Our favorite time to sail is in February. There are fewer kids (although there does seem to be more and more kids each year), the cruise rates are phenomenal, and often its still cold, rainy and overcast where we live, it's so wonderful to get to be in the sunshine and warmth. Plus, we book our cruises fairly far in advance so it can seem to be forever before it's finally here. Time flies by because we are busy with so many other things towards the end of the year that we don't think much about our upcoming cruise, school starting, all the kids activities, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, then the kids go back to school. A month later, we're on a ship.