boulders

We are just off Allure in cabin 8729. I would not choose it again. The picture of the cabin shown above seems to have a few more inches in width than our cabin did. Our cabin had only about 4 inches between the sofa bed and the vanity and one foot at the end of the bed to the wall. Only one person at a time could be out of bed. The cabin was 7 feet wide - very narrow.

The walk was way too long to get anywhere. The Oasis class ships are so huge that you won't want for exercise wherever your cabin is.

You had to be at the railing to have any view at all. There was no view from inside the cabin, except of cabins on the other side of the ship.

There was also quite a bit of movement in the cabin, even though the seas were very calm. I've been off the ship for 5 days, and I've still got mal de debarquement.

Adventure Ocean is all the way at the forward end of the ship, so that may be a consideration for your kids.

The rooms are likely to have the same stateroom attendant. Don't worry.

The "fridges" are just coolers, and only hold a few cans of soda. They are not suitable for keeping food at an appropriate temperature. There is no microwave in the Windjammer or any other venue.

Your friend should contact the special needs department.

Just off Allure yesterday. If anything, I found most of the venues warm. Don't forget that many of the places people hang out are on the Boardwalk and Central Park, both of which are outside. I found the elevators almost stifling. I tend to run very cold and never felt the need for long sleeves.

The only time I felt a little chilly was in the Amber Theatre, when there were very few people in it.

The Royal Caribbean and Celebrity ships will have non-suite cabins that sleep 5 or more, but you won't see those online. You have to call the cruiseline.

Both lines have lots of connecting cabins too, but again, it's best to call.

I tried the OP's method on my last RCCL cruise, 5 years ago in Bayonne. We left our cabin around 8:40 am. We didn't get out of the port until noon. There were lines everywhere. We didn't even get a taxi to ourselves. The person in charge of the line had to call in shuttle buses to get people to the airports because the local taxis had stopped showing up. Luckily our flight wasn't until late afternoon.

Now I do self disembark and leave early.

The number of days on each line is in my signature. D17's favorite cruise line is HAL. S10 and S20's favorite line is Royal Caribbean.

I'd recommend not taking a car seat for the 3 year old on the plane. There's so little room between rows these days that their legs will be pushed up against the seat in front of them. They'll be much more comfortable without the car seat on the plane. Do bring your own as checked luggage though. I flew with car seats on many flights, never had a cover, but used a plastic bag, and never had any problems, except for the time at Heathrow where the car seat never showed up at baggage claim.

I wasn't impressed with My Family Time dining when I tried it years ago. It required that I watch the time while I ate my appetizers, run out to the outside of the dining room, trying not to bump into waiters who were carrying 10 entrees on their arms and aren't expecting people to be up and walking around, wait for the kids club staff, hand off the kiddo, then make my way back to my table where my entree had been sitting for 5-10 minutes and my tablemates who had finished their dinner.

I found it a far better solution to make the kiddo wait an extra 15 minutes, while I finished my entree, take him up to the kids club myself, and come back to eat dessert.

At the time we did it, it was one staff person to however many kids showed up outside the dining room.

Any cruise line would be great, but Disney would be at the bottom of my list. We sailed on it when ds was 4. The kids club was a zoo. Complete chaos. All of the other lines have a lot more personalized interaction with the kids and are more organized.

Choose the ship and itinerary that you want to go on.

The infant age policy changed in 2008. Children must be aged 6 months or older to sail on any cruise. They must be 12 months or older to sail on any cruise with 3 consecutive "at sea" days.

We did an Antarctic cruise on Zaandam 2 years ago over Christmas. It's not quite the same cruise as you are looking at, but it's close. You should be right at the average age for this cruise. Our cruise was fabulous. I would go again in a heartbeat.

I asked the same question a couple of months ago and didn't find anyone who has taken the trip. I hope you have better luck!

My teen son's favorite cruise line is Royal Caribbean. My teen daughter's favorite cruise line is HAL. Neither liked Carnival. Teen daughter got food poisoning on Disney.

Have never seen ants on a cruise ship. I think I saw a fly once.

Ovation is a member of the Quantum class of ships. The other two ships in the class that are sailing, Quantum and Anthem, get terrible reviews. I think a previous poster is confused with the Oasis class - Quantum class doesn't have high diving, Oasis does.

I would go with (and I actually am!) Solstice.

I disagree that DCL is more kid-friendly at night (or any other time). Their kids clubs are chaotic. My kids prefer Royal Caribbean, Princess and HAL over Disney.

With little ones, a cruise is not much different than a land vacation. You still have to deal with diapers, naps, snacks, early bedtimes etc.

We cruised HAL when my daughter was 13 and 15 and my son was 7 and 8. HAL is my daughter's favorite cruise line and it's my son's second favorite (after Royal Caribbean). Both spent the vast majority of the time either in the club (my son) or with the friends they made there (my daughter). On our first cruise, there were 300+ kids and on our second, there were 35. Both were during school breaks. Their programming starts at age 3, except for Prinsendam where it starts at age 5. They do appear to have babysitting, but I've never used it. There is no family play time. You can see more info at HAL youth programs

HAL's offerings for triples and quads have been slim on the other ships in the fleet. My days of booking a quad are coming to an end, but the layout would have been very appealing a couple of years ago. Who knows, as my youngest child continues to cruise with me for the next few years, we may book one of those cabins for the privacy.

They were still doing it Christmas, 2013 on the Zaandam.

I took Holland America's Zaandam to the Antarctic 2 years ago. It was the adventure of a lifetime. I too have bad knees, and pretty much all other joints too. We did shore excursions in pretty much every port, including the trip to Volunteer Point in the Falklands.

Compared to other cruises we've been on, this one did not involve much walking at all. A lot of the sights could be seen from the ship, including the continent itself, the icebergs and the Chilean fjords.

I got seasick as we crossed the Drake, but didn't have difficulty walking around the ship.

I highly recommend the cruise. Go for it!

That is some really screwy math you've got there.

 

First of all, 3.2% of 320Million is 10 million, not 7million.

Second of all, .5% of 7M is not 1 million(nearly 14%), its 32,000 some.

Third of all, 1 million vegans of 320m residents is roughly .32%. On a ship of 3000, would be approx 90 vegans.

 

The correct numbers, assuming the percentages are right would be ~

10m veg, 50k vegan, .0015%, and .5 Vegans per cruise... but again that assumes the percentages are right. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if 14% of vegetarians were also vegan, and the 90 number was closer to the truth.

Your math is wrong. There aren't 320 million adults in the US. There's 244 million. 0.5% of 244 million is about 1 million.

Summer 2017 will be released with the 2017-2018 bookings. Generally, cruise lines release itineraries for May to April. So the 2017-2018 release will be for May, 2017 to April, 2018, approximately.

Thanks Dave! That's around what I expected. Could you do a review of it after your cruise?

Has anyone taken HAL's pre- or post-cruise "Explore Australia" Tour? I'm planning on taking the Noordam (or whatever ship is doing the route) in 2018 on a cruise from Sydney to Auckland. We'll have visited Sydney before, but I would like to visit Uluru with a guided tour prior to the cruise and HAL's "Explore Australia" 6 night pre- cruise tour itinerary looks about perfect. I haven't been able to find any reviews or pricing on this though. Does anyone have any info?