellular provider. (Even if they're not making or receiving phone calls, many apps are constantly downloading data.)

We put our iPhones in airplane mode, then turn them off and put them into the safe.

We usually do not purchase internet plan. My kids always have plenty of things to do without internet. However, my in-laws complained that before.

Hi everyone. I have cruised before but this year taking A New Years Cruise with the family! Three kids, 12/14/14. Last cruise all was taken care of for us through work. This time we are in charge so I want to be sure to not miss anything. :). Here are my questions:

 

1. Is there a place to go that tells me all the extras Carnival has to offer their customers.... like the bottomless bubbles, behind the fan tours, etc?

 

2. We are deciding between the Dream and the Magic. Any preference? How about with teens?

 

3. Early/late edit we seating?

 

4. Book direct with Carnival or through TA......advantages/disadvantages?

 

5. Internet packages with teens? Worth it or not?

 

6. Ideas on how to keep track of kids on ship that worked or didn't work for your family

 

7. FTTF......is it worth it?

 

8. Any other ideas or advise you'd like to share!!!! I'm open to ALL ideas.

 

Thanks in advance! Kammy

Read CC and carnival.com for tons of info.

The kid's clubs start their programs around 8pm.

We book directly with the cruise line.

Our phones become bricks in the safe. Safer to not let the world know your not home. If need be there is wifi available in every cruise port. Get the kids a cheap dollar store watch if they can't read analog.

We use old fashioned pen and paper to keep track of everyone. The first night each kid gets the camp schedule and we get an extra one for ourselves.

Only you can decide if FTTF is worth it. Are there any tender ports? If so it might be worth it if you aren't doing a ship excursion. One is needed for each cabin.

We started cruising with our DS every year from the time he was 9 until last year when he was 19 and plan to do so again this summer. We're a cruise loving family!

I won't go into what we did before he was a teen because your kids are teens. You didn't mention what the gender of your kids are so I'll just say this...if one or more is a girl...they need to have different rules than boys do. This is not me being sexist...this is for their safety. While we allowed our DS to be off on his own for most of the cruises and he came and went when he wanted to )with the exception that he had a 1am curfew from the time he was 14) we would never allow our daughter to come back to the cabin at night without an escort...either an older brother or a well-known adult friend or family member. The reason for the late curfew is that the teen club closes at about midnight or 11p...I can't remember now. The kids love to go eat pizza and ice cream afterwards. We know our DS and knew we could count on him to be on his best behavior (not perfect) at all times. Later on when he was 15 or so and took a friend on the cruise with him...the broke curfew one night and after the DH and I got through lecturing them and giving them the what for and also restricting them from staying out the next evening past the time the club closed...they never, on that cruise or the next, broke a rule we had given them again.

As far as staying in touch...if we had to meet with him at a certain time we'd let him know beforehand. Other then that we didn't bother him as he knew what time he had to be at the dinner table every night. Sometimes he asked to have dinner with his friends and that was fine with us but for the most part we enjoyed meeting up at dinner as a family. I'd say on a 7-day cruise...he'd maybe eat with friends once or twice. Breakfasts and lunches were mostly with his newly made friends. Shore excursions were ALWAYS with us...no exceptions!!! We did late seating so we didn't have to rush back from excursions.

My advice is too set rules before you even cruise. Rules such as what meals you expect them to eat with you; what time they need to be back to the cabin at night; how much they are allowed to charge to the cabin on their room card. We gave out DS a $10 limit and on the rare occasions he'd ask for more we were happy to accommodate him as he's not a kid that asks for a lot and we are on vacation after all.

We had so many great times on our cruises that at 20...the DS still loves cruising with us and has told us he loves to cruise with us because he gets the best of both worlds on vacation...spending time with us as a family and getting free time to spend with his bring along or newly made friends. As to that...he made friends from the time he was 9 until he was 15 or 16...I forgot what the age limit is for the teen club...at either the teen club or in the game arcade. He never went on a cruise where he didn't make new friends and he is still communicating via Facebook and Iphone with kids he met to this day.

I hope you and your family have an awesome cruise together and that you make a lifetime of memories such as we have.:D

3. Late seating--nobody wants to rush back from a shore excursion to eat early.

4. I now book directly through the Carnival website. I hated having to go through a travel agent to make any changes to my booking (e.g. fare drop with Early Saver). I had to work on THEIR schedule, not my own. I just find it easier to manage my own booking and the savings with the travel agent were small or non-existent.

5. No phone or internet for anyone--it's a FAMILY vacation.

6. Rules agreed upon before the cruise began, a set curfew and notes left in out cabin as to their general whereabouts. We gave them a lot of trust and it wasn't misplaced.

If you're flying to the port, don't pack each person's things in their own suitcase. it's more of a hassle to pack and unpack, but if one suitcase doesn't show up, everybody has some of their stuff. It's also helpful to take a photo of all your luggage in case a piece is missing. It will be easier to give a detailed description and you can send the airline or cruise company the picture.

Tell your kids never to drink out of a container they've left unattended. They should always get a new glass.

We have a fun cruise tradition. We each get $10 to give near the end of the week to our favorite cruise worker that doesn't normally receive tips. It helped teach our kids to notice the behind the scenes workers. And every night we each talk about who we're each thinking of and why. It's fun because those employees are always surprised to receive a tip. Recipients have been painters, people vacuuming the stairs, etc. Our kids are grown and DH and I still do this.

You have asked some great questions and you've received some great answers. I'll throw my $.02 worth in with regard to booking through a TA or Carnival. We have always used a TA and I've been completely satisfied...until the recent "dancing of the ships" when I realized that I had absolutely NO control over my booking! My cruise aboard the Magic was canceled and my TA was away on vacation. It took me over a week before I was able to get rebooked. Had I booked it directly through Carnival, it could have all been taken care of as soon as I found out about it. Speaking of which, since I booked with a TA, all correspondence went directly to her so I found out about this change via John Heald's profile page on a "social media" site.

Needless to say, this has cured me. Although I love our TA, in the future, I will be booking directly with Carnival.

Also, as for FTTF, we've gotten it on our last two cruises and we LOVE it! I've already purchased it for our next two cruises, as well. We usually get to port early and just the fact that we can go directly to our room and leave our carry-ons is a major perk in our book! ;)

If you're flying to the port, don't pack each person's things in their own suitcase. it's more of a hassle to pack and unpack, but if one suitcase doesn't show up, everybody has some of their stuff. It's also helpful to take a photo of all your luggage in case a piece is missing. It will be easier to give a detailed description and you can send the airline or cruise company the picture.

 

Tell your kids never to drink out of a container they've left unattended. They should always get a new glass.

 

We have a fun cruise tradition. We each get $10 to give near the end of the week to our favorite cruise worker that doesn't normally receive tips. It helped teach our kids to notice the behind the scenes workers. And every night we each talk about who we're each thinking of and why. It's fun because those employees are always surprised to receive a tip. Recipients have been painters, people vacuuming the stairs, etc. Our kids are grown and DH and I still do this.

I LOVE that idea..how cool!