Holiday cruises and children?

[kekcatbert]

Hello, will be sailing on the Eclipse over Christmas and New Year's. Anyone have any insight on the number of children that might be expected?

[d9704011]

That would be the 11 night Southern Caribbean Holiday.  For a voyage of that length I would not expect there to be many children onboard.

[mrgabriel]

We have been on several 7-night holiday cruises and there have been zillions of kids. Lowest reported number was 700, highest was over 1,000. I agree that there will likely be fewer on a 10-nighter but would still expect several hundred.

 

I'll note that the number of kids weren't a problem on most holiday cruises. They were around, but not bothersome. Celebrity seems to do a really good job with the Kids' Club. The one exception was Ascent last year when plenty of teens hung around the Martini bar ALL THE TIME. 

Edited Saturday at 09:39 PM by mrgabriel

[leaveitallbehind]

1 hour ago, mrgabriel said:

We have been on several 7-night holiday cruises and there have been zillions of kids. Lowest reported number was 700, highest was over 1,000. I agree that there will likely be fewer on a 10-nighter but would still expect several hundred.

That sounds more like RCI than Celebrity.  We've been a couple of Christmas / NYE cruises and not seen that. More kids than typical with other non holiday cruises, but not to those numbers.  But that's just our experience.

[mrgabriel]

3 minutes ago, leaveitallbehind said:

That sounds more like RCI than Celebrity.  We've been a couple of Christmas / NYE cruises and not seen that. More kids than typical with other non holiday cruises, but not to those numbers.  But that's just our experience.

 

We were actually very surprised. The first holiday cruise (Silhouette in 2015) had the higher amount and I remember being stunned when they announced the number of children on the ship because we just didn't see them. On Summit in 2016 the kids were more visible, especially when Santa Claus arrived on Christmas morning. 

[phoenix_dream]

45 minutes ago, leaveitallbehind said:

That sounds more like RCI than Celebrity.  We've been a couple of Christmas / NYE cruises and not seen that. More kids than typical with other non holiday cruises, but not to those numbers.  But that's just our experience.

On our spring break 7 night cruise earlier this year there were about 400 kids, mostly (bored) teenagers

[frenchmeg]

Beyond last year over xmas/NY, many families, its the Holidays, so yes there's more, but nothing crazy, it was nice to see so many families travelling together.

[Daleed77]

I agree with the posters above. We always do a Xmas/NY cruise and there are more kids than normal for Celebrity, but it's not overwhelming. I think that our 7-night Alaska cruise in July had more kids than our holiday cruise. We love the longer cruises for that reason. 

[Itchy&Scratchy]

On 10/19/2024 at 4:49 PM, d9704011 said:

That would be the 11 night Southern Caribbean Holiday.  For a voyage of that length I would not expect there to be many children onboard.

school is out, so I'd expect kids for sure.

[NMTraveller]

I would recommend against it.  Our plan is to avoid them.

 

On our last holiday cruise, kids were running through the hallways at night.

[zitsky]

I’m surprised they would let teenagers hang out at the Martini bar.

[AC Stew]

We've done 5 or 7-night Christmas cruises for quite a few years now. Mostly RCI out of Tampa; but last year was on the Constellation. With respect to the kiddies, all sailing experiences were very similar. (BTW: Never saw a single underage at the Martini Bar.)

 

Boarding? Chaotic, and if we didn't know better, we'd turn around and head for the hills! But once on board and settled in, the massive numbers of children never amounted to much of a problem for us. Over the holidays, there are a significant number of multi-generational families. And I think that when "Grandma" says NO to a borderline or actively misbehaving kid, they listen.

 

We don't have kids or grandkids and would positively avoid a crowded summer holiday sailing. But Christmas is different. The kids are having a blast, they are well-occupied, and (I think) pretty well-behaved. I love to see them all dressed up for dinner, and Christmas morning with Santa is fun to watch.

 

Of course, the buffets can be a little challenging during peak breakfast times, but you can avoid that with the several other breakfast dining options. You can also avoid noisy hall-runners (as we do) by selecting an aft cabin.

 

The decorations are always lovely, and as I've said many times on these Boards, it's great to be spared the exhausting job of having to shop, cook and clean-up! 

 

A Christmas holiday cruise? That's a yes for us ... this year too!

 

 

 

 

[mahdnc]

On 10/19/2024 at 3:42 PM, kekcatbert said:

Hello, will be sailing on the Eclipse over Christmas and New Year's. Anyone have any insight on the number of children that might be expected?

 

Here is a recent single data point.  My wife and I sailed on the Dec 22, 2023 twelve night Christmas/NYE cruise on Solstice.  The cruise started in Singapore and ended in Hong Kong--a cruise that is one night longer and more exotic (i.e. harder and more expensive to get to) than the one you are taking.

 

I asked the Camp at Sea lead counselor how many kids were on board and she told me that there were 400 passengers under 18 years old. 

 

For your upcoming 11 night Christmas/NYE round trip Eclipse sailing out of Ft Lauderdale, I would expect more kids than that.

 

My wife and I had an excellent cruise, BTW.  The kids were not a problem on our sailing except for one time when we had to request a kid to not play her music aloud on her iPhone in the Ocean View Cafe because her parents seemed to be ok with it.

 

 

 

 

 

[zitsky]

Oh kids in a hot tub are not a good thing and is very unsafe.  Were those two women the parents?

[Liao]

On 10/19/2024 at 10:42 PM, kekcatbert said:

Hello, will be sailing on the Eclipse over Christmas and New Year's. Anyone have any insight on the number of children that might be expected?

Sailing from Florida will have many many..,also keep in mind that many private and parochial schools have two weeks vacation during the Xmas holiday.  That said, I’d still not hesitate to do it.

[mahdnc]

28 minutes ago, zitsky said:

Oh kids in a hot tub are not a good thing and is very unsafe.  Were those two women the parents?

 

I didn't yell down to the deck below to ask.

[mahdnc]

18 minutes ago, Liao said:

Sailing from Florida will have many many..,also keep in mind that many private and parochial schools have two weeks vacation during the Xmas holiday.  That said, I’d still not hesitate to do it.

 US public schools as well.