Easter 10-day Grandeur Cruise from Baltimore - Many kids?

[Cinderellie]

We are an older couple in our 40-50's celebrating our honeymoon on the Grandeur of the Seas out of Baltimore... but just realized it is over Easter week, and there may be lots of kids aboard.

 

We were hoping for a quieter cruise, since it was 10 days.

 

Does anyone have any experience with this over Easter?

 

Thank you!

[patrioticgirl]

We are an older couple in our 40-50's celebrating our honeymoon on the Grandeur of the Seas out of Baltimore... but just realized it is over Easter week, and there may be lots of kids aboard.

 

We were hoping for a quieter cruise, since it was 10 days.

 

Does anyone have any experience with this over Easter?

 

Thank you!

 

Cinderellie, first, congrats on the honeymoon! :)

I have sailed numerous longer Easter voyages on Celebrity, but the March 31st trip will be my first ten nighter at Easter on Royal Caribbean. I am a teacher, so I tend to book my cruises during holiday times, and have taken many Easter cruises. While I don't have a crystal ball, here are my thoughts on your question about whether there will be many children on your cruise.

 

• Just my observation, but there always seem to be more children on the 7 night or shorter trips.
  
• Since most East Coast school districts have either the week before or the week after Easter scheduled for vacation, taking the March 31st sailing would would mean missing either four or five days off from school, and many parents won't pull their kids out for that many days in a row, especially if there is upcoming standardized testing(I believe Virginia public schools have SOL testing for elementary students starting on April 13th).
  
• There have been fewer children on board than I anticipated the few times I have sailed out of Baltimore; perhaps this is due to the fact that Grandeur is an older ship with fewer bells and whistles. In fact, I don't even remember seeing groups of children around the ship or even an unruly child anywhere.:eek: I had the same experience on a Christmas cruise on Enchantment of the Seas out of Baltimore a couple of years ago. :)
  

I am sure there will be youngsters on board, but I don't think we will be overrun with little ones. :) It's my prediction that odds are in your favor for a great honeymoon! :D

[RSLeesburg]

I would agree. We sailed on the 8 night Thanksgiving cruise, and there were over 600 kids on board, and we have sailed on 6 night Bermuda and there were 40 or so kids on board. My son is off that week, and if we didn't already have a Freedom cruise booked for next Nov, we might have taken this cruise - he is in private school, so no restrictions for pulling him out a few extra days. I would guess that you will have 150-200 kids on board, maybe less - there are lots of families who homeschool, or go to private schools, so it will not be completely empty - but I could not imagine that it would be as full as over Thanksgiving. But, I will say that even with 600 kids, the staff did a remarkable job keeping them busy!

 

Enjoy your cruise and your honeymoon.

 

 

Send from device_name using Cruise Critic your_app_name App

[karen1821]

Two years ago there were 900 kids. They overtook everything. Every night at karaoke in the Boleros lounge they were the only ones singing. Adults did not have a chance. At first it was cute. By the end of the week, very sick of it.

[Bonnie Voyager]

I sailed on Grandeur out of Baltimore over Easter week last April and don't remember any major issue with the number of kids onboard. Yes, they were there as most schools in this area (Middle Atlantic States) are OFF on Easter week. But it was just my husband and myself sailing and we spent most of our time in venues where the kids wouldn't want to be anyway. I do remember one afternoon in the Viking Crown Lounge when we were overrun by a group of teens, but they were not doing anything wrong, just hanging out and enjoying each other's company. It was just the fact that there were about 8 of them and only the 2 of us. They made more noise than we did, so we finished our drinks and moved to a different venue.

 

That's the only instance I remember the kids affecting our week at all. We had a great week and celebrated our 37th anniversary onboard that week. We've actually sailed Easter week every year as far back as I can remember and really never had an issue with the number of kids! I would suspect that you will have even less kids due to the fact that your cruise is 10-day. All my Easter week cruises have been 7-days (departing on Easter weekend).

[karen1821]

I sailed on Grandeur out of Baltimore over Easter week last April and don't remember any major issue with the number of kids onboard. Yes, they were there as most schools in this area (Middle Atlantic States) are OFF on Easter week. But it was just my husband and myself sailing and we spent most of our time in venues where the kids wouldn't want to be anyway. I do remember one afternoon in the Viking Crown Lounge when we were overrun by a group of teens, but they were not doing anything wrong, just hanging out and enjoying each other's company. It was just the fact that there were about 8 of them and only the 2 of us. They made more noise than we did, so we finished our drinks and moved to a different venue.

 

That's the only instance I remember the kids affecting our week at all. We had a great week and celebrated our 37th anniversary onboard that week. We've actually sailed Easter week every year as far back as I can remember and really never had an issue with the number of kids! I would suspect that you will have even less kids due to the fact that your cruise is 10-day. All my Easter week cruises have been 7-days (departing on Easter weekend).

Hi Bonnie, we were supposed to be on the Jewel together. I too might have to cancel. I am going on the Quantim in March with a friend. Can't afford to do both but am excited to see the Quantum. Hate to skip the Jewel. I might wait until final payment before making my decision. Hope you have a great cruise, Hawaii?

[Bonnie Voyager]

Hi Bonnie, we were supposed to be on the Jewel together. I too might have to cancel. I am going on the Quantim in March with a friend. Can't afford to do both but am excited to see the Quantum. Hate to skip the Jewel. I might wait until final payment before making my decision. Hope you have a great cruise, Hawaii?

 

Hi Karen! Yes, I switched from our Fall Jewel 8-day Pacific Coast cruise to a 15-day Hawaii cruise (on Princess - Ruby) departing Oct. 3rd out of LAX, for almost the same amount of money as the 8-day Jewel cruise. :D And I am also sailing on Quantum out of Bayonne this April. Good stuff! :D I was lucky with Quantum, I booked it almost 2-years out and got a GREAT price! Current prices are $2,000 MORE than I paid for the same cabin almost 2 years ago! :eek:

[DragonOfTheSeas]

We frequently cruise from Baltimore during this time frame. But, we ALWAYS avoid the week before Easter. I live in VA and many of the central and southern school district have the week after Easter off. But, the Northern VA and MD schols generally have the week before Easter off. We avoid that like the plague. There were going to be over 600 kids on the cruise when we disembarked one year. :eek:

[bjohio]

We are an older couple in our 40-50's celebrating our honeymoon on the Grandeur of the Seas out of Baltimore... but just realized it is over Easter week, and there may be lots of kids aboard.

 

We were hoping for a quieter cruise, since it was 10 days.

 

Does anyone have any experience with this over Easter?

 

Thank you!

We are on this same cruise and from the Meet and Mingle sign ups there seem to be quite a few children listed. However the good news is it seems to be the K-12 age group, not college age. I checked online and there are only a handful of colleges on break in the whole US in the week of March 31-our sailing date and only two colleges in the east. If there are a lot of kids most of them will be in the outside pools,hopefully with parents watching them, which should leave the solarium fairly open for adults only.

Looks like it will be a full ship-in checking rooms the only availables left were balconies and they were now going for over $2k per person. I am glad we opted for the late sitting for dinner, as I would think most families would want early if they were doing the MDR.

[ginnyks]

Did you check the Rollcall for the March 31st sailing??? I did and for a time there were quite a few questions regarding activities for the younger crowd. I to be honest I am more concerned about the partying Spring breakers from college, though I don't thnk that their SPring Break was the week surrounding Easter. ..ours never was, neither were my kids. Some younger hooligans (helligans) tend to run wild in the halls and elevators...I just thank the Almighty that they are not ours and that 'our children didn't act that way'(at least we don't think that they did) when they cruised as children. If there are a few unchaperoned children running amok around the ship, just thank your lucky stars that they aren't yours, and take a mental note of it for the future if you are lucky enough to cruise with some of your own! Sometimes the scooter set can be annoying when they try to push onto the elevators when there is not room enough, or drive though clusters of fellow cruisers in the narrow hallways without slowing down...but Heaven bless them, at least they are enjoying themselves! I sometimes resent them more than the unchaperoned preteens,,,those scooters hurt when they run over your feet, believe me!(I had to jump onto one on an elevator years back because of an insistent husband kept insisting at his wife that 'there's enough room' he looked at the feet and not at the girth of the people! THe next time that we saw them we immediately vacated and walked to another elevator.

 

My daughter teaches 1st grade and the thought of going on a cruise when the children are 'out' is enough to discourage her. I tell her, at least you are not responsible for their behavior on board..their parents are!

 

We have seen some pretty funny stuff,,i.e. a young girl on her grandpa's scooter going up and down the hallways when she was bored. That quickly ended when the poor gent , across the hall,discovered that the battery was run down... the next morning and he couldn't get around. and couldn't figure out why...we heard him through the door....WE DID..but our lips were sealed...needless to say, but we didn't see her scooting up and down our hall again!!

 

Have fun!! Enjoy yourselves!! Don't worry about the small stuff!

[cb at sea]

No worries...there will be PLENTY of "quiet" places....the kids are kept pretty busy, so they won't be in your way!