sdjatigger

I'd love to know that answer to this too. We have a cruise coming up in February. 🙂 

My niece is a high school senior and will be joining us on this cruise. I noticed that it says the teens club is from 13-17. She turns 18 two weeks before we sail. 😞 She's been on one other cruise and found so many friends through the teen club. Will she be able to attend the activities if she's already turned 18? Has anyone else had any experience with this? 

We bought the fun pass in December when we cruised on the Divina--and were so glad that we did! We purchased ahead of time. While there were sales on the ship, we never saw a rate as low as what we got prior to cruising. It may differ per ship or based how many are sold. However, on this sailing, we got the best deal by pre-purchasing-- we looked everyday because there was much discussion/debate about whether to purchase it beforehand. 😁

If you read the online description, you'll see that one pass is good for everyone in the family--which made it very cost effective for us. I can't remember the prices for everything,. Bowling was $8 per person per game, the simulator and 4 D theater were $9. Before we sailed we went back and forth about whether to get it so we began totaling what it would have cost us without it. We did a lot of bowling ($24 per game), watched most of the 4 D cinema shows, and rode the race car multiple times. At the end of the cruise, we realized it would have cost us over $300 for the 3 of us. That said, it was a longer cruise and we had several very rainy days that made outdoor activities less appealling. 

We are sailing the Meraviglia in February 2020 and have already purchased the Fun Pass. We had heard that they were discontinuing and it disappeared from options for the cruise my sister was taking on the Seaside, so we jumped when we saw it offered. 

Hello!

 

I was on the Brilliance from January 3-8, 2015, and the Christmas and New Years decorations started coming down towards the end of our sailing. By the time we got back to Tampa, the decorations were gone.

 

Derek

Thanks Derek! That gives me hope that they will still be up for part of our cruise. I didn't want to miss them!

Our experience has been that the decorations come down the week after New Year's.

Clarea, thanks so much for responding! For some reason, that makes me so much more excited for the cruise :D

We are sailing the NYE cruise on Freedom Dec. 30. I'm hoping the Christmas decorations will still be up, but unsure how long they generally keep the ships decorated. Does anyone know?

Thanks everyone! So many great ideas and tips for making the trip wonderful:)

Thanks gotaluvlex and Onessa, you gave me several great ideas that I am going to use! I appreciate you sharing your tips. There are so many things I hadn't thought of, like bringing along a collapsable tree, or small gifts for my DS to give out to new friends. I also hadn't given any thoughts to trying to coordinate something with a cruise director or concierge.

Do the ships usually have a Santa appearance?

We are on Costa this cruise. The last time we sailed with them was almost 10 years ago, and we have never sailed over Christmas, so I'm not sure what to expect :)

We have never cruised over Christmas before. We have a 6 year old who loves Santa and all things Christmas. I would love fun ideas, and tips for how others have handled making the holidays special for kids and family while cruising during the holidays. (Not to imply that cruising over the holidays isn't special already...but looking for ways to "holiday up" the cruise).

P.S. we will also be on board over New Years and would welcome ideas for that time too:)

We are taking our first holiday cruise this year. We will be traveling over Christmas and New Years. It will be my husband, myself, and our 6 year old son. I would love any tips, insight, etc. that people are willing to share that have helped them make their holiday cruises great.