Family-oriented entertainment aboard Princess ships

[coldflame]

All,

 

In my family we are huge fans of the DCL experience, specially their focus on kids' entertainment. However, we need a change of scenery, so to speak, and after our next cruise in September, we were considering taking a cruise on the Royal Princess. However, before making a decision I'd like some opinons on the following:

 

* Are kids generally welcome by the staff and other passengers or are they seen as a "necessary to put up with" :) ?

 

* DCL has fantastic kid-only lounges with amazing staff to watch after them as well as leading activities, does Princess offer similar options?

 

* DCL general dinning attire is super relaxed, and specially forgiving about small kids on t-shirts and such, which is very important to us. Does Princess also have a lax policy on dinning room attire or are they more strict?

 

* Are "older" kids (7-10yo) allowed to roam around by themselves or are they expected to be with their guardians at all times?

 

* Are there sports or other activities geared for kids/adults/families?

 

TIA.

[euphscott]

Being a huge DCL fan - I too have branched out and really enjoy the Princess brand.

 

I've never taken my child on Princess however.

 

That said - the kids are well received and treated. It's not even close in terms of programming, but they are not forgotten onboard Princess.

 

I've also noticed relaxed dress code (don't do shorts though) on most evenings, however on formal evenings, you do see more formal dress on Princess versus DCL. It's not that it would be frowned upon if you were less dressed, you just would not fit in as well - but there is alwys buffet dining for those that want that relaxed experience.

 

As for roaming the ship - that can occur - but at that age, they might not be as easily entertained. And not to tell you how to parent, but 7-10 would make me nervous no matter the cruise line.

 

Activities do exist with sports on deck and activities with games that might appeal. It's a different experience for sure and DCL is a fantastic line. But Princess does a nice job and has become our second favorite when the DCL itch has been scratched..Good luck selecting!

[notentirelynormal]

All,

 

In my family we are huge fans of the DCL experience, specially their focus on kids' entertainment. However, we need a change of scenery, so to speak, and after our next cruise in September, we were considering taking a cruise on the Royal Princess. However, before making a decision I'd like some opinons on the following:

 

* Are kids generally welcome by the staff and other passengers or are they seen as a "necessary to put up with" :) ? The staff loves well behaved kids. They have family that they miss and will treat yours like royalty. My kids started cruising around 7 YO and now my grandkids are cruising the youngest at 6 months the latest at 1 YO.

 

* DCL has fantastic kid-only lounges with amazing staff to watch after them as well as leading activities, does Princess offer similar options? The kids program on Princess is also wonderful. They do science, they do drawing, the do playing. My 5 YO grandson couldn't wait to get through dinner so he could go join them. You will not find waterslides or wall climbing, however. They also have lots of family friendly excursions.

 

* DCL general dinning attire is super relaxed, and specially forgiving about small kids on t-shirts and such, which is very important to us. Does Princess also have a lax policy on dinning room attire or are they more strict? The kids are "supposed" to follow the dress code. You didn't say how old your kids are but would it be that difficult to put long pants on a boy and a dress on a girl for an hour or two. Teaches them that sometimes you have to conform. As long as they look decent they will not be rejected. Who knows, the kids might have fun dressing up like the other kids.

 

* Are "older" kids (7-10yo) allowed to roam around by themselves or are they expected to be with their guardians at all times? No one will stop them. I assume you mean can the kids go to the buffet and get a burger by themselves then come back to join your group - that you don't mean leave alone for the entire day. Even if you did, no one would say anything unless they are doing something they shouldn't be doing.

 

* Are there sports or other activities geared for kids/adults/families? My kids always found things to do, swimming among the activities.

 

TIA.

 

I know a lot of people don't think Princess is great for kids but my kids don't need to be active 100% of the time. They always enjoyed going to the shows and entertainment, including BINGO.

[dmwnc1959]

 

* DCL has fantastic kid-only lounges with amazing staff to watch after them as well as leading activities, does Princess offer similar options?

 

 

Here is the Princess Cruises video on the Youth and Teen Centers on Royal Princess:

 

[coldflame]

Being a huge DCL fan - I too have branched out and really enjoy the Princess brand.

 

As for roaming the ship - that can occur - but at that age, they might not be as easily entertained. And not to tell you how to parent, but 7-10 would make me nervous no matter the cruise line.

 

Activities do exist with sports on deck and activities with games that might appeal. It's a different experience for sure and DCL is a fantastic line. But Princess does a nice job and has become our second favorite when the DCL itch has been scratched..Good luck selecting!

 

Thank you for your input.

 

What I meant by 'roaming around' is my oldest (7yo) eats like a man 10x his size. He loves eating snacks and finger food constantly so, in DCL, he usually goes to deck 11, grabs food, plays at the arcade, then comes back down to meet us. Some cruise lines do frown upon that sort of thing, so i was wondering about Princess.

 

There will be potentially 4 kids with us for that trip, our two and two teenagers (family). So, I have to think hard forgoing DCL and taking a risk with any other cruise line.

[PescadoAmarillo]

The kids areas on the Royal look (from the videos) to be AMAZING. Indoor and outdoor areas, seating/conversation area and hot tub for teens. Outdoor play structures for the little ones.

 

ETA - whoops, sorry. I stopped to take a phone call and, in the interim, xxx1959 actually posted the video showing the aforementioned AMAZING kids areas.

[coldflame]

I know a lot of people don't think Princess is great for kids but my kids don't need to be active 100% of the time. They always enjoyed going to the shows and entertainment, including BINGO.

 

Thanks for taking the time to write.

 

Yeah, although my kids are extremely well-behaved and mannerly, they are super active and need constant stimuli. They're not the TV show watching type and being relatively young (7 and 3) they keep me and my wife on our toes all the time :)

 

Perhaps Princess is not the best fit at this stage.

[deedeetoo]

While I know many will not think that this is appropriate and are not happy that this occurs, last year our head waiter told my son (age 11 at the time), that he did not need to wear long pants to dinner and that shorts were perfectly fine. Almost all the kids were wearing shorts in the MDR for casual nights. We skipped formal nights so I don't know what people wore for that.

[notentirelynormal]

Thanks for taking the time to write.

 

Yeah, although my kids are extremely well-behaved and mannerly, they are super active and need constant stimuli. They're not the TV show watching type and being relatively young (7 and 3) they keep me and my wife on our toes all the time :)

 

Perhaps Princess is not the best fit at this stage.

 

You misunderstood my comment. I meant that they don't need to do sports activities all day long and find other things to stimulate them. Believe me my grandkids are active. Besides school my 8 YO grandson does theatre and karate in between his fire department activities, swimming and of course Disneyland and playing at the parks. I meant if you are looking for wall climbing type things you won't find them on Princess.

[euphscott]

Another thing to consider with Princess is that each ship has a different personality and some may be better fits for kids than others. Do your homework if choose Princess. DCL is a little more homogenous in the experience on all of it's ships. Princess ships have more personalities of their own.

 

I follow with the kids going to get food and then coming back - I am with you there - and as another poster indicated, if they are well behaved, trouble should not be found.

 

Knowing what I do and what you seem to be asking - to branch out, you might be happier with Royal Caribbean or even Carnival. But those too have multiple personalities from ship to ship.

 

Good luck!

[sunsetbeachgal]

Since Royal Princess has not even been sailed on yet, you may want to wait a couple of months to see what is written about her, since this ship appears to be VERY different from other Princess ships. We will be saiilng in July with my stepdaughter, her husband and two little girls 4 & 9 years old. Although our itinerary is very port-intensive I am sure we will be paying a visit to the kids areas, participating in the evening entertainment, using the pools and visiting all of the food venues! :)

[Loonbeam]

In terms of pure facilities, excepting maybe the Royal, Princess doesn't come close to what Disney offers. Staff, on the other hand, is probably pretty close (it really comes down to who you hire).

 

What I will say is that the onboard entertainment (shows etc) on Princess will probably not be of interest to kids meaning they have fewer options other than the kids program. On a port heavy itinerary this may not be an issue.

 

Other things that could affect their enjoyment is how many other kids their age are on board. On our Panama Canal cruise (in October, which is important) there were 19 kids. Total. As you might expect, not so much of a age separate kids program...

[Cruisin' Chick]

All,

 

In my family we are huge fans of the DCL experience, specially their focus on kids' entertainment. However, we need a change of scenery, so to speak, and after our next cruise in September, we were considering taking a cruise on the Royal Princess. However, before making a decision I'd like some opinons on the following:

 

* Are kids generally welcome by the staff and other passengers or are they seen as a "necessary to put up with" :) ?

 

As others have said, many of the crew members have families back home. As for passengers, it depends on how many curmudgeons are on board. Out of five cruises on Princess, only one of them had a large number of them, and it was a holiday cruise, go figure. I think even some of their peers wanted to throw these crabs over board.

 

* DCL has fantastic kid-only lounges with amazing staff to watch after them as well as leading activities, does Princess offer similar options?

 

There is a full kids program on all of the Princess ships except the "small ships." Of course, it depends on what time of year you go. On my daughter's first time on Princess (after three cruises on Carnival), we went in February and she was one of only three five-year-olds. So not as many activities and the age groups were recombined. Her next cruise was our Alaskan cruise in August on the Sapphire, and there were a lot of kids her age and a lot of activities, especially on the few sea days (they made models of glaciers and the solar system, I remember; it seems the biggest fave activity on board Princess is the squid dissection). So lots of arts and crafts, lots of science-oriented activities, junior Olympics, kids' dinners, movies, etc. Plus, kids can enjoy some of the "adult" activities too such as trivia and the nighttime production shows.

 

On our last cruise, the girl (now 15) got together with the other teens and set up a ping pong contest. There's also volleyball and other sports.

 

As someone said, just don't expect any rock climbing walls, ice skating rinks.

 

* DCL general dinning attire is super relaxed, and specially forgiving about small kids on t-shirts and such, which is very important to us. Does Princess also have a lax policy on dinning room attire or are they more strict?

 

Not a problem for day time dining. As long as they're not coming into a main dining room or the buffet in just a swim suit, shorts and tees are fine. At night, if they don't feel like dressing up, there's the Horizon Court (unless the buffet is called something different on the Royal), the International Cafe (not an enclosed eatery, but some you can get light fare there). There's a pizzeria and an outdoor grill by one of the pools that should be open from late morning to late night. I think the Royal will have a lot of different choices not on the other ships.

 

But maybe they might surprise you and be willing to put on "restaurant clothes" and try out the main dining room. My daughter when she was 7, 8 and 13 decided to skip the MDR, so we let her eat elsewhere. But in December, she was gung ho for eating the adult way, and even dressed up in her unique style (especially for formal nights).

 

I would imagine they would have at least a few outfits not consisting of shorts and tees for occasions back home and events at school.

 

* Are "older" kids (7-10yo) allowed to roam around by themselves or are they expected to be with their guardians at all times?

 

We didn't let our daughter have "sign out" privileges when she was 8. So if she wasn't signed in to the kids' center, she was with us. But that was our rule. Of course, if we were at the pool,there would be times she could run into the Horizon to grab something to eat or use the restroom. When she was 13, we took her to the teen center (Remix) where she met a few girls to hang with, and we barely saw her on the 10 sea days during the day time.

 

 

 

* Are there sports or other activities geared for kids/adults/families?

 

Just ask to see the Patters for any cruise (if you do a search for my Golden Princess holiday cruise, I had posted the newsletters that I scanned. Of course, many of the activities on that cruise were related to the itinerary (Hawaii) or the time of year (last couple weeks of December). Much of the types of activities depend on the cruise director and there are some Princess ones who are excellent. Hopefully the Royal, since it will be new, will get a good one to start with.

 

TIA.

 

As you can see, my daughter, who's an only child, was 5, 7, 8, 13 and 15 on our Princess cruises. She's not athletic, so activities involving ball games are of no interest to her, but she's a musician/actress, so she enjoys going to the shows. We haven't been on a Disney cruise so I can't give a comparison.