Halloween Cruising the Conquest with kids~~what a great experience!

My family (myself, DH, and 3 kids ages 9,12,16) were on the Carnival Conquest over Halloween week this Oct/Nov 2006 and I wanted to post about how great this cruise was for the whole family. I posted this on the Frommers cruise board and wanted to share here, on my favorite message board also (think I'll go to the family forum and also put it there).

I know there are always "Carnival bashers" out there and those who hate to hear about cruising with kids, and if you're one of those feel free to just ignore my post as this is meant to be positive and informative to those cruising or considering cruising w/kids. Background: We've been on 4 cruises as a family~~~3 on Carnival (Celebration, Elation, and now Conquest) and 1 on Disney Magic (plus I've been on 1 on NCL sans kids).

All 3 of my kids said the Conquest was "maybe our best cruise ever!" This was our 1st time we were not cruising over spring break or during the summer (we had a "fall break" from school this year) and I wondered if the smaller number of kids onboard would diminish their experience. Not so, they found that they got to actually know the staff and the other kids sailing much better & made some great friendships aboard. My DS12 has kept up on the phone w/a few of them since we returned (thanks to Dollar Tree's inexpensive phone cards!).

We didn't buy the soda cards as we didn't want the kids to drink quite that much soda! We purchased them one each at dinner (a treat as they drink milk at home w/meals!) and a smoothie or soda during the day. Carnival allows a "reasonable" amount of beverages brought aboard so I also packed a 12 pack of root beer and bottled water w/those Crystal Light packs with no problems whatsoever. (Plus a couple bottles of wine for DH & I to enjoy on our balcony. We purchased 2 bottles of wine w/dinner during the week).

My DD9 went to the slumber party they offer one night and had an absolute blast! (my DS had been to this 2 years ago and told her how great it was) She never gets to stay up that late at home so it was quite a treat for her. I believe the cost was $20-$25 and the staff entertain the kids until 3:00 AM and personally escort the kids back to your room so you don't have to get up and go get them. Perfect and she was so happy about getting to do it. She enjoyed most all of the activities in her Camp's "age group" and also playing a few games in the video arcade. This place would get expensive except they did have one machine that played the whole week for free, so she enjoyed that one a lot! The photographer came to DD9 Camp Carnival group and did a photo shoot one day/evening of the kids there. Last night of the cruise they gave her (no charge) 3 8x10 photos they had taken of her and they were so beautiful!!! Thank you Carnival!

The Conquest is a huge ship but was exactly the right size for us. Lots of room for different kids clubs, many diversions all over the ship for all of us, beautiful decor (I love the impressionists so this ship was a treat for my eyes!) and we learned the "lay of the land" fairly quickly which really surprised me (I thought I'd be "lost" all week :-). We thought it was quite a smooth ride for the whole week and the ports of call were great. We did all family-friendly excursions booked on our own and have no complaints at all in this area (though I wish we hadn't gotten rained out in Cozumel...oh well, you can't control the weather!)

My kids were in 3 different age groups of Camp Carnival....actually my oldest was in "Club O2" which is the teen group. She has physical disabilities and this was such a great cruise for her! The staff were so inclusive of her, and this helped many of the other teens be inclusive too. If you have a family member with disabilities or know much about how teens are, then you know how wonderful this was for her as teens usually pretend she doesn't exist or stare at her. Dining staff were so very attentive and "fun" (they are the "fun ships", right!) to all of us and as usual our kids were made to feel very special by them. Cudos as always to Carnival for the great food and service! DD16 also did Karoke a few times in the regular lounge plus the teen club (music & singing is her absolute LOVE) and I say a big "Thank you" to everyone onboard who clapped and told her how great she did. Fellow passengers would stop her during the week all around the ship and say such nice things to her about her performances. She just glowed after all the compliments....thank you to such nice people :-)

As usual we booked 2 staterooms next to each other and I brought my garage-sale obtained baby monitor. I put the receiver in the kids room so I can "hear" them and always feel certain they're safe, not fighting, and can respond immediately if they need us. This time around it had some static---not sure if thats from the ship, the weather, or if my cheap monitor is just showing it's age! (I got it second-hand maybe 4 years ago when we first cruised).

If I can help answer any questions, let me know! This was such a great experience again for our family that I'm considering a return onboard again next fall again. Happy sails to you all! :)

Oh, yes, my DD said I should add something about the balcony rooms. As I said earlier, we got 2 side-by-side rooms. If you have balcony rooms you can ask your room steward to get the divider unlocked so that you have one large balcony and can enter/exit each other's room. Of course, you would want these locked for privacy and safety at times during your day and night, but when getting ready to go out, spending time enjoying the balcony, etc. it was handy to go back and forth this way. In our case, having the divider open somewhat blocked the kids door, but that was okay because then we'd know if they were going out on the balcony and we could/would watch over them. We did have to go down to the purser's desk and sign something that said the people in the other room gave permission to have this opened up between our rooms. And to keep the door from swinging back and forth we looped and tied a towel around the post which kind of "cushioned" it. This worked as otherwise the ships' movement while out to sea would swing the door open/closed.

To be honest, this was the 1st time we had balcony rooms. DH & I fell in love with them but in the future we may have the kids in an inside across the hall from us while we are in a balcony. A man lost his life going overboard on the last night of our cruise (he fell or jumped from his balcony just down the hall from us---we got differing reports) and it put an even greater fear into me than I already had (and believe me I was a bit worried even before this!). Very sad ending to our cruise :(

Wow sounds like you had such a good time Good for you! We took our first October Cruise on the 9th and took the boy cub along with he also had so much fun! There were not tons of kids on the cruise but there were kids so he was not alone. We just booked another for October 2007 and can not wait only 277 days!:rolleyes: