What is the wifi like and will pre-teens be bored?

[Eli_6]

Because we have children, we usually cruise with the "family oriented" lines.  I have been wanting to do a 36-day segment on Princess from Australia to Rome that skirts the coast of Asia and India and goes through the Suez Canal in June 2025. Unfortunately, even though I have been watching the Princess cruise for months, no availability has come up.  At best, one room will become available for a day and we need either two rooms or a suite...and that hasn't come available.  We have taken several longer cruises and European cruises before, but never one to Asia or the Middle East which is the major reason I am interested in this particular itinerary. 

 

Finally, I started branching out and looking at other possible cruise lines that might do a similar route.  I found such a route in June of 2025 on Azamara.  It is actually shorter (which is a good thing) at 24 days and seems to hit even more ports.  (It goes from Singapore to Athens rather than Australia to Rome, but the ports I am primarily interested in are not the Australian ports so losing those is not a big deal to me.)  I have never been on Azamara before.  I noticed that minors are allowed, but there is no teen/kids club or any activities for them.  My husband worries they might be bored as they like the arcade, basketball courts, etc. on the larger ships.  However, with that said, we have taken our own gaming systems before and hooked them up to the in-room televisions on cruise ships before so it seems like this would be possible on Azamara.  They also can take their phones, VR headsets and handheld devices even if it isn't possible to hook up a gaming system to a tv. Has anyone traveled with kids before on a longer cruise on Azamara?  They will be 11 and 13 at the time of the cruise.

 

My other concern is that my husband needs decent wifi for his job as he needs to be able to stay in contact with his office.  Wifi seem to vary dramatically between cruise lines.  Is the wifi good on this line?    

 

We have taken (as a family) several longer cruises and European cruises before, but never one to Asia or the Middle East which is the major reason I am interested in this particular itinerary.

[Scots Caz]

wifi on Azamara used to be terrible however they have upgraded. There are two levels of wifi...the regular $19.95 per day if purchasing for the duration...this is SLOW but may be fine for some people. I work when onboard so upgrade to the fast wifi for an additional $8.95 per day and find this fine...I do access documents from cloud and deal with mail but don't do video calls. Note the prices are for one device but you can use it on multiple but only one at a time...when you log into a second device it logs out the first one. I have used the upgraded wifi on transatlantics on Onward and Quest. (previously most of my working was by tethering off 4G when in port if in Europe as my data plan covers this and would not have considered a transatlantic before the upgrade if needing to work)

[paf225]

I have been on 16 Azamara cruises and on the majority of them there have been no children onboard.  On occasion a small number of children (2 or 3) will be on a cruise and more often then not they will be the kids of one of the ship's officers.  As you've noted there are no clubs, activities or facilities for children onboard Azamara ships.  I think your kids would probably better enjoy travelling on a cruise line geared more towards youngsters.  Regards, Paul

[the_dylaness]

Awful, and yes.

[the_dylaness]

Sorry, I should probably provide more of an explanation...

 

Wi-Fi: it was pretty abominable on our Pursuit Mediterranean cruise. I was only using it for things like checking email and a rare FaceTime call. I do often work remotely and I tried, briefly on this cruise to do so- completely impossible.

 

Kids: As a parent of elementary/middle school aged kids I completely understand where you're coming from. Our kids like Celebrity the most of all the cruises they've taken (including more than Oasis of the Seas with a Genie... I wish I could get my $ back.)  It of course depends on the kids and ours don't require a ton of stimulation but we did think several times during our Pursuit cruise (it was just me an DH) about whether our kids would like the line and the answer was a solid "NO WAY".

 

YMMV.  Good luck and happy sailing.

[excitedofharpenden]

If your kids enjoy the arcades, basketball courts etc of the larger ships I think they will be bored witless on Azamara. Even if the wifi was top quality (which it isn't) there's only so much time you can spend on electronic gaming systems. It's nice to at least be out and about. Seeing other teens (which again is unlikely). Azamara has always been more about the destination, time in ports etc. Not so much the ship. 

 

Phil 

[john1970]

I would go on a waitlist for Princess. Azamara by nature is designed for adults. The ships are small and do not have the facilities that they will make their trip fun.

[G2G]

4 hours ago, john1970 said:

I would go on a waitlist for Princess. Azamara by nature is designed for adults. The ships are small and do not have the facilities that they will make their trip fun.

Totally agree

[Jem 12]

We have grandchildren of a similar age and while I know they would love aspects of Azamara (food) there simply wouldn’t be enough, especially for the sports mad 11 year old, he would be happy with the table tennis but would want more activity.

The one pool is fairly small and on a warm day will have 30-40 bobbing heads just cooling off. 

We usually have basic cabins on Azamara and while they are fine for 2, I can’t imagine being for 3, I’m surprised that Azamara seem to pushing family bookings more. 
Enjoy whatever you decide. 
 

[Dynacruiser]

Every family is different, but in general, I would argue that kids would get bored sailing with Azamara.  They just don't have a lot of activities that kids can do, it's a very small ship, and there are usually very few other kids, if any.     Perhaps if you were seeing new ports every day, your kids would not mind, but you probably have 10 to 12 days at sea?  

 

I think that the large cruise ships I avoid are better suited to provide constant entertainment for families.

 

Good luck on your search!

[laurieb]

It sounds like your children are well traveled, and I would guess are used to not having to be entertained all the time.  If that's the case, why not give it a try?  Especially if the itinerary your looking at is port intensive.  There are board games available onboard for some family fun time, and there will often be movies aired that they could go watch.  

[uktog]

I wouldn’t recommend Azamara for a cruise of that length with teens. The Wi-Fi isn’t good enough to support game play and with no sports court and only a tiny pool it’s going to stretch even the most adaptable teen. 
I’ve just returned from an Explora Journey cruise - their itinerary might not match but their facilities for teens for a small ship were excellent. Teens kept asking to go to the club rather than be with parents. In addition to the Nautilus club (full of games both boxed and electronic) there’s a sport court, three pools (a 4th is adult only) and a full sized snooker table in a partioned corner in the Astern lounge so kids play whilst adults listen to the band. It was win win for multi generational families who didn’t want large boat, wanted great food everyone would like (eg Pizza oven producing fresh offerings all service) and facilities for the youngsters 

[donaldsc]

If they need to be entertained Azamara is not for them.  If they can entertain themselves and will enjoy the ports then an indefinite maybe.  I have been on several Azamara cruises and the only kids we have seen were young kids traveling as part of a crew member family.

 

DON

[AroundWithMAPTravels]

Have an Azamara trip scheduled, but have not yet sailed…

BUT have sailed on very small, but very active ships (Lindblad/NatGeo) with other families including tweens and teens( some with 48-100 pax).  No “kids club” on board… much smaller than Azamara ships,  but very focused on keeping everyone engaged.   Even the tweens/teens seemed to have a good time, despite the lack of water slides/pools/arcades/etc…. They were usually exhausted by the daily hikes and other activities….

totally dependent on what “floats the boat” of the kids involved..

So, it depends on what your kids are most interested in.  Use their interests as your gauge, I would say.

[Host Jazzbeau]

5 hours ago, AroundWithMAPTravels said:

Have an Azamara trip scheduled, but have not yet sailed…

BUT have sailed on very small, but very active ships (Lindblad/NatGeo) with other families including tweens and teens( some with 48-100 pax).  No “kids club” on board… much smaller than Azamara ships,  but very focused on keeping everyone engaged.   Even the tweens/teens seemed to have a good time, despite the lack of water slides/pools/arcades/etc…. They were usually exhausted by the daily hikes and other activities….

totally dependent on what “floats the boat” of the kids involved..

So, it depends on what your kids are most interested in.  Use their interests as your gauge, I would say.

Absolutely.  An itinerary-driven cruise with daily ports will be fine for all ages, with well-chosen port activities.  And now that Starlink has improved internet on most ships, sea days can have screen-driven activities.  And coastal cruises will stay within range of cell phone connection even on many sea days [if you have T-Mobile or some other plan with lots of roaming data].

[uktog]

1 hour ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Absolutely.  An itinerary-driven cruise with daily ports will be fine for all ages, with well-chosen port activities.  And now that Starlink has improved internet on most ships, sea days can have screen-driven activities.  And coastal cruises will stay within range of cell phone connection even on many sea days [if you have T-Mobile or some other plan with lots of roaming data].

I beg to differ re Starlink.  That’s not my experience at all. I think relying on the ships wifi for entertainment or work, rather than simple surfing or emails is very high risk. 
We also had no wifi at all going through Suez and in ports like Aquaba on three separate cruises as there was external interference. Only in simple hop round Spain have I been within cellphone range on Azamara , certainly not in Asia Im afraid. 

[AllisonJames]

We cruised quite often when our kids were that age. The two questions I encourage you to ask yourself: “Would my kids be happy if there aren’t any other kids on the ship to have fun with?” And “Would I be happy if my kids were bored and reduced to spending lots of time gaming when I have invested significant time and money in giving them an amazing travel experience?” Only you know the answers to those questions.

[tgg]

I'm onboard Onward now and can report that the internet is painfully slow. Unless you upgrade to higher speed ( $7.95 per day), you will be completely frustrated. With the higher speed, I've been able to use Skype. But it's one device per account, so I can't switch from my computer to my phone without signing out and in on another device. 

[Host Jazzbeau]

1 hour ago, tgg said:

I'm onboard Onward now and can report that the internet is painfully slow. Unless you upgrade to higher speed ( $7.95 per day), you will be completely frustrated. With the higher speed, I've been able to use Skype. But it's one device per account, so I can't switch from my computer to my phone without signing out and in on another device. 

We've never done a mid-ocean cruise with Azamara.  On the port-intensive itineraries we book, we're rarely out of range of T-Mobile roaming for our phones (which can also serve as hot spots for our computers).  So we mainly use the onboard wifi for overnight email updates – and even before Starlink it was plenty fast for that.

 

But for teens who want to stream and play online games?  Probably not so much...  [And they would quickly run out of the T-Mobile monthly allotment of high speed data, which would take away that option too.]

[hamrag]

On 12/11/2023 at 11:23 AM, excitedofharpenden said:

If your kids enjoy the arcades, basketball courts etc of the larger ships I think they will be bored witless on Azamara. Even if the wifi was top quality (which it isn't) there's only so much time you can spend on electronic gaming systems. It's nice to at least be out and about. Seeing other teens (which again is unlikely)....

 

On 12/14/2023 at 6:33 PM, uktog said:

I wouldn’t recommend Azamara for a cruise of that length with teens. The Wi-Fi isn’t good enough to support game play and with no sports court and only a tiny pool it’s going to stretch even the most adaptable teen.... 

 

No point in repeating what others have said. The above posts most accurately express my opinion of Az with regard to 95% of 11/13 year olds (particularly on a long sailing).

[Peter Lanky]

On 12/13/2023 at 2:06 PM, Jem 12 said:

 . . . . especially for the sports mad 11 year old, he would be happy with the table tennis but would want more activity. . . 
 

In general, if anyone wants to spend any time playing table tennis, I would recommend bringing your own bats and balls. The supplied bats are suitable for little more than swatting flies, and the balls are cheap. The tables themselves are decent enough though.

[Jem 12]

Thank you, I'm sure they will be fine for him. They flew out yesterday so to kate to rake his own. Happy Christmas 🎄