boulders

Unfortunately, people think that because it's Disney, bad things won't happen to their children. Everyone will have a magical time. They let their children have a lot more freedom than they would in other places or other cruise lines. A friend went on DCL a few months ago and let her 10 year old dd wander around the ship and go to the pool, with a 9 year old friend, by themselves. :eek::eek: Nothing I said could convince her that this was a bad idea. :( Luckily, everyone survived. But this mentality astonishes me.

What ports are you going to? We did a cruise on the Rotterdam to the Norwegian Fjords last May and loved every minute of it.

Went to see Bergen, Alesund, Geiranger, Eidfjord, Stavanger, Kristiansand, Oslo and Flam.

 

The Rotterdam is a lovely, not too big ship, the crew was amazing and the food just too good ;-)

 

If you have any specific questions, just ask. (Sorry about my bad English... I'm from Germany)

Netty, your English is excellent. I would not have known you were not a native speaker.

Hi everyone! We're thinking about booking a 14 night Caribbean cruise through HAL in December. Husband and I will be going with our son who will be 9 months and my parents (mom is super helpful with baby.) I have a ton of questions I'm really hoping you all can help with. We've cruised a ton but never with a child!

 

1. Are we nuts?!? Lol... Seriously wondering if 14 days is just crazy with a 9 month old.

 

2. Overall, are cruise ships (HAL in particular) accommodating with babies? Will my son be allowed in main dining room, etc?

 

3. Should we bring pack and play for sleeping in room?

 

4. Should we bring car seat for cabs for any excursions we would want to do? We live in LA and trip is RT out of Ft. Lauderdale so we may need car seat for airport travel...

 

5. Is it true that baby gear flies for free??

 

6. Any advice on cleaning bottles and baby food supplies on board?

 

7. Any brilliant words of wisdom? I'm very excited and also a bit scared. Any tips are sooooo appreciated!!!! Thank you!!!!!

First - 9 month olds cannot go on all cruises. If there are 3 or more consecutive days at sea, the minimum age to sail is 12 months. Cruise ships are not equipped to handle medical emergencies for little ones. They must be close enough to shore to transfer your little one if they become seriously ill. Make sure your 14 day cruise doesn't have 3 or more sea days in a row on its itinerary.

Not nuts in general, but although HAL is my favourite cruise line, I'd choose a different one for sailing with a 9 month old. There are no activities that a 9 month old could join in on HAL. On Royal Caribbean and Disney, there are things like nurseries, baby splash zones, even a carousel. Although some cruise lines (I think HAL might be one of them) have in cabin babysitting, children must be 12 months or older. Also, be aware that except for the baby splash zones on some Royal Caribbean ships, infants are not allowed in the pools. Some ships will allow you to order baby food, but I'd take my own food just in case. It used to be that ships would puree food for babies, but after some cross-contamination issues, they have mostly stopped that.

Here's Cruise Critic's article on sailing with a baby. It's not exhaustive, but it's a start http://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=1473

The one thing that HAL cruises have that would be useful if sailing with a baby is the $7/day/cabin unlimited laundry package.

The cost is $19/hour. They send two people. Availability is not guaranteed. To give yourself the best chance of getting someone, go to Guest Services as soon as you board to request the times you want.

You used to have to pay the fee in cash to the person who babysat. I'm not sure if that's still the case.

I am curious - are private schools subjected to the same scrutiny?

No. The issue seems to be that public schools are paid x amount per student per day. If a student is not at school, the school (or district) doesn't get paid. If 10-15% of students are not present on any given day, because of illness, hooky, vacations, doctors appointments etc., the school gets paid 10-15% less. This can play havoc with budgets.

Private schools get paid no matter whether the student attends or not. In addition, they don't want to offend their "customers" by insisting on excellent attendance.

I live in Canada (now, I used to be a private school teacher in the US). We have no problem taking our kids out for vacation. That having been said, I'm planning to take 3 kids out for an additional 7 school days around the Christmas break for our upcoming cruise. Two of them are in high school. I'm planning to be very apologetic when I email the teachers. :)

Hmmm. DS had his 7th birthday on a HAL ship last year, and there was no mention of kid-friendly birthday parties. I did a search of the HAL site and I couldn't find a reference to this either. :confused: Can you point me in the right direction?

Regarding demographics, the demographics on our summer 3+ week HAL cruise were just fine. There was a wide range of ages, including 300 kids. I preferred that to the 1000+ kids on our Royal Caribbean cruises during school breaks. It depends more on the time of year more than cruise line.

Sorry you had to cancel. But the Med is sooo much better than a Caribbean cruise. :) And the period between Christmas and New Year's always seems to be a sweet spot to find fares to Europe. Shhh. Don't tell anyone. :cool:

There is speculation that Anthem will be homeported in Southampton starting summer, 2015. I would love to do a back to back on Allure and Anthem!

Our province has the school calendars posted on their website out to 2017 currently. :D

And please don't just start saying anything about being "intolerant" or anything along those lines because it has nothing to do with it. I would like to have been informed of ANY such large group of people on the cruise. And, no, I did not think to check if there is a large group of any kind because I am not an experienced cruiser.

I've been lucky not to have any large groups on any of my cruises. But from what I hear about lounges being closed, pools decks being closed for special events, whole floors of dining rooms being taken up, I wouldn't want to be on a cruise with a large group either. There have been discussions on the boards about whether the cruise lines should inform the booked passengers. The HAL board runs a thread to keep a list of groups booked on HAL cruises. If someone could do that for Royal Caribbean, it would be awesome. It's a big task though.

I feel your pain. I have no experience with this group. I would maybe try calling up RCI, explaining, and asking if you could be switched to Oasis/Allure or some other ship sailing out of Florida on those dates. Assuming you're flying into MCO for Freedom, rent a car at MCO and drive to the other port. Good luck.

Well, first they snatched this elderly lady's tube to go down the toilet bowl and cut in front of her. My father witnessed. Then he caught them jacking around at the kids pool, almost knocking over some young'ns.

In English please? Especially the first sentence.

We'll be going straight to the ship from GIG. How do I ask the driver to be taken there? TIA

Not sure if this one was listed. The guest laundry. Just found out the RCCL cruise we are going on in May doesn't have one. Very expensive to have the ship do some laundry! :eek:

Actually it's not. Halfway through the cruise, you will be given a laundry bag that you can fill to the brim for about $25.

I'll be looking forward to your update too! Thanks and enjoy your cruise!

Cheapest I see leaving on the 20th or later and returning on the last weekend is YYC-MIA on Westjet $1300. Nonstop flight too. If you come back earlier, cheapest is US Airways, but with flying back on New Years Eve. $1000. Or, you can drive to Montana and fly from there, but flights are still $800-900.

I don't fly anymore at Christmas. Flights from Toronto to Florida are in the $800 range.

The itinerary sounds exciting. I always travel with my son as well (7 yrs old). I have a couple of questions for you:

1. Do you know if you have any landings in Antartica?

2. Or is it essentially just cruising along the coast?

3. Would there be opportunities to view wildlife?

No landings on our cruise. Many days of scenic cruising of Antarctica and the Chilean fjords though.

We have scheduled stops in 6 ports, not including the beginning and ending ports. Two of them, Puerto Madryn and Punta Arenas, have large colonies of penguins accessible on shore excursions. There are also shore excursions in Puerto Madryn to see sea elephants and sea lions.

Someone posted excellent videos of their trip on this itinerary on the Veendam earlier this year.

We now have 32 kids on our cruise (as of final payment date). Come join us!

Seabourn also has a cruise around the same dates, that does make several days of landings in Antarctica. It's more expensive and doesn't have a kids club., but it's a more upscale experience with actual landings.

Double post sorry

Good points. However if you went to a vegetarian forum and the pages were clogged with posts on Mcdonalds and Jack In The Box...it might be slightly bothersome.

 

It's all about moderation,Jack In the box 3 times a day probably isn't good. 6 times a day would be out of control,over the top and just unhealthy (kind of like the 8 wine threads right now)

I agree.

Now Ally scooted out before dessert the night before because she was dreading the birthday celebration. Well.

 

Does this child not know me??? I will not be denied HER birthday!

 

 

Oh yeah, kiddo, it's coming, just a day late, that's all!

 

 

And since she had already ordered TWO desserts, the creme brulee and chocolate souffle, she now had THREE to eat! And she almost completed that task!!!

 

 

 

 

I love it! :p

My partner and I (me 54 and him 60) have only cruised once so far. We have our second booked for next year. Both with Celebrity. When cruising, we don't want to feel like we're in 'God's waiting room', but neither do we want a 'family atmosphere'. We have an intolerance to young children running around and squealing! We also like fairly high standards of comfort etc, without being in a position to shell out for premium prices.

 

Based upon limited experience and knowledge of what's on offer, Celebrity seems to fit the bill for us. RCL, despite offering discounts for over 55s, reads like it encourages families and, shock horror, appears to have water slides and gaudy colours :eek: HAL, I notice is popular, but I don't know enough about them. Princess? My impression is its considered to be on a par with Celebrity by many. I need to know more about P & O and Fred Olsen may be a little more down market.

 

So it would be great to hear from more experienced cruisers about favourite cruise lines, disliked cruise lines and why. All views and experiences welcome :)

RCL's only waterslides are on a handful of ships and are very small. No gaudy colours either. You must be thinking of Carnival. ;) RCL does encourage families, but so do other mainstream lines. If you stick to lines that don't have kids clubs, like Oceania, Regent, Seabourn, Silverseas, you'll come across very few kids.

We sailed on Radiance 4 years ago in 8502. The layout was not the same as the layout shown in the pictures above. I don't have any pics though. Our stateroom had a square layout. The bathroom and a closet were nearest the door on opposite sides of the stateroom. The living room was on the right after this area and was about 8 x15 feet. There was a sofabed and two chairs. The secondary bedroom was on the left, had a twin and a pullman above as well as a large closet. It was separated from the living room by a full curtain and from the primary bedroom by a wall. It was furthest from the door, on the left and was about 8x8. The primary bedroom was about 8x10, had a desk and drawers. No closet or window. It was separated from the living area by a full curtain. The TV could swivel 180 degrees so you could view it from the living room or the primary bedroom. There was a large round window in the living room. Total square footage was about 300 sq ft.

It was the best layout of stateroom we've ever had on a ship, including the Navigator of the Seas family ocean view (6500).

Thanks Boulder,

So if I'm understanding this correctly....though Disney Magic website says the passenger occupancy is 2400, in actuallity it may be 40% higher and closer to 3360 passengers ? The 2400 Disney quotes is only based on double occupancy?

Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy double occupancy is 2500. Their maximum occupancy is 4000.

Disney Magic and Disney Wonder double occupancy is 1754. Their maximum occupancy is 2700.

Here's another website which collates space ratios as well as cruise critic's and another travel site's ratings of the ships.

Boulders, do you have the numbers for Disney MAGIC?

I've always wondered how these numbers are arrived at and would love to see the comparison on the smaller ship MAGIC.

Like Sopwith, my husband had some similar concerns (we're use to cruising Regent Cruise Line with very few kids) but nonetheless, looking forward to a wonderful 3 generation family trip over Thanksgiving week.

I don't have exact numbers for the Magic or Wonder like I did for Fantasy and Dream. I did find these government stats for 2011 and earlier Cruise Stats Figure 3 shows occupancy percentage. The only cruiselines that are identified are the Disney ships as they have a much higher occupancy percentage than the other lines. They are the 3 small dots (Fantasy wasn't sailing yet) at the top of the graph. It looks like Wonder and Magic sail at about 140% occupancy.

Interestingly enough, the trend is that as the ship gets bigger, the higher the occupancy rate is. Some of the smallest ships (under 1000 pax) operate at 75% occupancy, and the ships with more than 2000 pax operate at an average of 111%.

The Fantasy is the largest ship I have been on and I never felt crowded. The average space ratio is in the mid 40s. Your average HAL ship (except Prinsendam) is in the mid 40s. So even though there are more people on Disney than on HAL the ship is bigger so it can accommodate them. The only time I saw a huge crowd was on Pirate Night.

 

I am not a Disney fanatic (it took me over 40 years to get to Disney World for the first time) but the service and the cabins on DCL were amazing. There were plenty of adult areas for me where I could get away from kids when I wanted.

Your numbers are a bit off. If ships sailed at double occupancy, they would be correct. But ships, especially Disney ships, don't sail at double occupancy. Disney ships typically sail at 135-155% double occupancy. In its first 3 months of sailing, the Fantasy sailed at 132.7% occupancy. The cruise line started offering discounts to increase the occupancy after those numbers came in. Disney Dream operates at about 153% occupancy. Disney ships have a lot of quad and quintuple cabins. Although the double occupancy is 2500, the maximum occupancy is 4000 and the ships tend to operate close to that second number.

At 3800 passengers on a sailing, the space ratio for Disney ships will be 34.2.

HAL ships operate closer to the industry norm of 110%. Often as low as 90%. The absolute maximum occupancy that Prisendam can get is 105%. So, even if the Prisendam had all berths occupied, its space ratio would be 46. Prisendam isn't a typical HAL ship however. It's maximum is only 837 passengers. To compare a HAL ship similar to Disney, look at the Nieuw Amsterdam. Its double occupancy is 2100. It generally operates at 110% occupancy for a space ratio of 37.5.