Crown Princess vs. Norwegian Dawn...

[redhotpepper]

Here's our situation. We have a group of 10 in my family that are planning a cruise for Jan '08. There will be 6 adults and 4 kids (3, 5, 8 and 8). My brother, his wife and 2 kids want to be in the bowels of the ship. He likes it that way so he can sleep well.

 

All the adults have cruised on Norwegian before. My husband, best friend and I went on the Dream last January and were able to upgrade to an owners suite. Needless to say, we're a bit spoiled with the concierge and the butler! I don't think we could go with anything less than a mini-suite.

 

With children, we've decided that we want freestyle/personal choice dining, hence the choice between the 2 lines.

 

So, what I'm wondering is, which ship is better for childrens programs? What would be a good accomodation for the 4 adults and 2 kids (that's minus my brother since he likes the deep, dark)?

 

I like the idea of the Princess family suites but they are obviously not easy to get ahold of. We would not mind all bunking together if we had 2 bathrooms. Adjoining mini-suites would be ok too.

 

Also, we're talking 5 ports on the Crown as opposed to 4 on the Dawn. Which would be better with kids? We'll take turns staying on the ship on port days but will probably pick one or two kid friendly excursions to take them on.

 

All the kids are girls, not that makes any difference but my 2 are very outgoing and are extremely excited about spending time in the kids program. My nieces are not quite as outgoing and may want to stick closer to mom and dad.

 

So, bring the opinions on! I'm also going to post this on the Norwegian board.

 

Annie, aka redhotpepper

[dforeigner]

Princess has no butlers. Princess has any time dinning but not the freestyle dress code that NCL has.

[willysgrandma]

The Crown is a much nicer ship than the Dawn. It is brand new! I'd say the kids programs are about equal.

 

And the Crown has MUTS so the kids will have plenty of movies to avail themselves to during the day and night. The rooms are nicer and larger on the Crown.

 

But NCL is a much more relaxed cruise line, so the kids don't want to dress for dinner, NCL might be a better choice. Even though both have Anytime Dining, NCL is a lot less formal.

 

If it were me, I'd do the Crown.