Kids on Board

[rfs7306]

How is Celebrity with kids and for kids?

[Alakegirl]

The kids club seems to be a success

[PTC DAWG]

I have grown kids...30 or so...I would hesitate to take them, much less little kids.  I usually see very few on Celebrity ships.  They are always welcomed, but I would think teens especially would be bored.  

[MrSunshine]

My kids love it, being 4 and 6.

When they are a bit older we are opting for the larger RCCL vessels, but for now Celebrity cover our needs.

[georgiaguy]

Kid counts onboard the ships varies depending on the school calendar. When school is in session you might have 30 kids onboard total. When school is on break several hundred are likely to be onboard. Pluses and minuses to both. On the plus side with lower kid counts is more individualized experiences for the kids as the program can be more easily tailored to them. During the high season programs will be able to fully run with plenty of kids to join in. A few years ago the standard was that however many kids are onboard, about half would show up in the kids program. Youth staff are the best and really care as much about creating a fun experience for kids as anyone else on the ship for the rest of the guests. 

[paulh84]

There is a reason there are so few kids on board. With the addition of Royal Caribbean's golden child at CoCo Cay to Celebrity's itineraries, the more recent Kids Sail Free (or as they call it "third and fourth guests!") that may shift but there still isn't much of anything tailored for kids aside from the kids and teens clubs. Speaking from experience with my own extended family with tweens and teens it would turn into a week of them glued to their phones. 

[cruisestitch]

If your kids constantly need to be entertained, the quieter vibe may not be for them.  But if they enjoy reading, playing card games, watching movies, and other low key activities it could be perfect.  The covered solarium pool will likely be open to them for a couple of hours a day.  Only you know your kids and what they like.

[prmssk]

It depends greatly on the kids and the itinerary. My niece and nephew who have been cruising since they were toddlers have never been interested in the water slides, bumper cars, etc. of more kid focused cruise ships so they can be happy on any cruise line. Any kids that are similar will enjoy Celebrity. 
 

Additionally, for a jam packed itinerary like Alaska or the Mediterranean, you may spend little time on the ship so it isn’t going to matter nearly as much whether there are enough kid focused activities. 

[mahdnc]

1 hour ago, rfs7306 said:

How is Celebrity with kids and for kids?

 

Our experience has been very positive.  We took our two kids on our first family cruise with Celebrity starting when our youngest was 7 months old back in 1996.  We then took 13 more.  

[Stricks08]

It always depends on the kids and what they like. I'll say that our kids love Celebrity and the kids club - they're almost 5 and have been sailing since they were 9 months old. They're constantly asking when we are going back onto a ship. They've been on one Royal and hated it so we've been sticking to Celebrity until they get older and see if they have a desire for all the slides et al

[Whinenowine]

Agree that it really depends on the kid and the cruise.  We took our two teens on the Edge in the Med last summer and they loved it.  Each found a group of kids their age (from all over the world) and hung out almost every day (a respectful brat pack). X clearly is not geared towards kids, but with the combination of the kids/teens clubs, games, pools, movies, etc....there's plenty to do.  And we could track them wherever they went.

[zitsky]

I like kids, when they aren't screaming in the restaurant.  We had plenty of kids on our South America summer cruise in December on the Eclipse.  And the Solarium usually has family hours to let kids in.  That's more helpful on cold weather cruises which ours was as we went farther south.

 

The only problem I had was not with kids but one of the parents.  A family tried taking over one of the hot tubs.  There was room for us but the father kept giving me the evil eye.  And even though I spoke some Spanish he refused to even say hello.

 

Most of the kids were perfectly well behaved.

[Itchy&Scratchy]

my kid is very low key and loves Princess cruises. He doesn't do kid's club, he is not interested in making friends on a cruise (I keep hoping that will change), and he just loves to chill. I've stopped wasting my money on RCL when DS stopped doing all the fun things on their ships.

 

We are going to try out Celebrity for his spring break this year, and I believe we are going to like it, so I took advantage of the 3rd and 4th person free sale and booked 2 more X cruises in 2025. Newer ships too, so even more fun to be had.

 

P.S. My kid is about to turn 13 right before our first X cruise.

Edited February 6 by Itchy&Scratchy

[weacat]

Our 10 year old loves it.  It's her favorite cruise line. She's been on 9 cruises so far, 4 of which were X.

 

[GenerationX]

I second the comments saying it depends on the child.  My pet peeve is when people hear “child” and automatically suggest without any information on the particular kid and/or parents’ personalities that they’re going to have a “better” vacation on one of the cruise lines with water parks, skating rinks, etc.  

 

We’re a family that doesn’t stay at Disney or Universal Studios for more than 2-3 days at a time because it’s just too much stimulus and too little luxury, especially for the price paid.

 

My daughter is 11 and has done 2 Celebrity cruises and loved them both.  We tried an MSC cruise last summer on one of their new ships with more passengers and more “kids bells and whistles”.  She had fun but by day 5 we were both approaching exhaustion and were overstimulated and she had a sensory meltdown.

 

For our mother daughter cruise this summer she told me she wants to come back to Celebrity and sail on Beyond.

 

Other lines are great for some families, but for me I don’t think you could get me on a theme park of the seas if you paid me to do it.