More kids on X

[BOLOCRUISE]

We absolutely love Celebrity for many, many reasons.  In fact we only cruise Celebrity.  One of the things we love about Celebrity is there are virtually no kids on the cruises.  We have never seen more than 10 kids on any of our cruises.

[CruisingWalter]

As others have mentioned, longer sailings generally equal fewer kids.

 

Off season (when kids are in school) general equal fewer kids.

 

Our recent 11 night sailing to the Southern Caribbean had less than 12 kids.  

 

Honestly we never recommend Celebrity to friends who have children because, aside from the lack of other children to play with, there's just not a lot to 'do' for the kids.  No water slides, no water park, no rope course, not even a mini golf course.  There's not a whole lot the family can do together as all the 'kid friendly stuff' is locked away in the camp and teen areas.  Aside the pool, not a whole lot of family activity areas onboard Celebrity.

 

RCCL, NCL and Disney all much better lines for kids along with some of the newer MSC ships that have the aqua park and boardwalk.  

[Bootstrap77]

4 hours ago, BOLOCRUISE said:

We absolutely love Celebrity for many, many reasons.  In fact we only cruise Celebrity.  One of the things we love about Celebrity is there are virtually no kids on the cruises.  We have never seen more than 10 kids on any of our cruises.

That’s like us. We have only sailed with Celebrity. Your post is reassuring. If you don’t mind sharing some info, What cabin class do you usually stay in? We are thinking if we stay with celebrity we will book aqua. Hopefully less chance of kids at meal time then.   Itinerary length and ports? We usually go for 9 - 11 nights. Now we are thinking of doing the southern Caribbean. And when do you usually go? We go outside of school holidays in the winter.  

[hcat]

Creative Genius:

Re your post...

 

All of that is true. We avoid the peak kiddo times for our cruises if we can, and  will try to follow that before gs  hits emementary school vacation schedules.

 

However, some families  enjoy being together on vacations and cruises, rather than  having kids away at camp or other activities. There's so much to absorb just being on the ship... how the ship works, the night sky, ocean, birds, marine life...beaches, seeing other ships, ports , plus family  game and movie time. Maybe older kids and teens need more, but for littles ones...not  always necessary!

 

  We hope to sail with our  family when grandchild is a bit older ( & possibly another on the way).  While we would definitely look  first at Royal on  something smaller than Oasis Class.("great day at Coco Cay"),   we might select  X..  It is generally quieter and the Stem program looks amazing!. 

Edited October 20, 2019 by hcat

[Bootstrap77]

18 minutes ago, creativegenius said:

As others have mentioned, longer sailings generally equal fewer kids.

 

Off season (when kids are in school) general equal fewer kids.

 

Our recent 11 night sailing to the Southern Caribbean had less than 12 kids.  

 

Honestly we never recommend Celebrity to friends who have children because, aside from the lack of other children to play with, there's just not a lot to 'do' for the kids.  No water slides, no water park, no rope course, not even a mini golf course.  There's not a whole lot the family can do together as all the 'kid friendly stuff' is locked away in the camp and teen areas.  Aside the pool, not a whole lot of family activity areas onboard Celebrity.

 

RCCL, NCL and Disney all much better lines for kids along with some of the newer MSC ships that have the aqua park and boardwalk.  

I agree. I don’t recommend the line either to friends with families. I recommend it to singles and couples. What I have witnessed though unfortunately is that the parents will off load the kids to the grandparents and either the parent or grandparents will bring the kids to areas such as the martini bar and sunset bar. I witnessed a grandmother babysitting a toddler at sunset bar and she had the toddler catching ants crawling up the wall. Then there was the parent that parked the stroller at the martini bar while they got their drink on. Good for the parent for wanting a fun vacation but that’s Not what I want to see and experience on my vacation. 

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

On 10/18/2019 at 9:11 PM, the_dylaness said:

 

Disney's kids club was total pandemonium and WAY overwhelming for my then 5 year old DD and her 6 year old cousin.

A big part of that is due to them combining the older and younger kids’ clubs because too many people were claiming that their younger and older child (one who would have been in the Club and one in the Lab) simply could not be separated. So now you can have 3 year olds and 12 year olds in the same space which is insane.

[Luvcrusn]

45 minutes ago, Bootstrap77 said:

That’s like us. We have only sailed with Celebrity. Your post is reassuring. If you don’t mind sharing some info, What cabin class do you usually stay in? We are thinking if we stay with celebrity we will book aqua. Hopefully less chance of kids at meal time then.   Itinerary length and ports? We usually go for 9 - 11 nights. Now we are thinking of doing the southern Caribbean. And when do you usually go? We go outside of school holidays in the winter.  

We book Aqua (when the price differential isn't ridiculous) because we enjoy the smaller venue and better service, however we've never seen a child in Blu. That's most likely because the cabins in Aqua Class hold 2 passengers only and so aren't conducive to many families. We also book cruises longer than 10 days and since we're retired we tend to cruise in non holiday times.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

6 hours ago, BOLOCRUISE said:

We absolutely love Celebrity for many, many reasons.  In fact we only cruise Celebrity.  One of the things we love about Celebrity is there are virtually no kids on the cruises.  We have never seen more than 10 kids on any of our cruises.

 

Lucky you.  My last two sailings (B2B) on Celebrity were full of kids.  Double strollers.  Single strollers.  Kids in Luminae playing on the floor.

[DebInAntigua]

32 minutes ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

 

Lucky you.  My last two sailings (B2B) on Celebrity were full of kids.  Double strollers.  Single strollers.  Kids in Luminae playing on the floor.

Luminae is the last place I would expect to have to deal with kids playing between the tables! Also surprised that double strollers are allowed to be used onboard rather than just in port. 
 

Crossing fingers we don’t experience this next month. One of my favorite things about sailing X last year was we saw very few children. Only a couple of incidents of noisy kids in the MDR and because there weren’t many kids it was relatively easy to get moved away from the disturbance. 

[DebInAntigua]

2 hours ago, Bootstrap77 said:

... I witnessed a grandmother babysitting a toddler at sunset bar and she had the toddler catching ants crawling up the wall. Then there was the parent that parked the stroller at the martini bar while they got their drink on. Good for the parent for wanting a fun vacation but that’s Not what I want to see and experience on my vacation. 

Agree 100%. Well behaved teens and young adults are great (and can make charming dinner companions). But babies? No thanks. 

[Bootstrap77]

53 minutes ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

 

Lucky you.  My last two sailings (B2B) on Celebrity were full of kids.  Double strollers.  Single strollers.  Kids in Luminae playing on the floor.

Wow. I’m sorry that happened. 

[mahdnc]

8 hours ago, villauk said:

 

 

I think I read on one of the recent live reviews (grory’s Silhouette) that he’d been informed  by officers that some of the FVs were being converted to Sunset Suites after its ‘Revolution’. It will be interesting to see if they do this with the remaining ships that still haven’t been revolutionised.

 

Financially, it probably makes sense for them to do it although personally I hope they don't.  Silhouette's FVs are a whopping 618 sq ft in size on Deck 8 (Deck 7 FVs are slightly smaller) which puts it well into a suite category space-wise.  Compared to a classic suite floorplan, it lacks a walk-in closet and a more spacious (and well appointed) bathroom.  Our family of four loves those cabins, so I hope they leave it alone.

 

Also this would represent a change in plans (as I think you know) because we were booked in one of those FVs for Silhouette's first cruise coming out of drydock (Jan 31 2020 sailing, the ill fated 14 night S Carib).

 

[rimmit]

3 hours ago, Bootstrap77 said:

I agree. I don’t recommend the line either to friends with families. 

 

As a parent with a 4 and 8 year old that travels with us, I only recommend celebrity to families of experienced cruisers.   If it’s your first cruise and you don’t have a routine X would be a little difficult.  If you have many cruises under your belt,  you know what it takes to entertain your child on a cruise ship and what amenities you need and don’t need.  It ultimately comes down to each families individual needs.   To make a blanket statement that X is bad for ALL children is definitely not accurate.

[Luvcrusn]

20 minutes ago, rimmit said:

 

As a parent with a 4 and 8 year old that travels with us, I only recommend celebrity to families of experienced cruisers.   If it’s your first cruise and you don’t have a routine X would be a little difficult.  If you have many cruises under your belt,  you know what it takes to entertain your child on a cruise ship and what amenities you need and don’t need.  It ultimately comes down to each families individual needs.   To make a blanket statement that X is bad for ALL children is definitely not accurate.

Our grandchildren range from 9-13 and are a mix of boys, girls, sports junkies, computer gamers and dancers. DH and I are experienced cruisers and love spending time with them. Celebrity has been our preferred cruise line for many years. If choosing to cruise with grands, we'd choose a line other than X not because we think X is bad but because we think other lines are better for their needs (which vary quite a bit from one another).

[rimmit]

5 minutes ago, Luvcrusn said:

Our grandchildren range from 9-13 and are a mix of boys, girls, sports junkies, computer gamers and dancers. DH and I are experienced cruisers and love spending time with them. Celebrity has been our preferred cruise line for many years. If choosing to cruise with grands, we'd choose a line other than X not because we think X is bad but because we think other lines are better for their needs (which vary quite a bit from one another).

 

Exactly.  You know what your family needs to vacation effectively.  Every family is different and has different needs on vacation.

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

2 minutes ago, Luvcrusn said:

Our grandchildren range from 9-13 and are a mix of boys, girls, sports junkies, computer gamers and dancers. DH and I are experienced cruisers and love spending time with them. Celebrity has been our preferred cruise line for many years. If choosing to cruise with grands, we'd choose a line other than X not because we think X is bad but because we think other lines are better for their needs (which vary quite a bit from one another).

Which is what the poster you quoted was saying. It may not be right for everyone with kids, but not all kids need/want constant stimulation and would be fine on a more low-key line. The point in the post you quoted was not “It is fine for all kids” - just the opposite actually. No one blanket “it is fine” or “it is not fine” for all kids is correct. You have to know your kids!

 

(Similarly, pretty much any blanket statement with absolutes is not going to be true for everyone. Not all adults want casinos/night life/insert any other thing. Heck, even cruising is not for everyone. You have to find what works for you and your cruising/traveling party.)

[villauk]

4 minutes ago, WrittenOnYourHeart said:

Similarly, pretty much any blanket statement with absolutes is not going to be true for everyone. Not all adults want casinos/night life/insert any other thing. Heck, even cruising is not for everyone. You have to find what works for you and your cruising/traveling party.)

 

 

Which is exactly what I stated in an earlier post 😉.

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

2 minutes ago, villauk said:

 

 

Which is exactly what I stated in an earlier post 😉.

Yep. We were typing at the same time. 

[rimmit]

4 hours ago, WrittenOnYourHeart said:

A big part of that is due to them combining the older and younger kids’ clubs because too many people were claiming that their younger and older child (one who would have been in the Club and one in the Lab) simply could not be separated. So now you can have 3 year olds and 12 year olds in the same space which is insane.

 

This is the way the newer RCI ships are going, although the 3-5 year olds still have their own area,  but for the 6-12 it is now permanently combined as ships go into dry dock.

[Bootstrap77]

I’m expressing my opinion. My apologies if it offends. I don’t want to 

1 hour ago, rimmit said:

 

As a parent with a 4 and 8 year old that travels with us, I only recommend celebrity to families of experienced cruisers.   If it’s your first cruise and you don’t have a routine X would be a little difficult.  If you have many cruises under your belt,  you know what it takes to entertain your child on a cruise ship and what amenities you need and don’t need.  It ultimately comes down to each families individual needs.   To make a blanket statement that X is bad for ALL children is definitely not accurate.

If my opinion offended you I apologize. Regardless of whether X is good or bad for ALL children is irrelevant to me because as a passenger  I don’t want to cruise with them period.  I want my vacation to be as enjoyable as possible given my likes and dislikes and that means having very minimal encounters with infants and young children. As for a blanket statement, I’m sorry if That’s how my post came across, to be clear.....usually the people I am recommended X to have similar likes and dislikes to myself and hence I recommend the line to couples and singles and not families. If I were to recommend to a family my first choice would be Disney or RC. 

[PTC DAWG]

3 hours ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

 

Lucky you.  My last two sailings (B2B) on Celebrity were full of kids.  Double strollers.  Single strollers.  Kids in Luminae playing on the floor.

2 7 day sailings? 

 

As as mentioned above, the 11 southern Caribbean I was on recently had hardly any kids..that really was a nice itinerary 

[rimmit]

28 minutes ago, Bootstrap77 said:

I’m expressing my opinion. My apologies if it offends. I don’t want to 

If my opinion offended you I apologize. Regardless of whether X is good or bad for ALL children is irrelevant to me because as a passenger  I don’t want to cruise with them period.  I want my vacation to be as enjoyable as possible given my likes and dislikes and that means having very minimal encounters with infants and young children. As for a blanket statement, I’m sorry if That’s how my post came across, to be clear.....usually the people I am recommended X to have similar likes and dislikes to myself and hence I recommend the line to couples and singles and not families. If I were to recommend to a family my first choice would be Disney or RC. 

 

No offense taken at all.  I just didn’t think to say X is a bad cruise line for kids was entirely fair.  I think it’s a bad cruise line for SOME kids and families.

 

X does have a very capable kids program.  One of the best we had done.

 

I totally respect your desire to have as few kids as possible on your vacation.  However, if you truly want to eliminate children an adults only Cruise line, adults all inclusive resort or river cruising may be something you would enjoy.  I love my children but understand your POV.  We have only done one trip without them, and it was for our 10th anniversary and we went to an Adults only all inclusive for a couple days.  We specifically picked a place without children and if you feel that children are something you’d rather cruise without, picking a boat without a kids program may be the first step.  Is there something keeping you from trying out a more adults only vacation?

 

Our first recommendation for new cruisers with families is always RCI and DCL.  (Not a fan of NCL and CCL) Once people get in a routine and know what cruising is about and how to manage kids throughout a ship do we then start talking X, Princess, HAL, independent travel, and other less kid friendly options.

[camella]

We have been sailing with our child since she was a baby.  We LOVE Celebrity and I find that even when we would go during spring break and summers that overall the kids were much better behaved on Celebrity than any other line.  Carnival is a nightmare.  Yes they are more kid friendly but they also allow kids to run up and down the hallways at all hours of the night banging on people's doors, etc.  Royal -most of the ships are just way too big!  Celebrity has a great kids club and our daughter enjoyed it a lot. She loves the food and in fact I had to learn how to make soup because every day on the cruises she would have a different soup. We never took her out of school to go on a cruise.  We might take an extra day or two from spring break but never took her out because she went to private school and it wasn't allowed. As far as my thoughts as to why I take her?  She's my family and I didn't have any babysitters and besides she knew if she misbehaved I would kick her butt.  She is now 22 and has traveled the world.

[Bootstrap77]

26 minutes ago, rimmit said:

I just didn’t think to say X is a bad cruise line for kids was entirely fair. 

 

Is there something keeping you from trying out a more adults only vacation ?

 

 

I didn’t post X was a bad cruise line for kids.

 

 

 

I posted I recommend it for couples and singles.

 

 

 

We aren’t interested in adult only cruise line at the moment.

 

 

We are elite plus with celebrity. So part of the reason for not choosing another cruise line ie: adult only cruise is that we get loyalty points with celebrity.  When we first cruised with them there were hardly any kids on the ships we boarded. Lately loads more. Disappointed us. I started the thread to inquire if this trend is continuing or if it is an anomaly. The least amount for us the better.  

 

Edited October 20, 2019 by Bootstrap77
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[NMTraveller]

8 minutes ago, camella said:

We have been sailing with our child since she was a baby.  We LOVE Celebrity and I find that even when we would go during spring break and summers that overall the kids were much better behaved on Celebrity than any other line.  Carnival is a nightmare.  Yes they are more kid friendly but they also allow kids to run up and down the hallways at all hours of the night banging on people's doors, etc.  Royal -most of the ships are just way too big!  Celebrity has a great kids club and our daughter enjoyed it a lot. She loves the food and in fact I had to learn how to make soup because every day on the cruises she would have a different soup. We never took her out of school to go on a cruise.  We might take an extra day or two from spring break but never took her out because she went to private school and it wasn't allowed. As far as my thoughts as to why I take her?  She's my family and I didn't have any babysitters and besides she knew if she misbehaved I would kick her butt.  She is now 22 and has traveled the world.

On NCL Breakaway we had teens running through the hallway at 3 AM.

 

On Celebrity they tend to behave.