Has anyone taken a five-year-old on a Venice/Greek Islands cruise?

[alj1208]

We're thinking about doing a Mediterranean/Greek Islands cruise out of Venice next year with our 5-year-old. Has anyone taken a child of this age on this itinerary? We are considering RCI Splendour of the Seas. We will have other family members with us and would probably do beach days at some of the Greek Islands. We need advice from anyone who has done this.

[maui_zaui]

No, not yet, but we are taking a 6 year old (and a 1 one year old) on a 12 night med/holy land cruise in less than 2 weeks. We will be stopping at a few Greek Islands, so I can let you know after, if you are interested.

 

FWIW, we HAVE taken our 6 (and one year old) to Venice (5 nights), and we had a great time. 6 year old loved chasing the pigeons and looking for lions.

[scubababy]

Our daughter just turned 6 when we did our first cruise to Europe - Med cruise that started in Barcelona and ended in Venice. She did great. Really really enjoyed the Pelican Club on Princess as well as the Explorers on RCCL. We did a Hawaii cruise when she just turned 4.

 

My best advice is to try to book your own private tours/drivers in most of major ports. Also, with the cities that are very close to port, do it on your own. Makes traveling with kids and grandparents much easier. You go on your own schedule versus the schedule of 100's of other passengers. Walking is the norm in Europe, so you might think about a very portable stroller to help with the "meltdown" from "looking at so many rocks"!!!!

 

The kids clubs on Princess and RCCL are fabulous. I highly recommend you take advantage of these. We just returned yesterday from the Med/Holy Land cruise on the Mariner of the Seas. The kids club was the highlight for our daughter for the past 3 cruises. She made some great friends, and had a ball.

 

At 5/6, they will get tired of touring some days. Last year, she stayed on board for one port day. This year, she stayed on board for one port day.

She begged for the break of the "touring" routine.

 

Anyway, kids love adventures, so I think you will do fine!

[Kerry's Girls]

My twins celebrated their fifth birthday on a Med cruise that included a stop in Athens, which they loved. One nice thing about the Med is that there are lots of sights that are fun to explore so there was plenty to do and see while avoiding museums. I second the suggestion to arrange private tours or hire your own cab for the day in each port. The ironic thing is this was always less expensive than joining the ship tours, and we had the benefit of going at our own pace and only seeing what we wanted to. I visited the ports of call board here and got suggestions for tour guides and then arrange family friendly tours. I always brought lots of pre-packaged snacks (brought from home) and drinks, along with a portable DVD player or video game if there was a long drive. My girls had a great time and enjoyed our days - we just didn't try to pack too much in to any day, and allowed time to just sit in a cafe, wander an area or stop at a park.

 

By the end, my girls also wanted a day off from sightseeing though. They stayed on the ship in Malta, our last stop.

 

Have a great time - we can't wait to go back.

 

Best,

Mia

[PJOZ]

We took our 5 year old DD and 8 year old DS on the Mariner of the Seas on a 9 night cruise out of Rome in March this year. We had a fantastic time, but there was a big difference between what our 5 year old got out of it and what our 8 year old did. I accepted that she wouldn't appreciate a lot of what she was seeing or remember much later on, and was OK with that because I knew we'd have a better time with them with us, I would have missed the kids too much if I had left them at home.

 

RCCL was great for the kids especially kids club. Our kids stayed on board one day too when it was cold and wet and we were just going into Xania in Crete to have a look around. The other days we organised our own tours with a taxi driver at the port or joined groups found on the boards here who didn't mind the kids coming along. We mostly did 1/2 day tours where we could to allow more free time and some time in the afternoon by the pool which worked well I would recommend that where possible. We did one 8 hour tour to the Amalfi Coast and Pompeii though which she managed OK. A few beach days will work really well to break the sightseeing up.

 

Overall we had an absolutely amazing trip (4 weeks, cruise, Paris, London, South Africa) but the cruise was the highlight for the kids. Bear in mind that we were flying from Australia so we had over 24 hours in travelling to get to Rome in the first place, I was astounded at how well they dealt with the flights, time zone changes and jet lag. They woke up really early the first couple of days but were fine by day 3. That is my only other piece of advice, fly in a couple of days before or don't organise anything too demanding for the first few days of the cruise to give them a chance to adjust to the different time zone. I hope you have a great trip, we did!