Spring Break Weeks on HAL what is it like?

[itzmered]

Last year we did a cruise on NCL and picked a week in March not even thinking about spring break. We ended up on a cruise with over 200 rowdy partying college kids :eek: While we still had a good time it was not quite the same cruise experience as other cruises ;) The spring breakers took over the entire pool deck, pool and hot tubs. You could not get near the pool or hot tubs unless you went early in the morning. We lucked out and were not in a cabin near any of them so have no idea if they were rowdy and noisy at night. While they were entertaining to watch dancing and partying ( wish I still had that much energy :p ) it is just not what we are looking for in a cruise.

 

We are planning a cruise for March of 2014 and I would like to know if HAL sees the large groups of spring break college kids also? We are looking at the Eurodam eastern caribbean.

[liketraveling]

I went in spring of 2011 in March.

 

This was on the Oeosterdamm.

 

There were 300 kids.

[Camlaura]

I travelled march 16-23 this year. There were a few more families than on my January cruise, but I never was bothered by either young screaming kids or rowdy teenagers...I would not hesitate to book march again.

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Basically in the Caribbean it is a non issue with Holland America, you may find 10% to 20% more children and more multi-generations but nothing like Norwegian, Royal Caribbean or Carnival. Even Princess gets far more children during Spring Break than HAL does in the Caribbean. Last year a week ago right now I was on the Westerdam, it was the peak of Spring Break and found there to be very few kids.

Now when the Oosterdam was doing the Mexican Riviera yes they would get more children and only because there were limited options for the West Coast. There still is very limited options but with HAL having a smaller ship families do not choose HAL for their West Coast Cruise. This year Princess was the primary choice unless you chose a 3 or 4 night Carnival and Carnival was getting a premium for those 3 and 4 day cruises. It was costing far more to do a 3 night on a much older Carnival ship than the give away prices HAL has had on the Zaandam. Zaandam was offering third and fourth passenger Free a few months ago for Spring Break.

[sail7seas]

We've sailed HAL ships over Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Spring Break and just about every other time of the year and kids have never been a problem for us. Club HAL takes good care of the young 'uns and the college kids have never been so many or out of control to bother us. Maybe we've been lucky but that has been our experience.

 

[bcd2010]

Last year we took a Panama Canal full transit B2B the entire month of March. Didn't see any kids or teens the first half, only a couple the second half - not that there weren't more, just that there were zero issues/problems, not even much visibility. Keep in mind, these were 2 week cruises, which makes a big difference.

[mariner]

They decorate their walkers in school colors.

[Infi]

Have done spring break cruises on HAL for the last four years. First three cruises were 7 days with anywhere from 100-150 kids onboard. A few weeks ago was a 10 day cruise and there were maybe 20-30 kids onboard. On all of these cruises the children were very well-behaved and hardly noticeable. (Often it was the older crowd who needed some lessons in rudeness and how to behave!) You will never be inundated with spring breakers on HAL.

[dogo88]

On our 3/10-17 Nieuw Amsterdam cruise there were more kids then we have seen on past trips. They weren't a problem. As Sail has pointed out HAL does a great job with the kids.

 

But with the kids we also saw very few walkers and motor carts. Guess they weren't in season yet. :D What we did get was, ready for this, over half the ship was Canadian!

 

Only kidding. Been to Canada a number of times and had a great time.

 

Kids and HAL seem to not be an issue. Same can be said about spring break.

 

Dan

[itzmered]

I am glad to hear it wont be an issue.

[Linda&Vern]

We've sailed HAL ships over Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Spring Break and just about every other time of the year and kids have never been a problem for us. Club HAL takes good care of the young 'uns and the college kids have never been so many or out of control to bother us. Maybe we've been lucky but that has been our experience.

I agree 100% with Sail. We've done many holiday cruises with no children problems. We were on the Westerdam March 3-17 this year. It was actuall two one-week cruises, so we hit most spring breaks I think. There were a handful of younger children each week. That was it.

 

What DH and I did noticed was the number of younger people (college or new out of college and have my first job age group). They "dressed" every casual night for dinner. I mean jackets or at least dress shirts & ties for the guys, nice dresses for the gals. Formal nights they all looked very "wow." They seemed to be having a ball on their vacations.

 

Children won't be an issue - in our experience.

[Himself]

We HAL cruisers are a tame lot and so are the kids who travel with us.

[scamper]

On Eurodam two weeks ago there were over 200 passengers under the age of 18. They were all VERY well behaved. I neither heard of nor saw anything that was even remotely out of line.

 

But, I agree with LAFFNVEGAS, you won't find the number of youngsters on HAL like you will on many of the other lines.

[jtl513]

I guess the word got around that the lights go out at 11 pm. and the shuffleboards are always booked ahead.

[foodgirl]

I guess the word got around that the lights go out at 11 pm. and the shuffleboards are always booked ahead.

 

Yes and let's keep it that way!! :)

[dogo88]

I guess the word got around that the lights go out at 11 pm. and the shuffleboards are always booked ahead.

 

On our cruise, three weeks ago, only the kids were playing shuffleboard! Go figure.

 

Dan

[djhsolara]

We were on Eurodam March 9-16 and experienced the most age-diverse group of passengers that we've ever seen on HAL. We are in our early 40s and felt like we were right in the median age group (whereas often, and no offence meant to anyone, we are often among the younger set). There were many younger folks on this sailing.

 

One thing that we've never seen before was a wait and line for the 10:30PM late-night snack. Each night we sat and waited about 15 minutes for the line to go down before we would go into the line. One of the dining room managers was there and I asked him if this is the norm now (because we've never seen this and we are usually among about 10-20 others in the Lido for this) and he said that he has never seen it like this. He said our sailing had such a diverse group of passengers on it.

 

 

Douglas...Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PaganView]

We were on the Eurodam the first week of March and only noticed one group of college students. They only stood out because they were the contestants in the bikini contest at Margaritaville. There were a fair number of children, but well behaved. There were a lot of Canadians on the ship that week and a large number of non-English speakers of various backgrounds. Also a good mix of ages.

 

We had debated between the Eurodam, the Caribbean Princess (which sold out before we could book) and the Carnival Dream. I liked the Dream itinerary better, but decided that we wanted a more sedate vacation than a Carnival college spring break trip might provide. We made a great choice.

[Netta7]

We are just off the NA (3/24-3/31). We traveled with our teens this trip and have traveled with them on HAL before. There were fewer teens and older kids than on our last HAL cruise, which was a longer, summer Med cruise. Compared to our Med cruise the average age of the adult passengers was much older. Also, the kids that were on board were on average younger. My guess is most families with very small children probably aren't going to go on a port intensive European trip but might be willing to try a Caribbean cruise departing from FL. When we checked in we were told 300 kids were on board, but we didn't encounter many teens.

[GulfShoresCruiser]

Just got off the Eurodam yesterday (Sat 3/30). I heard there were 250 plus kids on board. And I saw a good many college age kids also.

 

We brought our 16 year DD and her friend.

 

All of the kids were well behaved and I witnessed nothing out of line. It's another of the 999 reasons we love sailing on HAL.

 

We commented that as a previous poster mentioned, this was the most diverse age HAL cruise we have been on. It seems, from our opinion, that the older HAL passengers we usually encounter on HAL have well-behaved children, grand children and great grandchildren.

 

Do not fear spring break on HAL. Embrace it!

[CoralReef]

We were on the Ryndam 3/17 - 3/24/13. Because of the timing and the Western Caribbean beach itinerary, we expected a younger crowd than usual on HAL. Nope! Other than one group of twentysomethings who had bailed out of a Carnival cruise because of propulsion problems, we at late 40's were among the youngsters on the ship. No worries!