Travelling with children

[Onessa]

We've included our DD in all of our vacations (including cruises) throughout her life -- she's now 14YO and has traveled extensively across the US, Canada and Europe.

 

Cruising in general is one of her favorite types of trips. We tend to cruise for the itinerary -- keeping busy on-shore during the day and enjoying ourselves on board evenings. She thinks it is "the best" because we eat and play and sleep on-board while the ship moves us to the next great place.

 

We've crused Princess, NCL, RCCI and X with her. She "LOVED" every ship and does not seem to miss the water slide or the flow rider or rock climbing wall while on those ships without them -- she seems to find enough to do.

 

She makes friends pretty easily so generally it is the socialization that she enjoys most.

 

Most recently we sailed on Solstice through Italy and Greece and Turkey -- while there was no merry-go-round or bungee jumping, she fell in love with the Hot Glass Show and bocce ball on the lawn.

 

She's done early seating and late seating. When we have late seating sometimes she'd have a snack earlier and join us, other times she'd either eat from the buffet or with the kids club (when she was younger) and we'd eat without her. But now that she is older, she really looks forward to the MDR and being able to join into the conversations with the others at our table -- we're from the US and have had tablemates from exotic places like Canada, Guatamala, England, South Africa, Scotland, the Phillipines, and Atlanta (trust me when you are from the upper US midwest, someone from the US South is very "foriegn" :))

 

Go and have a great time with your family.

[flagger]

Have I missed something? We are going to France for 2 days, isn't that in Asia?

Sorry. I was just saying if a 5 and 7 year old can have fun on a river cruise along the Mekong, they certainly can on an ocean cruise with a great kid's club. Sorry for any confusion.

[Jo and Rob]

Sorry. I was just saying if a 5 and 7 year old can have fun on a river cruise along the Mekong, they certainly can on an ocean cruise with a great kid's club. Sorry for any confusion.

 

No worries.

[Jo and Rob]

I went to our local TA today to get a quote and she said that with the children Royal Caribbean would be better. :mad:

I know she went on a two day taster so perhaps it was out of school holiday time?

I have really set my heart on Celebrity and it is clear from this thread that many of you would recommend it for children.

[Scrapchick]

I think you have asked enough questions on this board to know what you want from a vacation, and if you were considering RCL you would have asked about that. I take what my TA says gladly, but then I make up my own mind. Frankly, I would make up my own mind if I were you, however well intentioned your TA is.

 

Too many people think family friendly means rock walls and ice rinks. You seem to have something a bit more in mind for your family and if your heart is set on Celebrity, then I would stick with that. If I chose every vacation based on what would suit my child I'd be on a Carnival ship every time and very, very miserable about it.

I would thank your TA very nicely for her input and then tell her you have made up your minds and want to give Celebrity a try. It isn't a life time commitment.

[Miffy2003]

I went to our local TA today to get a quote and she said that with the children Royal Caribbean would be better. :mad:

I know she went on a two day taster so perhaps it was out of school holiday time?

I have really set my heart on Celebrity and it is clear from this thread that many of you would recommend it for children.

 

Hi there

 

I had the same thing as you - the TA I visited practically demanded I book RCI when I enquired.

 

However, as we are travelling in the summer school holidays I think there is the potential for the RCI ships to be teeming with children, and I also believe there will be loads for my children to do on Celebrity. So that's a negative for RCI and a plus for Celebrity (actually I hope there may be fewer children aboard Celebrity than RCI). I did loads of research and I believe Celebrity will be a good "fit" for us. Not to mention RCI was significantly more expensive....

 

Go with what you think is right, not what the TA suggests; you know your family better than they do.

 

Cheers

 

Karen

[dszrew]

I went to our local TA today to get a quote and she said that with the children Royal Caribbean would be better. :mad:

I know she went on a two day taster so perhaps it was out of school holiday time?

I have really set my heart on Celebrity and it is clear from this thread that many of you would recommend it for children.

 

We promised our boys that we would take them with us on our 25th anniversary cruise. We went through the whole thing of RCI/Celebrity/NCL/etc, and eventually ended up on Celebrity.

 

I decided that if we were interested in a water slide as part of a vacation, that we would go somewhere that was a water park rather than trying to include a water slide on a cruise ship. I also wanted to enjoy the cruise, and frankly I don't like crowded places or the obnoxious activities that we found on (for example) Carnival.

 

I think the key is knowing your kids and what they'd like. My boys can sit in a restaurant so they should have little trouble in the MDR. They like us enough to spend time with us--they don't have to be with kids all the time. They were also excited about the destination (Alaska) and what they'd see and do there, being on the ship was just an added bonus. And for them, having their own room where they could watch TV and order room service would be more fun than a rock wall anyway.

 

The biggest tip I've discovered while traveling with our kids is to not overschedule things. They need that free time, sometimes just to do nothing or to hang out at the pool, to keep themselves sane. Everyone gets cranky when we're rushing here and there all day long.

 

We aren't world travelers and don't travel extensively, but we've done the Asia trip. Not a cruise, but there's nothing like taking a 3 and 4 year old through Cambodia. They'll be 12 and 13 once we do the Alaska trip, so they're excited about being able to have some autonomy in what they do onboard without having us dictate everything they do.