Thanksgiving Cruises

[cptnmrgn]

Anyone been onboard during Thanksgiving? Just curious of menus, activities, or anything special. Will be on Mariner this year during turkey day.

[cb at sea]

They will have a full turkey dinner on Thanksgiving. All of the other menus will be the same as usual.

[mustangjoe]

We have been on 2 cruises over Thanksgiving w another book for this year. Since our son can't be with us due to his work scheduel, we have started cruising. Like any cruise, it is a great time. The only thing that RC does is serve the traditional meal. Other than that anything goes. Have a ton of fun.:D

[ChampionCruiser]

Anyone been onboard during Thanksgiving? Just curious of menus, activities, or anything special. Will be on Mariner this year during turkey day.

 

I'm interested to know what RCCL does on Thanksgiving too. Every cruise i've been on has been on thanksgiving week (that is until my next one) and there has always been lots of decorations (both thanksgiving and christmas) and of course special menus with turkey etc..but again that was different cruise lines

[time4me2fly]

I was on the Navigator for Thanksgiving 2003. The dining room had some decorations and served a full Thanksgiving meal. The waiter asked the night before, who will be having the turkey dinner. There were other meal choices on the menu. Everyone had a wonderful time.

[cptnmrgn]

thank you everyone for your replies, I cant wait

[funat55]

We sailed on the Navigator for Thanksgiving two years ago. We went to the Eastern Carribean. We had wonderful weather and a great time. The menus were the same as any other 7 day cruise with the offering of a traditional turkey dinner on Thanksgiving.

[cruise 'n shopper]

We are thinking about the Adventure of the Seas out of San Juan over Thanksgiving week this year. We talked with the future cruise consultant a couple of weeks ago while on the Majesty, and he informed us that the Southern Caribbean itinerary we want on AOS (St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Aruba and Curacao---a shopper's and snorkeler's dream cruise!) is changing after dry dock next Spring, so Thanksgiving or the Christmas or New Years week might be our last chance to do it with our work schedules.

 

For those who have been in the Caribbean during Thanksgiving, are the ships overrun with kids? (My bias is showing :) ) Are there as many or fewer kids than you would see on a Christmas or New Years cruise? I'm leaning more toward Thanksgiving for pricing reasons as well as passenger mix, but perhaps Thanksgiving is just as bad.

[Barbee524]

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but unless you're going back 2 back you're cruising the week before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is November 27 this year.

[Barbee524]

For those who have been in the Caribbean during Thanksgiving' date=' are the ships overrun with kids? [/quote']

 

I haven't cruised at Thanksgiving before, but if it's any indication we are currently wait listed for early seating. Also for some reason a balcony cabin for Thanksgiving week is about $400 less than the week before.:confused:

[temple1]

We are on Enchantment Thanksgiving week. I am not a big fan of turkey, so it is great to have something different for dinner.

[niu88]

There are a lot of kids on board. Over 800 on our Navigator trip 2 years ago. (including my 3)

[familycruzer]

I had to post this ... Thanksgiving Dinner on Voyager of the Seas.

[PattyW]

I've been on two Thanksgiving cruises, one on Princess and one on RCCL - both times Thursday was the second formal night, so you had to choose between the traditional turkey dinner and lobster (or rather, choose which to eat first - you could always have seconds).

[cptnmrgn]

yeah Barbee, I figured that out after I had already posted it. Felt pretty dumb. But it turned out helpful for others. Have a great cruise.

[Barbee524]

yeah Barbee, I figured that out after I had already posted it. Felt pretty dumb. But it turned out helpful for others. Have a great cruise.

You can still change it to the following week if you really want to go over Thanksgiving. Like I said for some reason Thanksgiving week is cheaper and for me it's just 3 vacation days instead of 5. Though I was on the Jewel last year the week before Thanksgiving and there are very few children onboard if this matters to you.

[temple1]

To get the same itenerary on the Enchantment we would have to back up to Nov 10. The bad news - we would have to miss 2 days additional at work, the good news it is $280 less for the cabin.

[MD VBMom]

We were on Radiance two years ago for Thanksgiving. There were no decorations....you would have never known it was Thanksgiving day, in fact, other than turkey and other traditional foods being on the menu. We did not find there to be alot of kids on that cruise. We'll be on Freedom this Thanksgiving! Can't wait!! :)

[Willman]

Bayer, check out the roll call http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=667962. My Thanksgiving 2005 Navigator cruise went well. Not too many kids and lots of extended families. The normal Thursday formal night "lobster" dinner menu item was bumped to Friday to make room for the Thanksgiving menu.

[MD VBMom]

Willman....I will check it out. Thanks! I guess we will see you there!

[xxbrowns]

We've cruised the past couple of Thanksgivings, once on the Explorer and once on the Enchantment. I don't remember any decorations for Thanksgiving, just the traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner. My kids have that week off of school so we do take them as well. If I remember correctly, last year on Enchantment, there were over 500 kids on board. This will be our last year sailing at that time because my oldest will be in high school.:mad: Time goes by too quickly!

 

Chris

[4 cruis'n]

We cruised on Mariner last Thanksgiving. This was our first holiday away from home and it was WONDERFUL. So wonderful we rebooked for this coming Thanksgiving and next! The wonderful part was taking time to enjoy family time with our kids instead of running around for a week to prepare dinner for 1 night. The weather was wonderful on the western itinerary. Thanksgiving dinner was a traditional menu. My dinner looked EXACTLY like the picture posted above :p . No holiday decorations of any kind but Thanksgiving was a formal night so that was nice. Yes, lots of kids but we enjoy that. I must say that we saw many well mannered kids on our cruise and very well dressed (lovely to see). A few playing on the elevators but all in good fun like holding the door open for you, asking to press the button for your floor for you and announcing the floor number when the elevator stopped along with what placed were accessible on that floor stop. Thanksgiving was our day in Grand Cayman...ahhh what a wonderful day. Turkey? Didn't miss a thing:D

[MrsPete]

We cruised on Mariner last Thanksgiving, and though we LOVED the ship and had a GREAT TIME on the cruise, and it was certainly easier to travel with the kids . . . I probably wouldn't choose to cruise at Thanksgiving again for several reasons:

 

1. Being a holiday week, the price was fairly high, and we had no price drops.

 

2. The ship was FULL to capacity (probably because so many children were on board, many cabins had 3rd/4th passengers). The ship felt uncomfortably full only on Sunday when we boarded, and that was likely because people couldn't get to their cabins yet and they were all toting large bags. After that, people dispersed themselves throughout the ship and it didn't feel overly crowded. One huge negative was that the dining room was over-full, and we were assigned to a side room, not the main dining room. I forget how many teens they said were on board; I want to say it was something like 300+, but I'm not sure if that's correct. I really only saw kids misbehaving once: they were racing each other in the glass elevators and were preventing other passengers from using the equipment -- but that was only once in the whole week. Oh, and on the last night they woke everyone up using the loudspeaker -- they thought a woman was missing from the ship, but it turned out she was sleeping in the wrong cabin -- oops! She wasn't a teen though.

 

3. The weather in the Caribbean was wonderful; warm enough for swimsuits on the beach, but not so hot that you'd sweat walking around. However, our first and last full days (our days at sea) were nippy, and we weren't able to enjoy the pools like I'd hoped we would. The hot tubs were full, but few people were in the pools. I wasn't comfortable at all sitting by the pool in a swimsuit, even without being wet.

 

Don't get me wrong, we had a great cruise . . . but with all those other great weeks available, I won't choose Thanksgiving again. I'd either choose the fall weeks before Thanksgiving for slightly warmer weather, or I'd choose early December or January for lower prices. Of course, those weeks come with school problems, but that's another topic.

 

In answer to some of your other questions, we had turkey/dressing on Thanksgiving; but unlike another poster, our lobster dinner was a different night. They gave us a printed menu of what we'd had for Thanksgiving dinner, but they gave it to us on the last night of the cruise instead of on Thanksgiving itself! I thought that was kind of funny. We didn't see any Thanksgiving decorations; you wouldn't have known it was a holiday.

[4 cruis'n]

We cruised on Mariner last Thanksgiving, and though we LOVED the ship and had a GREAT TIME on the cruise, and it was certainly easier to travel with the kids . . . I probably wouldn't choose to cruise at Thanksgiving again for several reasons:

 

1. Being a holiday week, the price was fairly high, and we had no price drops.

 

2. The ship was FULL to capacity (probably because so many children were on board, many cabins had 3rd/4th passengers). The ship felt uncomfortably full only on Sunday when we boarded, and that was likely because people couldn't get to their cabins yet and they were all toting large bags. After that, people dispersed themselves throughout the ship and it didn't feel overly crowded. One huge negative was that the dining room was over-full, and we were assigned to a side room, not the main dining room. I forget how many teens they said were on board; I want to say it was something like 300+, but I'm not sure if that's correct. I really only saw kids misbehaving once: they were racing each other in the glass elevators and were preventing other passengers from using the equipment -- but that was only once in the whole week. Oh, and on the last night they woke everyone up using the loudspeaker -- they thought a woman was missing from the ship, but it turned out she was sleeping in the wrong cabin -- oops! She wasn't a teen though.

 

3. The weather in the Caribbean was wonderful; warm enough for swimsuits on the beach, but not so hot that you'd sweat walking around. However, our first and last full days (our days at sea) were nippy, and we weren't able to enjoy the pools like I'd hoped we would. The hot tubs were full, but few people were in the pools. I wasn't comfortable at all sitting by the pool in a swimsuit, even without being wet.

 

Don't get me wrong, we had a great cruise . . . but with all those other great weeks available, I won't choose Thanksgiving again. I'd either choose the fall weeks before Thanksgiving for slightly warmer weather, or I'd choose early December or January for lower prices. Of course, those weeks come with school problems, but that's another topic.

 

In answer to some of your other questions, we had turkey/dressing on Thanksgiving; but unlike another poster, our lobster dinner was a different night. They gave us a printed menu of what we'd had for Thanksgiving dinner, but they gave it to us on the last night of the cruise instead of on Thanksgiving itself! I thought that was kind of funny. We didn't see any Thanksgiving decorations; you wouldn't have known it was a holiday.

 

Mrs Pete, I remember that announcement:eek: . We jumped clear out of bed it was so loud and unexpected (except for my 12y girl who could sleep through anything). I agree with you about the weather on sea days. Quite windy especially the last day when I was finally able to relax in a chair! We had a great time, holiday $ and all. Can't wait to be able to plan a vacation NOT around a school calender:cool:

[Onessa]

We've cruised HI over TG two years ago and did the Eastern Med last TG. Great way to spend the holidays.

 

My folks have both passed away, and my DH's family are all hunters -- TG is smack dab in the middle of hunting season, so TG has never been a big family holiday for us. DD gets 3.5 days off TG week, so we can take a trip and really minimize the impact to her school schedule.

 

We are considering a Western Med cruise this TG. In Europe, TG is not a holiday so everything is open. The dining room offers turkey for dinner. Otherwise it is not too thanksgivingish.