phxbne

We had a great 3 generation vacation on Celebrity a couple of years ago.

I suggest that the adults choose based on pricing and itinerary - when we did that, Summit out of San Juan won out for better pricing and more interesting stops (for our family) than RCL out of Florida. Although that itinerary is sadly much less appealing after this devastating hurricane season.

My daughters first cruise was at age 5 on Solstice and she loved it. The kids club is great on Celebrity.

Have a wonderful time creating shared memories!

We did the straight up and back. We did not get off.

A local advised sitting on the left hand side with a window that opens. He also advised not getting off at the top. I was glad we did not as the train was crowded going up, and even more crowded coming back. Almost everyone got off either for the waffles or at the top. So during the stop we shifted to forward facing seats and got to sit together as we wanted..

Have fun!

We just sailed on Silhoette and our 12 year old was directed to the teen room. From what I recall, the daily listings had 12 as the starting age too.

Hope it works out!

I think Crystal fits what you are looking for. We have sailed Crystal with our daughter and really enjoyed it - it is her favorite cruise line!I think it is the only luxury cruise line that has a dedicated kids space and program. We have only sailed them in Europe and there have been between 30 and 60 kids - with at least 3 staff.

It is all inclusive so no constant selling or signing things. Each ship holds about 1000 people so that also makes it quite relaxed.

Some downsides are - no buffet open in the evenings - your options are MDR, specialty restaurants (at least 1 free reservation per sailing), room service, burger bar til 6pm or there bistro. They only have 2 ships, so limited choice of itineraries.

We do not find it 'stuffy' - people have been pretty mellow.

We have sailed Celebrity twice as a family and are about to sail them for the 3rd time - while we like it, I would say it is more 'JW Marriott' than Four Seasons.

Let me know if you have any questions!

I would suggest some walking sandals - a dressier style like Dansko you could wear to dinner.

My favorites are Teva Kayenta which can also get wet. Some prefer Teva Tirra - just a preference on straps and where they hit.

Not sure you would need hiking and sneakers and water shoes

I love Hawaii - sounds like a great trip - have fun!

We visited Norway and Iceland last July.

The things I am most glad we took were waterproof hiking shoes (lightweight ones) and lightweight wool socks to wear with them.

We did not take rain pants, and did OK. Partly because on the rainiest days we had whitewater rafting and a rib boat excursion, and all the gear was provided.

I took what I thought was a good rain jacket, but I learned it was not.....so I ended up wearing a rain poncho over it if it was really rainy.

There was amazing wet and cold weather gear in Bergen - anyone on our land trip who lived in a cold climate got something. We resisted - the high here today is 54f and that is really cold for us!

Have a great trip - we loved it!

We were on Crystal Symphony in Summer 2014. I just looked and it seems they are offering it again this year.

We did it is a ship excursion. We were trying to spend some OBC so I did not investigate if you could book directly though the store. We had about 24 people, all from the ship.

We have a smallish wheeled backpack from Land's End - but I don't think they make them any more. Smaller is better as they have to be more careful about how they fill it and it is not as heavy.

My daughter is now 11 and prefers to take a regular backpack.

I also like to take a couple of cinch backpacks when we travel - handy for day trips, but also lets you keep some stuff close to you on the flight and not deal with it all.

We also have a wheeled underseat bag (ours is from Costco, but there are lots out there) which is useful.

We did this in 2015 and enjoyed it. I picked it because it was good hands on activity for a 9 year old who loves to cook - but most participants were adults looking for something different. Everyone seemed to like it.

It is on the edge of the old town, so we got to wander around for while too before heading back to the ship.

We did a Baltic cruise when our DD was 9. We all loved it, but it was the most tiring cruise we have done - port intensive and amazing things to see in each place!

Here is what we did - we had a lot of OBC to spend and were with my less than mobile parents, so did more ships tours than we ordinarily would:

St Petersburg - private tour with TJ Tours - highlights included subway ride, grocery store visit, fountains at Peterhof, nightime cultural show and canal cruise. We did the matroshkya doll painting which was very fun! We only spent about an hour at the Hermitage - it was so crowded, we were all happy to leave. We also wandered Nevsky Prospekt. We omitted some common sights including St Isaacs and Yusupov, just to give more time for wandering (with a guide of course).

If I had it to do over, I would definitely do Faberge and the Grand Maket Rossiya - and maybe use Best Guides.

Berlin - we stayed in Warnemunde, wandering the town and beach. We did the Molli steam train in the afternoon which was fun.

Tallin - did a chocolate making workshop (not particularly Estonian, but fun!) and wandered the old town a little

Helsinki - tour to Unique Lapland which was indoor dogsledding on fake ice - it was fun

Stockholm - we were burned out on touring so had no plans. We wandered Gamla Stan and saw the changing of the guard. I wish we had done Vasa or Abba or Skansen.....

Have a great cruise! I think I want to do it again!

Flam is teeny tiny and Norwegians are prompt, so I think you will be fine to do both. When you go to the train, the RIB boat is a little wooden hut to the left on the water.

I suggest taking any stuff back to the ship before the boat - all you need is a camera.

If you want to have lunch off the ship, Aegir Brewery is interesting, and the restaurant in the train had fresh local food when we were there last summer. Friends raved about the little cafe in the red house kind of up the hill from the hotel.

Have fun - the RIB safari was my favorite thing in Norway!

We were in St Petersburg for 3 days, and had tours each day. On the 3rd day, my Mom realized she had left rubles on the ship. We figured that after our tour we would pop back in to the terminal to spend them. No go. As our tour was done, the immigration people wouldn't let us through......We did go to the dockside shop - things were VERY expensive there.....

Hi

We visited some of these ports last July, and spent a week in Norway prior to our cruise

Stavanger - many people did a fjord cruise - we stayed in town and really enjoyed a visit to the Petroleum Museum

Geiranger - we stayed here on a land tour - the town is tiny, so I suggest some type of tour

Flam - we did the train which we enjoyed (book it independently). We also stayed here on a land tour and did the fjord safari which we absolutely loved!

Oslo - we did on our own thanks to great directions on this board! We took the ferry to the Fram Museum which was fabulous, then hit the Viking Museum and Nobel Peace Center. I wish we had done the Folklore Museum instead.

Can't help with London - we will be there in 2017 for the first time in many years.

Have a great cruise!

Thanks so much for sharing another wonderful journey! I look forward to 'travelling with you' again in December!

Hi

We cruised from Amsterdam to London this past July. Sailing from Amsterdam to Norway there were no issues. It was rough as we headed across to Iceland. We loved all the Norway ports we visited. Here are some of my thoughts:

- the sail in and out of Flam is along a beautiful fjord - absolutely breathtaking. Not sure how old the kids are, but the fjord safari excursion in Flam is amazing! We enjoyed it much more than the train

- we really enjoyed our day in Oslo - one of the easiest big cities to navigate I have ever been to - great museums - we particularly enjoyed the Fram Museum

- we liked Stavanger for the Oil Museum

- Bergen is fun to wander around, even in the rain

- Geiranger is tiny - you need to do an excursion there, so I would check what appeals

I have sailed HAL and liked it, but never NCL.

Have fun!

We have not sailed Carnival, so can't help from that end in terms of comparison.

We have an 11 year old, and her favorite cruise line is Crystal - ours too! The reasons include the ship not being crowded and the kids club having a great ratio and so a personalized experience. We have only cruised Crystal in the summer, and with only 2 ships it can hard to make dates work, especially as they tend towards 10+ day itineraries.

We also enjoy Celebrity - it is our second favorite in terms of food and the kids club.

Not sure if you are planning on sticking to the Thanksgiving time. We had done 3 Caribbean cruises and started to get a bit bored and wondered if we really liked cruising - and then we ventured to Alaska - that was amazing! We have since cruised the Baltics, Med, Norway and Iceland and been back to the Caribbean. There are so many places in the world to see and cruising makes it easy.

Eating in the MDR is our preference. With kids, it is much easier than in eating in a fancy restaurant on land for a few reasons:

- they don't want you to linger so food comes out pretty quickly

- when you are done, you leave - no waiting for the bill, credit card processing etc

- if you or your kid is indecisive or does not care for something, you can order 2 things or get a replacement - on our first cruise, our 5 year old could not choose between 2 desserts, so the waiter brought both! It also means your kids can easily try new things - cruising is how my daughter learned she liked french onion soup, and artichokes.

have a great time!

I saw on their website that they did stingrays and turtle - and I think either on here or on tripadvisor had seen someone talk about combining them.

On the form I selected 'two stop' and then in the comments I wrote:

We are interested in 2 stop snorkel, beach lunch or turtle - can you let us know how the times compare or combine?

the email back said:

I have reserved spots for you on our 12:00 noon Hell/Turtle Farm tour for April date, as well as spaces on our 1:45 PM two-stop stingray/snorkel tour immediately following. This is the combination tour that works with your ship’s schedule.

I was happy with that, so we will go with that!

We have this combo booked with Capt. Marvins too - we have turtle farm at noon and stingrays at 1:45

Enjoying this - cruised Norway for the first time in July and already dreaming of returning!

Thanks for sharing your adventure - I would love to return to Shetland too!

But if we drove ourselves we would missing hearing the wonderful stories from a local.....

The Shetland Museum is near/in town. It was a drive to the Croft House museum but we loved it!

Have to check out the Shetland books and TV series now.

We did the Flam railway last month.

The train was about a 10 minute walk from where we docked - I dont know if there are other docks.

We booked independently, and there was a restroom in the train car we were in.

It was an hour each way - we did not even get off the train in Myrdal. I don't think there is much to do there, and someone said it can be confusing. I see there is a cafe there, and I would assume there are restrooms.

The excursion our cruise ship offered stopped at the station before Myrdal for coffee and waffles or pancakes. There was a hotel there that we could see from the station. I assume there would be restrooms there.

It was much cheaper to do independently, but booking in advance is advisable.

Have fun!

We visited some Norwegian ports last month.

I too love to find different things. found it quite difficult to find 'unique' things - it seemed to be the same things over and over.....I saw one lovely jewelry shop in Bergen with unique things, and one with some nice prints.

Hope your hunt is more successful than mine was!

Enjoy your cruise

Michele