CrusingFamily4

Your children can order off the children's menu for free in specialty restaurants. The one possible exception might be Teppanyaki, where since the venue is so small one cruise critic poster stated that he was told to order off the main menu since his children were going to be charged full price irregardless of what they ate. Other cruisers have reported that the children were not charged at Teppanyaki, so you might want to try to clarify this prior to sailing. If they order off the main menu at specialty restaurants, they will be charged a full price.

Thank you! I will spend some time researching the menus :) I do not mind paying for the kids if this is the case. With 15 days, it might be nice to mix things up a bit.

 

I would strongly encourage you to not take ship excursions, especially with small children. We've done a lot of cruises with our children and the most important thing has been to book private excursions for just our family in which we were able to control the itinerary and stop and feed our kids whenever they started to get tired and whiny. I think from your question you might be traveling the Baltics - that's a great itinerary for children. If you click on the review in my signature line, you'll see suggestions for what we did with our 3.5 year old, who absolutely loved this trip. Thanks to the amazing public transportation system, we were able to easily visit all of the cities except St. Petersburg on our own. If your family can afford it, you really might want to consider a private tour of St. Petersburg for just your family so you can control the itinerary and stay longer at things that interest your kids and skip through other locations. We were able to see all the major landmarks in 2 days, and our son thinks St. Petersburg is one of his 3 favorite cities. If you are traveling to Berlin or are not docking directly in Stockholm, you might also need to consider a tour or at least transport in those cities.

You are correct! We have booked the 15 day Baltics Tour. The private tour of St.Petersburg is certainly on my radar. I will check out your review. Thank you!! This board has proved to be so helpful!! Thank you.

I have never used the excursion credits, but my understanding is that you get the $50 credit applied to your account for each port, as long as you booked an excursion in that port. Therefore, to get the full credit you need to go on an NCL excursion everywhere. On this itinerary, that would almost certainly end up costing you more than just booking privately (or doing it yourself, which is quite easy in many of these ports).

This is what I was thinking. A few of the excursions are available now, but are over 900/adult. It would be over 2k to head into Berlin with the kids being a bit cheaper. Yikes. It for tours like this that we would book a private tour.

The kids eat free from the kids menu, even in the speciality restaurants. The only one which would be a problem is Teppenyaki which has very limited seating, and you would very likely be charged the full price even if they don't eat much. If you want the kids to order off the main menu then they pay the full price, which is a la carte everywhere except Teppenyaki. You should find sample menus posted online (they are very similar between ships) so those should give an idea.

Thanks! I think I will switch to this promo given that the girls will be able to eat with us.

Question 1- how are you getting $650? It is $50 total per port per room, not per person. We got the credits each day at port. even though we only booked 2 excursions we got it for all 3 days.

 

3- I am pretty sure it is about 120 days out.

Takoyaki, we have 13 port days. (15 day cruise). In theory, does this mean we could book 2 excursions from the ship and only pay the difference?

Thanks!!

Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Question #1- We are currently booked with the bonus of $50/port credit. Does this give us $50 for each excursion, or is it pooled together? ie- is it $50 for our Oslo stop, $50 for our Helsinki stop, etc... or would they just place $650 in our onboard spending account. I suspect we will be a mix of ship excursions and also private.

Question #2- If we book the dining promo, we are able to book a few speciality dinners, but it is only for 2. We will be traveling with our children. I thought I read that they are able to join and order off a kids menu? (Is this the case?) We will be on the spirit. If so, do you know the cost to add children?

Question #3- When do the excursions become available to view/book?

Thanks for your assistance!

MNmariner,

This exactly sums up my dilemma (first world problems!) Thanks for the information. Much appreciated.

Thank you! This is great info to know. 10031 is also by the stairs, but at the front staircase which one would assume means less traffic than midship.

Hello,

First off, thanks for your assistance! While we are Gold Members on Disney, this will be our first NCL cruise. We chose this cruise due to the itinerary. Much to my dismay, as a family of 4, we are only able to book inside or ocean view. (I know we can book 2 veranda rooms or suites, but this is not a very economical way to travel for us).

My question- if you had a choice of 10031 or 6535, which room would you book? It appears 6535 is a larger room, but 10031 is very close to the kids area/pool. We will be traveling with 10 year old twin girls. However, we are a very port intensive cruise. (15 days, and 13 countries with only 2 sea days).

Thanks again!

This is also me to a "t". Although I just booked this cruise 2 days ago, so my family is not yet sick of me obsessing over it, haha. It probably helps that my girls, twin 9 year olds, are at a summer camp this week. This is our first time sailing with Princess. Up until now, we have been a Disney Cruise family. (6 Disney Cruises)

We are traveling July 4, 2019 on the Princess Regal. It is an 11 day cruise.