boulders

Which ship?

I'll have 3 kids in 3 different school systems this coming year. Two in Ontario universities and one in US K-12. One of the university students and the US school student go back on January 9 and one of the university students goes back on January 4.

There are a lot of international students on cruise ships, so it's not just US and Canadian school schedules that are a factor. IME, there will still be plenty of kids on a cruise that time of year.

We did a 3 week cruise to Antarctica on HAL over Christmas/New Years 2 1/2 years ago. My youngest was 8. It was a great cruise. There were roughly 1100 passengers on board, including 35 under 18. There were multiple lectures daily in the main theatre. There were plenty of kids for my 8 year old to play with in the kids club and plenty of teens for my 15 year old to hang out with around the ship.

My favourite parts were the lectures, the scenery of Antarctica and the shore excursion to Volunteer Point on the Falklands.

HAL has unlimited laundry for $7/day which is a lifesaver with kids.

We were in a Neptune Suite (got an upsell a couple of weeks before the cruise) and our total cost (including airfare, a 3 day side trip to Iguassu Falls and shore excursions) was around $20-$25K. An oceanview would have been under $20K.

Holland America's Antarctic sailings have a great lecture program. There were about 1000 passengers on our 2013/14 cruise.

Are you on Celebrity Reflection??

We used romeinlimo.com for our tours of Rome. They also do transfers. The cost from Rome to Civitavecchia is 170 euros for 2 people.

I know for the South America cruises that the Christmas cruises are always released later than the regular cruises. It looks like it is the same for the Australia/New Zealand cruises. I would expect to see it available in another month.

I looked into doing the tour in 2013. At that time, I believe the cost was about $1700 per person. I was able to do a 2 night visit independently for 4 people pre-cruise for $1700 total.

Hello Jenn

Celebrity doesn't answer anything sent to connections@celebrity.com.

The 17 year old isn't confined to his cabin at 1 am. There are youth club activities until 2 am that he can participate in. Otherwise if he is out and about after 1 am he must be with a parent.

On Royal Caribbean's Oasis class ships, there are aqua theater shows, ice shows and a Cirque de Soleil show. There's also rock climbing, flowriding, ping pong, mini golf, the carousel and I'm sure there's a bunch of things I've either forgotten or don't know about. Their Voyager class and Freedom class ships have many, but not all of the above.

But honestly, at that age, my kids just begged to go to the kids club.

We were on the Allure last month. It was our first RCCL cruise in 5 years. Mamma Mia was as good as any Broadway show we've ever seen. It really was that good. I would go on the Allure just for that.

St. Thomas had a very nice shore excursion called Secret Sands which was heavenly.

There were way too many things to do that we couldn't do it all in just one week. This was also a con. The size of the ship was also a con. Unlike other ships where we would stroll through the promenade, every time we left the room it was like a forced march because it would take more time than we were used to to get where we were going.

I and others on my roll call have been having the same problem. This has been going on for 3 weeks or more. I contacted connections@celebrity.com 2 weeks ago, but haven't received a reply. Others have called Celebrity and have not received any useful information. I can get the info that 16 people are signed up for the party - but a whole lot more have tried to sign up but have not been able to.

If they register for the kids' club, yes. They are not required to wear one if not in the kids' club, even on Disney. Same with NCL.

But the OP is sailing on RCI, where all kids are required to have a wristband.

I'm going to bump this thread up because it's about to fall off the first page due to all the spamming. The spam threads are making this forum useless.

Still waiting to come across my favorite ice cream: Cookie Dough! I think I should just give up, never having seen it at sea!

 

Just following up on the question regarding the casino and smoking (is it allowed and are there non-smoking sections, tables, or nights). No rush - whenever you're passing by and can make note of that.

 

Thanks!

 

Tom

Cookie dough was on our Allure of the Seas cruise last month in the ice cream shop. It is out there!

Cruise Critic might not have been hacked, but it is certainly full of spam this morning. The triangle button to report the posts isn't working either.

We used Estancia Excursions in Port Stanley. We went to Volunteer Point. It was fabulous. http://estancia-excursions.com/

As mentioned, all children are given wrist bracelets that they must wear for the duration of the cruise. The bracelet will have their muster station on it. In addition, all passengers have their picture taken when they check in. Security will easily be able to figure out who a child is, who they belong to, see the parents' picture, call the stateroom, page overhead, find out where you last charged something on the ship and find you.

Ships are generally not that crowded. The one place that you should never let a child out of your sight though, is the pool deck. There have been cases of small children slipping away from their parents and drowning. :eek: Royal Caribbean has recently started stocking life jackets for swimming. On our Allure cruise recently, there were racks of them by the towel return. I would make that your first stop on the pool deck.

Juice and milk are also available at dinner.

We plan to go to Giovanni's and Sabor. Why do you say not for dinner, but lunch? What's the difference? Cost or ?

Cost is the reason I recommended Giovanni's for lunch and not dinner. Lunch is $15 and dinner was I think $30 or $35. It was the same menu. I found the MDR very good. I didn't find Giovanni's worth it to miss the MDR dinner. A good lunch was much harder to come by.

Except 10 pm to midnight when it's $5/hour.

I prefer Holland America over Royal Caribbean, so I guess Royal Caribbean is my second favorite. :p I'm in my early 50's. HAL's atmosphere is more quiet and comfortable than Royal's energetic atmosphere. I especially like HAL for its more exotic itineraries. The ships carry much fewer passengers than Royal ships, so it feels more personalized and luxurious. They have a much better room service menu.

My daughter and I did the Chefs Table on the Allure a couple of weeks ago. The dinner itself was on the top floor of the diamond lounge. The diamond lounge was my favorite spot on the ship, so this was great. I do not normally drink, but I made an exception for this dinner. A couple of the wines were excellent. The food and presentation were excellent too. I thought the price was well worth it.

Judging by the confirmed party list page, I'd say RCI is losing interest too.

Couldn't open your link.

We haven't done a tremendous amount of cruising on RCI, but I started 10 years ago and my last cruise was two weeks ago. Our first few cruises, RCI placed us at dinner with very interesting tablemates. One cruise, we got tablemates who scowled at us and didn't speak when we introduced ourselves. After that, even though we request shared tables, we end up at a table by ourselves. Based on looking around the dining room on our last cruise, it seems that most RCI cruisers are in large family groups who really aren't interested in socializing with others outside of their own group. Maybe the marketing of RCI as a family destination has decreased the number of solos or couples who are interested in socializing with others on board.

We self debarked at 8 am off Allure on March 20. It took us about 35 minutes to clear customs. It took an hour to checkin for WestJet once we got to FLL. Then another 30 minutes to clear security. Once we got through security, there were huge lines for food and hardly anywhere to sit. All in, it was 3 hours from the time we left our stateroom until we were seated at the gate. Once on the plane, the plane sat on the tarmac for almost an hour before taking off. It was not the easy and quick debarkation process that we'd heard about on these boards.

We just got off Allure on Sunday. Giovanni's was good, but not great. They serve almost the same menu for lunch for $15 pp. We had both lunch and dinner there on different days. If I had to do it again, I would not do dinner at Giovanni's, just lunch. The other restaurant we tried was Izumi. We had sushi one night and teppanyaki another night. We can get just as good Japanese at home. The one dinner we had a great time and was worth the $$ was the Chef's Table. It was beyond excellent.