Best Alaska Cruise with one awesome and mature but easily bored 9 year old boy

[Allie444]

Hi! This is my first post and the first cruise my husband and I will be taking since we had our son 9 years ago. The last cruise we went on was when I was pregnant. It was my 5th and my husbands first. We had an inside cabin and he was unhappy with it, he felt cramped and claustrophobic. So to appease him I know we need some kind of balcony room. That is our only must have at this point. Other than that our first priority is which cruise line/cruise my son will enjoy the most. Which has the most kids? and best kids club for a 9 year old. Our last 4 vacations have been Disney and we have loved them but a balcony room or suite with Disney is just too expensive. I don't want to budget on excursions and if we go with Disney we would have no choice but to do that. We would like to travel in beginning to mid August and are open to a starting port although I am leaning towards Seattle but Vancouver or one way is an option also. Please help....

[DragonOfTheSeas]

I have not priced Disney cruises because our children are grown, so I looked that up on a travel site. Let me say WOW! I see your issue.

 

Most other lines were between 1,700 pp to $2,000 pp for the cheapest balcony and Disney was $3,500 [without port charges/fees for any of them]

 

I think Royal Caribbean has a nice children's program. We have not sent children there--but, we had talk with those that have. A disadvantage of Royal is that they do not go to Glacier Bay--but, Disney not not either. [that I could see]. Royal goes to Hubbard Glacier and that is pretty awesome, too.

 

 

But, Alaska is about the excursions rather than the ship. We found that we spent so much time ashore and that our excursions began so early we did not spend much time in our room or even on the ship. If your son goes on excursions with you he may not spend much time in the children's program [Adventure Ocean on Royal]

 

Is he excited about going? You will need to selected things he is interested in. He does not sound like the type that will sit on a train for 3 hrs watching the scenery go by. The most active and "exciting" things to do tend to be pretty expensive.

 

Have fun planning the cruise. That is half the fun. I would get the DS involved.

[mollanjake]

Your son sounds just like my Daughter!

 

We went on a RCI cruise for Spring Break last March as a prep for this year's big cruise. for the Spring Break Cruise I went with RCI because I felt they would be the most kid friendly and it had an itinerary I wanted to do. She loved the mini golf, rock wall, spray zone and the pools. She did not love the kids club. First problem was age group was 6-8 and being the oldest is just not a great fit for her. She also said the kids were kinda wild....we live in the Midwest so our Spring Break is before the East Coast so the ship was not packed with kids.

 

Conclusion for me RCI: kid friendly ship, kids club hit or miss...

 

Picking a cruise for Alaska, I concentrated on the itinerary. From early research I knew we wanted one way Southbound as we will do a land tour and I want to do it first. I made a spread sheet that had ports with arrival times and departure times. Biggest difference I found was a few go to Glacier Bay and a few go to ISP(rarely both) I wanted a ship that was in port for as long as possible, so we could do whatever we want to do. Ultimately, I chose the extra port day at ISP rather than a sea day in Glacier Bay. I just couldn't imagine my daughter standing on deck freezing for very long and since I can't count on the kids club I figured we are all better off in port. RCI and Celebrity had the longest port times, so I narrowed it down to those 2. For the record I kinda wanted to try a new cruise line and was leaning heavily toward Princess.

 

From the info on this Alaska board, I am under the impression that the age mix on all Alaska cruises is about the same on all cruise lines and as long as school is not in session there will be kids on board.

 

Once the cruise was booked I kept reading. I picked excursions I thought my DD would like and asked her what she thought. The few places I had trouble deciding I printed RCI's excursion list and asked her what she wanted to do.

 

Some excursions have minimum ages and there are things a 9yo can't do. Other thing I looked at was weight requirements for Ziplining. My DD is small and doesn't weigh enough to do most of the zipping.

 

Hope this helps!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Budget Queen]

Hi! This is my first post and the first cruise my husband and I will be taking since we had our son 9 years ago. The last cruise we went on was when I was pregnant. It was my 5th and my husbands first. We had an inside cabin and he was unhappy with it, he felt cramped and claustrophobic. So to appease him I know we need some kind of balcony room. That is our only must have at this point. Other than that our first priority is which cruise line/cruise my son will enjoy the most. Which has the most kids? and best kids club for a 9 year old. Our last 4 vacations have been Disney and we have loved them but a balcony room or suite with Disney is just too expensive. I don't want to budget on excursions and if we go with Disney we would have no choice but to do that. We would like to travel in beginning to mid August and are open to a starting port although I am leaning towards Seattle but Vancouver or one way is an option also. Please help....

 

None of the Alaska cruises are going to have the numbers of kids on board that sail the Caribbean. Alaska cruises are totally different. I have to say, I never made any trip plans thinking my kids would be bored. And if they had- so what? You need to determine why you are going to Alaska? Is your son likely to enjoy most of it? You are all over in the itinerary- you need to figure that out first and decide what route you are going to do. This will cut down the list significantly. Have your son do some homework about the ports and how he would like to occupy his time.