Choosing a family Caribbean cruise - help!

[rusd02]

I am trying to plan a cruise for a family of 6 (all adults) to celebrate a law school graduation - August 2014. We have cruised Mexican Riveria twice on Carnival so not new to cruising but have never been to the Caribbean so need some advice on which cruise to choose - length, port of departure, ports of call, cruise line. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. Economical but special and memorable are key here.

Thanks!:confused:

[Scrapnana]

The Southern Caribbean is very pretty. To be economical, you might want to go with Carnival again or maybe Norwegian. If you want lots of action activities maybe Oasis or Allure would be good but more expensive.

[Keith1010]

I too would look at the Southern Caribbean. You can do this out of Florida and the cruise will be longer than seven days or you could fly to San Juan and take a seven day cruise out of there. If time is available I would consider the longer one out of Florida.

 

Keith

[Ashland]

We're (a family of 6 adults too) also from Calif. and very familiar with the MR cruises and have done many with RCI since the early 90's until RCI left those of us on this coast..Still we stayed loyal and have now gone on several eastern caribbean cruises (no thanks to the western and while no matter how nice the southern would be the cost of flights to get there :eek:)..our favorites have been the 8 nighters on both Indy & Liberty and most recently on a 7 nighter Oasis..but still the Freedom class ships remain our favorite and price wise the best bang for your buck or at least to us are the 8 nighters.;)

[2bthereagain]

I agree with the above poster regarding the 8 nighters being the best value. Which is means Carnival. Our airfare is a huge part of our expense, so getting 8 nights instead of 7 makes it seem better :D and because Carnival has an option that leaves on Saturday instead of Sunday, we can take the same 5 vacation days from work and get an 8 night vacation instead of 7 - 9 nights if you count flying in the night before, which we do.

 

As far as departure ports, Ft. Lauderdale is easy because Southwest flies there. We like Southwest and look for the DING rates. But my favorite departure port is Miami. So we drive from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami, which is only 30 minutes. But these are the 2 best in my opinion.

 

We're trying the Carnival Breeze 8 night out of Miami for our next cruise.

[Krazy Kruizers]

August -- fewer ships in the Caribbean at that time as most are still in Europe, Alaska and Canada/New England. So you have fewer choices.

Also this is hurricane season for the Caribbean.

Look into the Allure of the Seas and the Oasis of the Seas (RCI). They have alternating itineraries -- east and west Caribbean. They are round trip out of Ft Lauderdale.

HMM -- I just thought of something -- and maybe someone can clear this up -- I thought that I read that one of those 2 ships will be going to Europe next summer.

[Essiesmom]

Oasis of the Seas will be going to Europe at the end of the summer season next year, for dry dock. No facility on this side of the pond is big enough. She leaves FLL on Sept 1, arriving in Barcelona on the 13th. she will do several short cruises from there before heading for Rotterdam, arriving Oct. 1. Dry dock for two weeks, then to Southamption and back to FLL, arriving Nov. 1. EM

[Beachdude]

Eastern and Southern Caribbean are both good itineraries. I understand Carnival is a quality bargain right now with good services because the company is trying to earn back the reputable image.

 

Burt

[mikehn]

Eastern, western, southern, you cant go wrong with any of these itineraries. And for this reason, the cruise ship itself is as much a part of special and memorable as the itinerary. You have a lot to choose from.