College Spring break cruisers

[impatientlywaiting]

College kids can't usually afford anything more than 3-4 night cruises...and they have to be either 21 or 25....so you won't get a slew of 19 and 20 year olds without parents.

 

WRONG! 7 night cruise out of Tampa on Vision two years ago, 3rd week in March with well over 1,000 college kids WITHOUT their parents. They all had their drink packages and were quite proud of the fact that they'd used their parents credit cards and yeah there'd be hell to pay when they got home and the parents found out they'd charged the drink packages to them. I've never encountered so many rude, obnoxious and inconsiderate "adults" ever (and yes, I have kids of my own). They destroyed cabins; they blocked the walking path and refused to move so people could walk; staff had to bring in dumpsters to haul away their trash at the end of every day and hose down the decks because it was so sticky with spilled drinks and food; and they made little children cry on the tenders because they thought it was quite hilarious to shout their Tennessee Vols fight song at the top of their lungs.

 

Needless to say, we learned our lesson and will never cruise during March or April again.

[Ag Pops]

I have had a fantastic time on 2 spring break cruises out of Galveston. For perspective, I am 57 years young and my youngest is a senior in college. I am a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and flip flop wearing conservative country boy from Texas. The groups of college kids that were on their own appeared to primarily be from schools in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas (lot of K State and Kansas), and Missouri. The college kids were highly entertaining, and behaved fairly well. A few young ladies last year had too much to drink at the pool, but that was only once that I recall, and they were taken care of by the others. They all dressed up on formal night, and always behaved in the MDR. Most were friendly. They had serious competitions on the basketball court, dodge ball, water volleyball, etc. especially if the opponent was a rival school. They brought life to everything from the belly flop to shows at night. The few folks I ran across that were rude, were 45 and up. I just ignored them. If you want to meet new folks on a cruise out of Galveston, wear a UT or A&M ballcap. You will not believe how many people will start a conversation based on the cap. I am sorry I missed spring break this year! If you want to have fun, don't let anyone steal your joy!

[BobbyD]

 

Needless to say, we learned our lesson and will never cruise during March or April again.

 

I must be one of the lucky ones because even though my work schedule dictates that I have to vacation over March break, Winter holidays, or August, and we typically cruise in March, we have been fortunate that whether we cruise Royal, Celebrity or (gasp) Carnival during that time, we have never encountered large groups of Spring Breakers. I am sure that many have their horror stories but we have been fortunate. This included our recent Allure cruise on March 12. It was a full cruise but never noticed large groups of college students or anybody out of control, for that matter. As a matter of fact, the only time that we've ever encountered issues with fellow passengers was last summer on the Celebrity Reflection in the Med. There were many young children and teens on board, largely international, that were not supervised and ran amuck throughout the ship. We complained often because they seemed to hang out on our floor. It certainly didn't ruin our wonderful cruise but it was a nuisance, for sure.