Demographic on longer cruises?

[Seatbelt_Bag_LOVE]

I just returned from a 10 day Celebrity Cruise, and the demographic was quite elderly. I have heard that Royal attracts a wider mix of passengers, but I am wondering if this is true for longer cruises as well. I am looking to book an 11 day on Serenade next January. I did not mind being one of the few couples in their late twenties or early thirties, but my husband greatly disliked it. Thanks in advance for the help!

[AlanAllyn]

The general rule on all cruise lines is that the longer the cruise, the older the crowd. That being said, Royal is likely to be a younger crowd than Celebrity.

 

We will be taking that same cruise in November (and we are older and sail both RCI and X). Remember that this cruise consumes to full work weeks, which will be harder for most working people.

[VaTech8912]

I just returned from a 10 day Celebrity Cruise, and the demographic was quite elderly. I have heard that Royal attracts a wider mix of passengers, but I am wondering if this is true for longer cruises as well. I am looking to book an 11 day on Serenade next January. I did not mind being one of the few couples in their late twenties or early thirties, but my husband greatly disliked it. Thanks in advance for the help!

 

Depends on time of year, itinerary and port of departure. I can say that out of the Northeast it seems to be an older crowd during the winter when schools are not on break. For example, we have just finished 10 day RCCL Quantum out of NJ (average age 65), Celebrity to Bermuda in May 2014 (average age 60), Carnival Pride out of Baltimore in January (average age 45). We are in our mid 40's and had a great time on each cruise and met wonderful people, many of who never stopped going, but understand your desires.

[aftop]

I just completed an 11 day RCI Legend cruise and I would "estimate" at least 50% were over 50. Not many children but many 20-30 year olds also.

[LMaxwell]

Any more than 8 day (weekend to weekend) and you tend to get a much older crowd generally speaking. Or ones that start and end on weekdays (that aren't 4 nighters)

[janetz]

We did a 10 day repo on the Royal Princess in Oct. Many older folks. Many scooters. However, I think that many "snowbirds" used the cruise to get down to Florida.

 

I feel the longer the cruise, on any line, you will find mostly older people. :)

[CntPAcruiser]

In November, we did a 9-night and 5-night back to back on Explorer out of Port Canaveral, and on the longer cruise, there were reportedly 1,000 passengers (out of about 3200) over the age of 70 and only 42 minors. On the shorter cruise, there were reportedly over 1,000 minors out of about 3600 passengers. I don't have stats for the middle of the age range.

[cb at sea]

The longer the cruise, the older the passengers...as a rule....Younger folks work...can't take long cruises!

Edited February 4, 2015 by cb at sea

[Grandma Dazzles]

You may find a B2B might work better for you - either a 5 day or 7 day - that way you would have the longer cruise but two sets of passengers who were on shorter cruises.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[imjoyful2]

We've only ever done longer cruises for several reasons. We can't imagine sailing less than 10 days to fully enjoy it and honestly, we prefer to sail when there are less kids on board (says the mom with 7 kids! lol). The time of year and length of cruise does determine the average age of the passengers. Our last cruise that was a 15 day repo cruise, there were only 30 kids out of 3,100 passengers and guess who had 1/5 of the kids on board? Me! LOL And yes, the average age was 60 + on that cruise but we didn't mind it as there were so many wonderful people on board to talk to & interact with! Age is just a number! ;) You'd be surprised at how "young" some of the more "seasoned" cruisers act! LOL

 

We don't care about the age of our fellow cruisers. We are used to interacting with people of all ages, my kids included. We homeschool so my kids are used to befriending people of all ages. (and homeschooling allows us to vacation whenever but I know we are in the minority). I admit though our repo cruise wasn't our norm. Prior cruises average age was about 50 with around 70 kids on board.

 

Even if it's an older age on board, RCI still does SO many activities on board to make the cruise enjoyable! ;)

Edited February 4, 2015 by imjoyful2

[Royalmoyal]

Rather than baby strollers, there are scooters on long cruises.

[willing292]

When we started to cruise 20 years ago, there were substantially more older persons cruising. Now, everyone seems to be about our age.

 

 

Shirley, Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[supraomega]

We did a 15 night cruise on Princess to Hawaii, there were very few people in our age group (20-30). Probably less than 50, out of 2600.

 

We met some very nice people in all of the age groups, we also met some very rude snobbish types. They had to be first in line for everything or were to self absorbed to take a seat so others could snap pictures of the scenery.

 

I was screamed (cursed) at by an elderly lady the very first day on the ship in an elevator. Apparently she wanted off that elevator right now and was to rude to say excuse me. I am not picking on the older generations by any means, and I understand some people get claustrophobic, but I don't think this was the case in this instance.

 

We were quite frequently told that "we were too young to be on this cruise" and asked if "we were sure we were on the right boat". We never took it seriously, and I don't think it was intended to be serious, but the joke got old by the end of the trip.

 

I do think that the longer cruises attract the more seasoned cruisers as well.

 

In the we still enjoyed ourselves and any cruise is better than a day at work :D

[A2Mich]

We did a 15 night cruise on Princess to Hawaii, there were very few people in our age group (20-30). Probably less than 50, out of 2600.

 

 

 

We met some very nice people in all of the age groups, we also met some very rude snobbish types. They had to be first in line for everything or were to self absorbed to take a seat so others could snap pictures of the scenery.

 

 

 

I was screamed (cursed) at by an elderly lady the very first day on the ship in an elevator. Apparently she wanted off that elevator right now and was to rude to say excuse me. I am not picking on the older generations by any means, and I understand some people get claustrophobic, but I don't think this was the case in this instance.

 

 

 

We were quite frequently told that "we were too young to be on this cruise" and asked if "we were sure we were on the right boat". We never took it seriously, and I don't think it was intended to be serious, but the joke got old by the end of the trip.

 

 

 

I do think that the longer cruises attract the more seasoned cruisers as well.

 

 

 

In the we still enjoyed ourselves and any cruise is better than a day at work :D

 

 

We also took a 10 day Princess cruise when we were in our young 30's, and I think we were THE youngest people on the entire ship. We met the same types of people you did-the self righteous snobs, rude and pushy passengers, loud and obnoxious , as well as very pleasant and cordial. The same types of people are everywhere and in every age bracket too.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[julesbeara]

Did a Hawaii Islands to Vancouver cruise on the Radiance. Most passengers were 65+, and it was a surprise for us. We did have the Specialty Restaurants to ourselves and the ship was very quiet in the evening hours on port days. The ship only had 5 honeymoon couples. :-)

[Shelley61]

It may be different for sailings out of Europe/UK. We don't sail during the school holidays and have never been on a cruise shorter than 13 days, but the age ranges on our cruises was very wide, with quite a few families and couples in their 20s, 30s and 40s as well as the older generations.

 

The reason may be due to the fact that, certainly in the UK, we have generous paid holiday/vacation time from work - for example, I get 5 weeks paid annual leave as well as bank holidays, etc. It means we're more able to take the longer cruises than others. From what I've heard, US employers aren't always so generous? I of course could be (and often am!) wrong...

[Iluvcruising2]

I just returned from a 10 day Celebrity Cruise, and the demographic was quite elderly. I have heard that Royal attracts a wider mix of passengers, but I am wondering if this is true for longer cruises as well. I am looking to book an 11 day on Serenade next January. I did not mind being one of the few couples in their late twenties or early thirties, but my husband greatly disliked it. Thanks in advance for the help!

 

You are a young cruising couple!

 

Yes, we found the demographic mix in Royal to be younger than Celebrity (sailed only once). Recently sailed on NCL and found their passenger mix to be fairly young too. All the above sailings are out of Europe.

[tomko2]

When we started to cruise 20 years ago, there were substantially more older persons cruising. Now, everyone seems to be about our age.

 

 

Shirley, Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

 

Now that is funny. :D

 

My hubby and I cruise regularly and on one of our recent cruises we were looking around during the muster drill and realized we were the "old Farts".

LOL

[P&O Lynn Knickers]

the average age was 60 + on that cruise but we didn't mind it as there were so many wonderful people on board to talk to & interact with! Age is just a number! You'd be surprised at how "young" some of the more "seasoned" cruisers act!

 

I too have done a repositioning cruise on RCCL, Legend of the Seas.

It left San Juan, a few stops here and there, panama canal, then over to acapulco then on to hawaii and then to vancouver.

 

It was great to meet so many relaxed people on what was a very long cruise.

 

None of the raff, one can sometimes meet on the shorter 3 day cruises,

 

On longer cruises, it does appear the people on board, are warm friendly people.

 

Some fun was had, and the memories remain ;)

[griffy116]

If you take a cruise longer than 7 days, the passengers get progressively older. If you take a longer cruise when school is in session, the age of the passengers will be even older. We did an 11 day cruise during the school year once and thought we had stumbled onto Retirees At Sea. Strollers were replaced by the motorized wheelchairs and canes. You started looking around in the MDR to see if there was anyone not on SS. It was port intensive so we weren't disappointed in the cruise, it was just the first and only time it was that noticeable (age of the majority of the passengers).

[Seatbelt_Bag_LOVE]

I really appreciate all the feedback! I really have no issue sailing on a cruise with an older demographic, but my husband got annoyed with all the comments "You are way too young to cruise" etc. I think most were just semi-serious, but still it gets annoying after a while. We did meet wonderful people of all different age groups, and certainly we had a lovely time. A plus side was that we got to participate in pretty much any game show or activity we wanted! This cruise had just 16 children. It was quite humorous that people were falling asleep everywhere on the ship, and the activity manager even commented on it a couple times throughout the cruise. :) I think we will explore a few options including back to back. I may check out some cruises out of San Juan, because it is hard to get to all the awesome ports with a 7 day out of Florida. I would really love the Serenade itinerary, so I shall see if I can convince my husband. :)

[John&LaLa]

When we started to cruise 20 years ago, there were substantially more older persons cruising. Now, everyone seems to be about our age.

 

 

Shirley, Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

 

To funny. :beer:

[mcatmcat]

I heard royal dropped dynamic dinning because their based ( aka old passengers )didn't like it.

I believe the longer the itinerary the less young people will be in the ship.

 

In contrast carnival attract more young people but I don't really like their ships 😐

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

[Motorman23]

When we started to cruise 20 years ago, there were substantially more older persons cruising. Now, everyone seems to be about our age.

 

 

Shirley, Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

 

Lol, love your humor.

 

Mike

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[lakelorain]

We've cruised out of many different ports and have found, in our experience, that the average age is directly related to the length of the cruise and the port. Long cruises from Florida have the oldest average age.

 

 

 

 

Diamond Plus -RC

Elite - Celebrity