Oasis Class - Prevelance of KIDS

[DShock]

Love kids, love grandkids, love Oasis Class ships, love sailings with fewer kids on board.  Doing b2b2b on Allure in September and hoping most kids will be back in school. In the old days certain months of the year were pretty predictable as far as number of kids on board, now with the new ships and kids sail free promos, not so much.  I wonder if there is data available that would show, by month, the percent of passengers under 18 that sail on RCCL ships? We have sailed Holland America, Sea Dream, and others where kids under 18 are minimal but they are not Oasis Class ships and certainly do not have the offerings Oasis class ships have (Coastal Kitchen, Star Class, etc).  Kids on board are to be expected, I get that, but there have to be times when there are fewer and we are hoping September is one of those months.

[1992cruiser]

I would think September is the safest month to go, but........my family is going On Symphony in Sep and there are 9 total kids coming with. Kids sail free is too good to pass up when the kids are younger than 5. I’m not so sure about pulling them out of school for a week after 5, but that’s just me. 

Good luck, I definitely understand how annoying it can be in the dining room and around the pool decks and the elevators and the windjammer and pretty much everywhere else onboard. I often find myself talking in my head about how there are too many kids while I have my two by my side. Lol. 

[orville99]

We sail on Oasis class ships 3-4 times a year, and while there are always a good number of kids on board, the ship is so large and spread out that we rarely (if ever) find their presence on the ship to be bothersome. The older ones tend to congregate back on the sports deck, and the younger ones tend to congregate around the splash zones and beach pool.

[Merion_Mom]

Also keep in mind that Oasis class ships are a major draw for non-USA travelers.  Those countries may not have the same school schedule as the US.  

[irishgal432]

In Georgia many school districts have fall break in September since they go back to school in early August.

[reallyitsmema]

We cruise in September and there definitely are kids, not as many as summer, but still a lot.  Many families are home schooling now, plus kids from outside of the US and kids with a fall break because of year round schooling.  If you are looking for very few kids, you need a different class ship or a longer cruise.  We have done a few NE/Canada cruises with total kid count of less than 10.

[molly361]

I will add that with there being a lot of home schooling these days there seems to be more kids during all months than there used to be

[spookwife]

You need to choose 10 day cruises to the non beach heavy destinations.  That will minimize the number of kids.  

[kag19]

We took our last cruise on Oasis at the beginning of March and were actually surprised by the lack of kids.  Or maybe we just didn't hang out where they were??  We spent most of our time in the solarium during the day and then Vintages at night so maybe that had something to do with it... :)

[taglovestocruise]

Might check out a transatlantic.  We have done a TA on Oasis, Allure, Symphony and have Allure booked for Nov. 2020 from Barcelona after her refurb.  There may be a total of a couple dozen kids on those sailings.  Because of the lack of kids and the amount of solo travelers our Symphony cruise had under 5000 guests. happy cruising

[Merion_Mom]

IME, the children on the ship during school time are mainly NOT homeschooled, but kids who are taken out of school by their parents.

[vacationlover_mn]

I wish there was a website that would show when annoying charter people will be on your ship.  I don’t care about normal charters... just the annoying ones 🙂. On our last trip on Symphony, there was a super rude, large group of Miami based construction people aboard.  They acted like they owned the ship, and many venues were closed at various normal times, for this group.

[Ashland]

6 minutes ago, vacationlover_mn said:

I wish there was a website that would show when annoying charter people will be on your ship.  I don’t care about normal charters... just the annoying ones 🙂. On our last trip on Symphony, there was a super rude, large group of Miami based construction people aboard.  They acted like they owned the ship, and many venues were closed at various normal times, for this group.

So it will show just the "annoying" ones...right ? 

[vacationlover_mn]

Correct, just the annoying ones 😉

[cb at sea]

MOST kids will be in school...but there are younger kids who will be traveling with their parents...and those "home-schooled" kids...there are ALWAYS kids onboard.  You will not have a plethora of children at that time of year.  And, because none belong to YOU...you can safely ignore them.

 

[rimmit]

The least number of kids we have ever had was on the Norwegian Breakaway last Oct TA from Copenhagen to NYC.  Six kids TOTAL of which two of the six were mine.