Cruise w/kids to location other than Bahamas, Mexico, Bermuda?

[angelndscz]

I am seeing some nice cruises in Europe, Canada, New Zealand, but I am wondering how these cruises are for younger kids? I think if we enjoy our first cruise, we will plan a second cruise for next year but I think I want to skip Mexico, Bahamas, Bermuda, etc, and go somewhere else.

 

I have always wanted to visit Europe. I have sent my two older boys to visit their grandpa in Germany when he lived there. So my older boys have been to Germany, Paris, and Italy. My husband use to live in England over 25 years ago for 3 years and he travels often for work through Southwest Asia. I have only traveled through a couple countries in Southwest/Southeast Asia. :p

 

Has anyone taken kids to New Zealand or other areas? I don't want them to be bored. Which one do you think would be best. They would be 10 & 11 next year.

[cb at sea]

I can't imagine ANYONE being bored when they are going someplace new! After all, kids LIVE in all of those places, too!

 

If all you want to do is zip-line or jetski, then you don't have to go far afield to do those things. If you're interested in seeing new places....then you need to GO to new places!

[angelndscz]

I actually meant board on the ship, not on land. From what I am gathering not all the cruise ships are kid friendly like Carnival, RCL, etc. So basically I should have asked which ships going to these locations are the most kid friendly.

 

We live in Florida and are a big boy scout family. We are always outdoors doing something. So I am not looking for a cruise to do the same things I do at home. I am interested in seeing new cities. I love traveling to old cities such as New Orleans, Charleston, St. Augustine, etc. I love going to big southern plantations that offer tours. Shopping and sight seeing is my thing. :)

[boulders]

The mainstream cruise lines are all kid-friendly. RCL and Carnival cruise the Med. RCL also cruises Australia. We've been on both of those as well as Disney (which will be in the Med next year) and Princess. DS6's favourite cruiseline was Princess because of the individual attention he received. DS16's favourite cruiseline is HAL. He took a HAL cruise in the Med several years ago with his grandparents. I'm taking the other kids on a HAL Med cruise this summer. All of the 5 I've mentioned have kids clubs. We haven't been on NCL or Celebrity. They also have kids clubs.

 

Your boys should have a good time on any of those. I choose my non-Caribbean cruises mainly for the itinerary and price. Ship comes third.

 

I would also consider Alaska for your family. It's great for kids.

[capriciousc]

I think I'd start with thinking about the kinds of things that you would want to do in the various ports, and then decide if your kids would be okay doing those kinds of things along with you. As previous posters have mentioned, all of the major cruise lines have kids' programs. Also think about the time of year you want to go - assuming that you're going to travel in the summer to take advantage of the kids being out of school, the itineraries are more limited in Australia and New Zealand. Europe, however, would have a glut of cruises available during summer.

 

We've taken our daughter to Europe and South America, and have always enjoyed the trips with her. However, we go into it knowing that we're not going to be able to see and do everything we want to do. In Buenos Aires, we went to La Recoleta, but then found a park for her to run around in and got ice cream. The next day we went to the zoo - if we hadn't had a little one in tow, we wouldn't have bothered with the zoo, but we found that she was more willing to sightsee and shop if we also made time to do things she really wanted to do (this was a land-based trip, not a cruise, so we weren't as time-limited).

 

Since your husband has lived in Europe, perhaps he'd be willing to take the kids and do something they're interested in at some ports so you could do the sightseeing you want to do?

[Onessa]

10 and 11YO would be pretty great ages to discover new places and at those ages the kids clubs on most major cruise lines are all good. When the kids are much younger, there can be some adv/disadvs to different lines kids' clubs and at the teen ages the teen clubs vary quite a bit and on-board "stuff" also varies.

 

For Med cruises, they are very port intensive so the "bells and whistles" common on some ships (rock climbing walls, wave riders, zip lines, ice skating, etc) are less important because you'll be spending a lot of time on land.

[onthelake]

Sounds like Hawaii might be a good fit. Beaches and surfing, volcanos and plantations, win-win! By the way, we lived in Florida and I could not see the point in going to Hawaii but I was very wrong.