Kid Friendly River Cruise Lines?

[ljandgb]

We did the Rhine with Croisieurope.  Our meals were a set menu.  If you knew ahead of time you would not like the main dish (it was posted near the front desk every morning), you could pre-order a chicken breast.  I am an adventurous eater, and there were times that I was not so thrilled with the meal.  Not a reason not to do the cruise, but if your granddaughters need choices, it may not work well for them.  If they can roll with it, then Croisie was a great line.  Our ship was smaller, and a more simply decorated, than many I've seen but it was impeccably clean and the crew was delightful.

[CPT Trips]

Take a look at Grand Circle. We have been on cruises with multigenerational family groups and older teens traveling with a grandparent. The kids were well accepted by the crew and other pax. Also, the Program Director model seemed to lend itself well to getting good free time options.

 

[CruisingAlong4Now]

Tauck has river cruises specially designed for families.  https://www.tauck.com/tours-and-cruises/family-travel/family-river-cruises.  Their family cruises are wonderful.  it's not just having kids on board, they plan activities especially for the kids. 

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by CruisingAlong4Now

[cruisergrandma]

9 minutes ago, CruisingAlong4Now said:

Tauck has river cruises specially designed for families.  https://www.tauck.com/tours-and-cruises/family-travel/family-river-cruises.  Their family cruises are wonderful.  it's not just having kids on board, they plan activities especially for the kids. 

 

Thanks. I will check them out.

 

[4774Papa]

On 2/18/2020 at 1:49 PM, cruisergrandma said:

We will be celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary in June, 2021 and would love to do a Rhine River cruise with our entire family. Two of our granddaughters will be 14 at the time. What river cruise line allows children of this age? We have cruised with Viking but, they do not allow anyone under 18. We have cruised with Gate 1 but, there were no children on board and I can't see anything on their website showing if they do/do not allow them on board. I see that Uniworld allows children on some cruises but not on the Rhine the week of our anniversary. Any suggestions? Has anyone done this with kids of this age? Thanks for your help!

We have done four river cruises and frankly don't remember seeing any young children onboard.  Most people are over 50.

[cruisewmn]

We have done four river cruises and frankly don't remember seeing any young children onboard.  Most people are over 50.

On our Crystal Rhine cruise last summer we had a few teens and children on board. One boy was about eight years old. Another family had two daughters, one in high school and the other in college. It was their second Crystal river cruise. It was a joy having both families on board. Ages on the cruise ranged from 8 to 80+.

[Ride-The-Waves]

On 2/18/2020 at 4:31 PM, Roz said:

This is from Uniworld's website:

 

"In our experience, most young children—especially those under 4—are simply not yet old enough to enjoy river cruising. We make no special arrangements for little ones and offer few kid-friendly activities onboard or onshore. (One exception: Our Multigenerational Family-Friendly Cruise Program, available on select itineraries during the summer and the winter holiday season) Children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult 21 or older at all times."

 

Based on this, it looks to me that you may take your grandchildren on any of Uniworld's Rhine cruises, but there won't be activities geared to kids except for the Multigenerational ones.  

We have sailed Uniworld with teenagers on board twice that I can recall.  Girls and boys.  Rhine and Danube.  Holiday markets and summer.  They all appeared to have a great time.

[NavyCruiser]

We've been on a few Gate1Travel river cruises & seen a few young teens onboard, maybe 2 - 3 per cruise.  Seems like they had a good time, but looked extremely bored.  Spent most of the time in the lounge on their phones & laptops using free wi-fi.  They were very well behaved.

We've done 4 family reunion cruises before, between 22 - 30 each, & it's always been ocean cruises out of Galveston.  Considering every family's schedules & financial budgets, it works out better.  Also, there's plenty of activities onboard the mega ocean ships for the kids to do.

[TravelerThom]

On 2/18/2020 at 1:49 PM, cruisergrandma said:

We will be celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary in June, 2021 and would love to do a Rhine River cruise with our entire family. Two of our granddaughters will be 14 at the time. What river cruise line allows children of this age?...

Any suggestions? Has anyone done this with kids of this age? 

In my 25 river cruises I have sailed several times on boats with teenagers. A few teenagers are into history, art and architecture and those were excited about what they were seeing and were a joy to sail with. I have also sailed with 3 generation families where the grandparents (no doubt footing the bill) thought the trip was a great idea, the middle generation tolerated the trip, and the teenagers were totally bored, making their displeasure very obvious to all aboard and doing their best to make the entire boat miserable. 
IMO the biggest question is not what you want to do or which cruise line allows children, but will a river cruise really appeal to the entire family. If not, a week or more confined on a small vessel with minimal entertainment distractions is a recipe for disaster.  
As a teenager I would have loved a Rhine River Cruise, but river cruises do not appeal to all whether teenagers or adults.