Spring break cruise with teenagers

My husband and I are traveling with our two kids, age 14 and 16 over spring break (March 4) out of Galveston. I have cruised with Princess in the past, but never with my teens. Does anyone have personal experience on the Grand with their kids. I am hoping that they will have fun at night so that my husband and I can also have some free time. Thanks.

I have not cruised with Princess out of Galveston but have been aboard R/C Rhapsody during spring break with my teenage girls.

Count on there being lots of kids and never seeing your kids the entire week!

In fact my wife made it mandatory for them to eat dinner with us just so she could see them at least once a day!

In fact my wife made it mandatory for them to eat dinner with us just so she could see them at least once a day!

This is the reason we don't sail on 7 days cruises during spring break anymore. There were 'packs' of teens roaming the halls on the Grand when we sailed during spring break. Parents had no idea what the kids were doing or where they were. They were taking mail from boxes, ripping things off doors and laying in the elevators and on staircases.

Sorry, but when you meet with your kids in the evening 'once' for dinner and have no idea where they are or what they have been doing is just wrong in my book. It is no fair to other passengers to just let teens roam the ship looking for something to do.

I know, 'my kids wouldn't do that' is what most people say. But you would be surprised! :(

Our 3 girls: 16, 13, and 12 will be going, and I assure you they will not be causing any destruction onboard. We have planned family excursions each day and we will be eating all 3 meals together each day. This is a family vacation not a "see you when we get back to Galveston".

I agree that there are a few kids on ships that are destructive and do cause some problems and thiose are the ones that give all kids a bad name (on our last cruise security was walking around looking for some boys that were peeing all over the ship and furniture!!! - gross)...but there are many more good kids that have a great time, join the activities and meet new friends. My daughter, who is now 15, has gone on 6 cruises and loves it. She still "talks" via email, phone and text messaging with lots of kids she has met over the years.

Don't give all the kids a bad name based on just a few rotten ones.....they need a vacation too. I agree the parents have alot to do with it....my daughter came home way past curfew one time several cruises ago and had to spend the entire next day, and night, with her parents....believe me, she is very carefull about the rules now!! :o

My husband and I are traveling with our two kids, age 14 and 16 over spring break (March 4) out of Galveston. I have cruised with Princess in the past, but never with my teens. Does anyone have personal experience on the Grand with their kids. I am hoping that they will have fun at night so that my husband and I can also have some free time. Thanks.

I don't have any advice on cruising with teenagers, just cruising with a child. I just wanted give you a big "Welcome to Cruise Critic!" and I hope that you will find lots of good info here. You will have to dig through a lot of garbage to get to it, though, unfortunately. As you have already seen in this thread, there will ALWAYS be someone and usually lots of people who feel the unabashed need to guide you on parenting, attire, personal habits, and everything else. Ignore them.

I hope you and your teens are going to have a fabulous time! Take care of the ship for us, we'll be on it the week after you! :)

-gina-

We've cruised with our teen and had great experiences. However, YMMV in great part on the type of kids your teens are, and the kinds of things they like to do with friends. My daughter makes friends easily, and is something of a cop -- the rules are the rules, and furthermore she wants to see real enforcement of the rules. (No worries about her trying to wear jeans to the dining room!) So, we have rules, but they are not a lot different than the general rules that apply at home:

1. Dinner together every night except the night that the teens have their own separate dinner. She has to be back in the cabin by 30 minutes before we have to leave for dinner; earlier if she expects to shower. (Hair takes a LONG time to get just right.)

2. Curfew.

3. No playing in the elevators, and no using elevators at all unless you're going more than 3 flights.

4. No sitting on the stairs -- there are enough other places for you and your friends to talk without blocking pathways.

5. No going into anyone else's cabin without our prior permission.

6. No bringing others into our cabin without our prior permission.

7. Introduce us to your friends and your friend's parents. If you'd like to have a breakfast or lunch with both our families, we're happy to do that.

8. Do not leave messes for other people to clean up.

9. Be careful not to accidentally trip or push past elderly people. Hold doors open for folks, and if someone is using the handrail down a corridor or stairwell, move aside so that they can easily continue to do so. Offer to carry a tray or get something if it looks like someone could use a little help.

10. Do not go into any spaces where passengers are not permitted, do not climb on anything passengers are not supposed to climb, and follow all posted ship rules.

11. No drinking alcohol. No drugs. No hanging around with anyone else who is doing this.

12. After dinner, you must either be with a friend or with us or in our cabin -- no roaming around alone. You need to let us know where you'll generally be if it isn't by the pool, Horizon Court, or in the teen center.

She seems to have a lot of fun, and when we come upon her as we're wandering around, we're rarely unhappy with what we find.

I hope your kids have fun too.

Cheers,

Barb

arabrab.. You sound like a responsible parent. Too bad there are not more like you on "Spring Break" cruises..

I hate it when the teens are sitting on the stairs and blocking the hallways eating food from the Horizon Court. They fill up their plates and just gather in the stairs and halls to eat. Just sit at a big table if you want to eat together.

Another time there was a group of kids sitting outside around Deck 6 or 7, when I walked by the door there was a gal, maybe about 15 years old, pulling up her shorts. This was about 3am, the parents should have been watching her more closely. She saw me and was just laughing about it with her buddies. About 5 minutes later the Teen Security guy was walking by, I guess he was watching through the video cameras out on the deck. When they saw him coming, the took off.

Arabrab,

First of all, I love your screen name! I have been Arabrab for years....my girlfriends are Map, Anad, and Asil. We used to think that was the funniest thing! When I saw that I about died and then I saw your Cheers, Barbara.

We too travel with teen girls, our daughter and a friend of hers.

Our rules are very similar to yours and we have had good luck.

We have progressed to letting them have their own cabin and it worked fine last cruise. We took the two way radios last time, however, they were always on vibrate so we would not disturb others. I would remove myself from being around people to respond to them. It worked out great!

Thanks for sharing your rules-

Barbara

Thanks so much for your thoughts. We have vacationed quite a bit with our children and I have always found that rules set up front work better for everyone. Sometimes it's hard to remember how your mind worked, or didn't work, at that age. We are all getting excited about the great shore excursions, and it will be great to all be together.

We cruise annually with our teens (boys 14, 15 and daughter 20), because it is the best, most economical "Family" vacation. April will be our second "Spring Break" cruise adventure. (southern FL has a spring break the week leading up to Easter, always).

Are there teens running amok - yes, so it is critical to have rules, like the ones mentioned previously. These are our additional guidelines/rules to avoid issues with our own kids and other cruisers:

1) If you are not with the Teen Counselor/in the Teen Center, you are in your cabin or with Mom and Dad, or with people we have met, who have invited you to join their family.

2) We meet all the counselors, introduce oursleves and tell them it is not okay for our kids to be unaccompanied on the ship. We take them to the Teen Center, and pick them up and ask the Counselors what they did, etc.

3) We have early all day shore excursions every port day, (and we make sure they are physical ones, sea kayaking, snorkeling, scuba diving, horseback ridng, hiking, etc.) and kiddos must eat breakfast with the parents...read into this "get to bed early because we will be running you off your feet"

4) You may only sleep till 10am on a sea day. I am not paying good money for you to enjoy the view of the inside of your eyelids.

5) You may only eat in Horizon Court if you are not eating with us, and we will take you there and pick you up, unless it is a teen center sponsored meal.

6) Formal nights are a must, in the dining room, in your suits/ties and you will be photographed multiple times. This is how you pay your way.

7) If you leave your cabin messy when we go shoreside, you have to give the steward an extra $10 tip out of your travel money.

Bottom line, despite rules, my children love to cruise and turned down a trip to the Grand Canyon this year because they wanted to cruise the Caribbean again. They love the ships and I believe they are respecting the public areas and other passengers too, because they see cruising as a privilege we will take away in a heartbeat if they misbehave. But Princess has chosen to limit the number of teens allowed per cruise, and I can understand fully why.

7) If you leave your cabin messy when we go shoreside, you have to give the steward an extra $10 tip out of your travel money.

That's a really good one!! :)

LOVE YOUR POST! Fantastic rules.

Formal nights are a must, in the dining room, in your suits/ties and you will be photographed multiple times. This is how you pay your way.

I love this, you all have great ideas. Since you have done this many times, do you know how the cabin is laid out? I booked us all together in one so that I knew what time they came home and because I thought it would be more fun. When we went on Disney they had a bunkbed like arrangement for the kids beds. Is princess the same way? I was unable to find a picture of what a quad looks like. Thanks so much, I am going to print off your recommendations and go over them with my kids.

The Grand is a beautiful ship, the first of the Grand class ships made in Italy, and also includes the Golden, Star and Caribbean (except it has an additional deck). The good news is no one spends much time in the cabin.....

The two upper berths fold down from the wall. Your steward should make them up prior. Two twin beds are directly below. The right side and left side share bedside tables. There is a desk/dressing table also in this portion of the room. Closet is a bit snug, bring extra hangers if you can

These rooms are satisfactory and the stweards make them even better. You always have plenty of towels and hot water, but at 5'10" I found I could put my foot on the counter and in the sink while in the shower to better shave my legs...yes it is a small bathroom, that's why I suggest you pack a powerbar to use at the desk for hairdrying, styling, etc. I also recommend you go to Wal-Mart and get one of those plastic hanging shoe holders (the ones with the little pockets for about 20 shoes) and place it over the bathroom door. Put all toiletry, sunscreen, makeup type items that you might want to use when the bathroom is occupied.

We did the quad once and it was just fine, but now we opt for two cabins

We have done 5 cruises with our teens (currently 15 and 18) - 4 Princess and 1 Celebrity. The biggest problem was getting them to spend time doing things as a family:D . They found other teens to hang out with within the first day or two and very quickly developed a social routine that did not include the parents. We insisted that they come to dinner and we would connect at various times throughout the day. We also had a curfew they had to accept and adhere to as a condition of going on the cruise. As demonstrated by the fact that they have gone on multiple cruises, they love it and we think it is a great family vacation.

I'm not going to say "my kids don't act like that" EVER, but they didn't the last time we were on a cruise. And... they better not this time. I do allow them to "hang-out" with kids that I approve of. A mom can just tell when it's ok. We do take our 2-way radios and this helps a lot. My husband keeps the ear piece in so we don't disturb anyone else. Several times on our last cruise the girls would call to check in (mainly my little one because the older daughter didn't really click with anyone and hung out on our balcony) and we'd go check on her. There were times when she was calling to check in that we were actually about 20ft. from her just observing what was going on. I realize that the Spring Break cruises will be packed with kids... I guess as parents (and even their grandparents are going) we're glad. It is a great opportunity for these children to travel abroad and to make new friends. I do not hesitate anytime or anywhere to let a child know that their actions are inappropriate. That's what a kid can expect if they are hanging out with mine. I run a tight ship on ship and at home. That doesn't mean that the kids can't fun and the parents can't have fun. It means that we were still the parents and responsible for these children and it means they are still our children and accountable for their actions. Period.

I'll be traveling March 18th on the Grand. My daughters are 17 and 12 and my daughters friend 18 will be traveling with us. If you are traveling with us on the same dates and our kids are about the same age, email me and we can let them email each other before the cruise. That would be fun and give them something to look forward to.. like the cruise isn't enough ;).

And for the record, I have seen adults act a lot worse than kids on cruises and vacations. Perhaps we should start a thread about setting good examples. Just a thought.

Happy sailing!!

We are sailing out on the 4th or I would say, lets do it. I was a little surprised by the earlier post about problems, but that's the way things are. It's too bad that some kids don't have supervision. Oh well, we will keep the boat in good shape for you and hope you have a great time.

Tresa - I have 3 daughters: 16 (17 in April), 13, and 12. They said they would like to meet your daughters.:)

Zitzbear.... Send me an email at theresa @ iwe.cc (no spaces) and we'll arrange something.

How exciting for all of these girls!!!

Zitzbear...

I wanted to check and see if you got the reply I sent to your email. I've been having an issue or two with my mail lately and just wanted to check and let you know that I had replied.

Thanks!!!

we have taken our 4 teens (and a few friends) on two cruises. One thing I can't stress enough to them is that they are NEVER to be out of the deck at night alone- for ANY reason.

Bring a pad of post it notes so you can leave messages for each other inthe cabin. I spent a lot of time on our last cruise trying to track kids down, in retrospect it would have been nice if I could have left a note: "Out by the AFT pool, come see me when you get this"

I also made them eat dinner with us nightly. We had standing reservations and they were pretty good about it.

Enjoy yourselves!

Zitabear and Tresa, we will be on the same cruise and I'm sure my 17 year old son would like to meet your daughters too.

Just Kidding, but I could not resist.

We are so excited. A question abouy the 2 way radios, do they not pick up other peoples conversations? and I assume they do not interfere with any ship radios? I think we make take ours. I would feel much better about them if they had the radios.

Thanks

Teressa

Just like anywhere else you'll have to find a channel that no one else is using. We didn't have any problem with this on the last cruise. I can't imagine that they would interfere with the ship's radio, on Carnival they actually a rental program for the radios.

Teressa- if you would like to email me we could start an email communication for the kids. I noticed that you were traveling from Arkansas and we are traveling from Missouri. We might actually be driving the same way. Are you staying in Galveston the night before the ship leaves?