Panama Canal with Young Children

[GoldenRose]

We're looking at doing Panama Canal cruise next year with my parents and our children, ages 6 and 1. The ships doing the route in the time frame we're looking at are the Celebrity Infinity, the Island and Coral Princesses, and Cunard's Queen Victoria.

 

We've sailed with Celebrity before, and loved it. We've never sailed with Princess or Cunard before. We were very interested in sailing with Cunard before we found out that they raised the age limit on when you could leave children with their nannies on board, and now we're not sure it is worth the higher price.

 

Does anyone have any experience with young children on any of these ships? Has anyone tried the Panama Canal with young children, and have any tales to tell? Would you recommend it, or was it such a difficult experience that you think it just wasn't worth the money and hassle?

 

We have cruised with a baby before - we started cruising with our son (the now 6 year old) when he was almost 8 months old - so we do have some idea of the extra hassles involved.

[angielane]

we visited the panana canal with a one year old this past march...on Royal Caribbean. I found that the ship's excursions were very limited...nearly all of them had an age restriction that prevented us from participating.

 

My husband really wanted to be able to go through the canal on a boat, and we weren't able to do that. my friend mario tours did NOT have an age restriction for that tour...but they didn't offer it the day we were there.

 

Still, we had a good time. we took a baby carrier (like an ergo) and he basically slept through our time at the visitors center. there's quite a few steps at the center (if you go that route), so I wouldn't recommend a stroller....but the carrier worked well. It was also quite crowded.

 

In the end, we didn't feel slighted by "just" going to the visitor's center. the partial transit/boat trip - I'm sure - would have been amazing...but we felt like we had a good experience. you can get pretty close there too.

[cb at sea]

If your ship does the transit (either full or partial), you really don't even need an excursion....being on the ship will be just as good! And, since it's so blasted HOT in Panama, you'll have access to air-conditioning on the ship! Did I mention it's REALLY HOT and HUMID????

[kitty9]

I've been on four canal transits, three on Celebrity, and can tell you, there are very few, if any, kids on board. That fact could limit a kids program, if that makes a difference to you. Plus, the average age was quite high, well over 60. But, on our RCI transit, while the number of kids on board was much less than normal, there were at least a few kids and they ran a smaller version of the kids club.

 

The weather in that area is terribly hot and humid, so look at tours with that in mind. You don't need to take a tour to see the canal----you'll go right through it on the ship.

[GoldenRose]

Honestly, our son won't much care much if he's one of the only kids onboard a ship. He'll just be so excited to be traveling with his extended family. On the last cruise we took him on, we were lucky if he went into the kid's club 3 hours a day, on even half the days. Although I will say, I'll be disappointed if there aren't enough kids on board for them to open the fun factory or its equivalent occasionally, particularly during wine tastings. I can convince my mom to sometimes watch one kid at a time, but watching the 6 year old and the 1 year old at once is likely to be a strain for her. I wonder if we'd get too many dirty looks if we tried to do a wine tasting with a baby in a backpack. ;)

 

We did a partial transit of the canal 8 years ago on RCCL, and had a wonderful time. That was before the kids, and was a completely different sort of vacation. Sadly, RCCL isn't doing a transit, partial or full, next spring. We really enjoyed the cruise we did on Celebrity last year. (Our son was totally obsessed with the Bistro on 5, and asked to eat there with us almost every day.) I know we enjoy Celebrity, and honestly, that's what we're leaning toward just because we have the high repeat cruiser status with them. I feel like Holland America is likely to have an even older clientele with even fewer children, and I guess I just don't know as much about Princess. But I'm interested in hearing other people's perspectives before we book, in case there is something we're missing.

 

We're also considering not cruising in the spring and just going to Hawaii for a couple of weeks, but I keep thinking about that plane flight with the kids, and thinking a cruise would be easier.

[VikkiGarcia]

We did a full transit on RC Oct. 2004. There were 23 kids on board (2 were mine). They had kids club open all the regular hours but combined age groups. Since they were dealing with such small numbers they let the kids pick what would be the next evenings activities. We also gave them permission to take our kids anywhere on the ship. So some times they would come out of the kids club as a group to go get dessert in the buffet. Another night one staff member took the kids who wanted to go to the magic show that was in the theater. It was a much less structured than a regular cruise, but my kids loved it.