Is Carnival Family Friendly during Spring Break?

[Crooney]

We are looking to family cruise with 5 adults & 2 kids (11 & 8). I haven't cruised on Carnival in over 15 yrs. Carnival was once known for it's younger crowd & lots of partying :(. Is it still this way? We will be cruising during spring break (late March 2011) and Carnival is the least expensive. I am worried about the crowd & what my kids will be seeing. Is this even an issue anymore? If so, which cruise line would you recommend? We are looking to depart from Florida.

Thanks for any advice!

[babyblue78]

I have never been on a cruise during Spring Break, but it is my understanding that ships (including Carnival) will be packed with young people. Lots of drinking and rowdiness going on. Honestly, if I had to cruise at that time, I would go with Disney Cruise. If you don't want to go that route, maybe Princess (or similar) would have less of the Spring Break crowd. Hope that helps!

[5waldos]

Almost all of my cruises have been spring break ones and we have not had any problems. I understand that the shorter cruises out of Miami attract the heavy duty partyers so it seems to depend on where you go and for how long.

[boulders]

We went on spring break cruises 3 March spring breaks in a row, 2007-2009. Two of those were RCI and one was Carnival. All were one week long. We never saw any college kids rowdiness. We mostly saw families and extended families. On Carnival, I saw a preponderence of elderly people - probably since I had to walk through the casino to get anywhere on the ship.

[Julienatul]

The 7 day-ers tend to be a more subdued crowd, the shorter 3-4 day-ers tend to be more of a "party" type atmosphere. Even so, you will still see tons of families with small children because that is when school is out and they are able to travel.

[Gatrcruzer]

I was just responding on a similar topic just a few minutes ago! To be honest, I'd probably avoid college Spring Break for cruising, at least during Florida's college Spring Break (this year it begins March 5 for many universities in Florida). There are just a lot of college students nearby looking for affordable trips, so I'd expect a larger number of college students at that time, and their lifestyle is not what I'm looking for at this time in my life. I'm not as worried about Spring Break for other states - they are less likely to overwhelm the ships at those times. In Florida. universities and non-secondary schools (elementary, middle and high schools) have Spring Break at different times, so families with children would likely cruise during the other Spring Break (which falls the week before Easter). Perhaps it's not as bad as I've heard, but if I had a choice I'd choose a different time to cruise.

[jayhawk11]

My family and I have, along with another family, cruised over Spring Break for the last 5 years, and are booked on one again this year. We have cruised 4 out of those 5 times on Carnival. The first year, we cruised on a 5 day out of Galveston and the last 4 times a 7 day out of San Juan. There were more college kids on the 5 day. However, without question, the bulk of the passengers have been families. The worst behavior we have seen occurred on our 3rd cruise, and our only Princess cruise, and it involved a group of middle aged adults during dinner. We actually had to move tables. When we started cruising, the ages of our kids ranged in age from 9-13. This year, our kids range in age from 14-19. We are sailing, this year, on Royal Caribbean, not because we are unhappy with Carnival, but because we need to change things up a bit. Hope you have a great trip.

[A&Jfamily]

We are looking to family cruise with 5 adults & 2 kids (11 & 8). I haven't cruised on Carnival in over 15 yrs. Carnival was once known for it's younger crowd & lots of partying :(. Is it still this way? We will be cruising during spring break (late March 2011) and Carnival is the least expensive. I am worried about the crowd & what my kids will be seeing. Is this even an issue anymore? If so, which cruise line would you recommend? We are looking to depart from Florida.

 

Thanks for any advice!

 

Carnival is our cruise line of choice and we have done 2 spring break cruises in back to back years, and our sons were 2 and 8, and 3 and 9 at the time. We picked Carnival because of price and have found that it really is a family friendly cruise line.

 

The "rowdiest" thing we saw was on the first cruise out of Miami - one group of kids had a beer bong, but it wasn't long before that was confiscated. My husband and I laughed at them - remembering our college days. They were having fun, singing and dancing, but nothing out of control or over the top. And there were families on the same Lido deck enjoying the same music and dancing. All in all this cruise was clearly during college spring break as it did have college kids but they were not a problem and were well behaved. It also had tons of families with kids of all ages. We had so much fun that we decided to do it again the next year.

 

The next year we went on the Legend out of Tampa - same week and almost no college kids. In fact, there were more older people than we haev seen on other cruises. But again, tons of families with kids of all ages and still the same fun Carnival atmosphere.

 

Would I cruise spring break again? Absolutely. There are tons of family friendly activies. I have not experienced any "out of crontrol" cruisers - just people having fun.

[cb at sea]

Carnival is as "family friendly" as any other line during spring break. That's generally when we cruise, and have never seen "over the top" behavior....especially on a week long trip...3-4 nighters, no matter what time of year, will always have folks trying to fit more fun into their short time than they can!

 

Carnival is no longer a "party boat"....it's quite mainstream! Your kids won't see anything on the ship that they wouldn't see at any beach.

[RoadTripFanatic]

I have been on 2 Spring Break cruises on Carnival and have never had a problem with college age kids. Middle aged adults- yes but kids no. :) I can say that because I'm getting way to close to that age group! Most of your colleges are on Spring Break during March. Most elementary schools are on Spring Break during April.

[imsulin]

I have been on 2 Spring Break cruises on Carnival and have never had a problem with college age kids. Middle aged adults- yes but kids no. :) I can say that because I'm getting way to close to that age group! Most of your colleges are on Spring Break during March. Most elementary schools are on Spring Break during April.

 

Just a note, and this will probably affect some public schools and parochial schools.. Easter, 2011 is not until April 24....which is pretty late, but many school districts (public and parochial) base their Spring Breaks around Easter. Some don't. (The school district I taught in always had the last week of March as their spring Break, regardless of when Easter was) You'll find very few college kids on a cruise over Easter 2011 because their school year usually ends around mid-May, and they are studying for finals. (Tongue in cheek, but let's hope!) I quit cruising during the last week of March in 2003, even though I only took 7-night cruises, because of the increasing rowdiness/bad behavior for several years prior. However, I think cruise lines have taken some positive steps towards "damage control" in the last few years. Still....I won't cruise in late March again for awhile.

[jerin]

Agreeing that the short cruises may *not* be family friendly. Our only Carnival cruise was a short Mexican Riviera one during spring break season and it was not a good experience for us or our children (they were 2, 4 and 5). Definitely way too much of the party scene.

We've sailed alongside other Carnival ships on other, longer itiniraries (albiet not during spring break), but it was not *at all* the same demographic/dynamic as the cruise we were on, much more family friendly.

[Prinycesa07]

I went on a carnival cruise from Miami, 7 night, senior year of college for spring break. Pretty much the whole ship was a spring break crowd. We saw a few families with small children and they were very upset. There were even beer bottles floating in the kiddie pools. Now that i have a kid, i wouldnt go during spring break.

[G&TQ]

We have sailed twice during spring break. Both on Carnival. One we saw drunk teens - not college kid. I saw one mom handing her daughter drinks, they were both three sheets to the wind. We later saw the daughter coming back from cozumel with a new tatoo and she kept saying her mom was going to kill her, she was drunk and the proceeded to show everyone how drunk. That was the worse.

 

On the last spring break it seemed to be more family style spring break but the teens lounged in the elevators hitting all of the buttons.

 

Now on a non spring break cruise I have seen worse but then I have seen worse on the beachs here at home. So it won't stop us.

 

In fact my son is taking his first spring break vacation this year (6 yo) and we cruising RCI this time. I am sure I will tell him something if we see stupidity we treat these situations as learning experences, with that is not how you should act.

 

Hope I did not scare you.

 

Happy sailing.