Western or Southern for kids?

[emen822]

Hi. We're trying to decide which ship to take next April. My girls will be 10 and 12 at the time. Was wondering which itinerary is better for families? (If there is such a thing! We just know we love cruising!) :D We did the Eastern this past March and loved it. We love the beach. We are thinking either the Navigator/Mariner doing the Western or Adventure for the Southern. Any comments are welcome. Thanks.

[ckrobyn]

Hi. We're trying to decide which ship to take next April. My girls will be 10 and 12 at the time. Was wondering which itinerary is better for families? (If there is such a thing! We just know we love cruising!) :D We did the Eastern this past March and loved it. We love the beach. We are thinking either the Navigator/Mariner doing the Western or Adventure for the Southern. Any comments are welcome. Thanks.

 

Hi emen,

 

We did the Eastern with our daughter this past February and we all had a great time! Our next cruise is booked on the AOS southern itinerary for January 2006 and are excited about the beaches on Aruba :D We already know we love the beach on St. Maarten!

[Cruzntime]

Emen,

We did western last year on the Mariner and my 10yo loved it. As you may be able to see I have not been southern or eastern yet but I did a lot of research before I chose the western cruise.

 

Some of my thoughts then were we were new to cruising so I wanted an itinerary that had a lot of stops in case we did not do well with motion sickness. Most of the travel on this cruise is at night and during the day we were on land. We also wanted an itinerary that offered excursions that would be fun and capable for all of us.

 

We also liked the fact the Mariner was within my driving limits and she was a new ship and LARGE. She turned out to be absolutely beautiful and full art work containing cars and planes - both of which I like.

 

We loved Labadee as we found this island to be very, very stress free and fun for everyone. Plus the cookout on the beach was really nice. We did Dunn's River Falls in Jamaica with Pete Taylor tours, Stingray City with Captain Marvins in Grand Cayman, and took a cab to Chankanaab park in Cozumel. Next time we may replace Chankanaab park with Paradise beach if it still gets good reviews.

 

We had good company and we had the time of our lives.

 

If you are not sure how the kids will do I would highly recommend researching this itinerary.

 

I hope you and your family has the best time ever!!

[ald3114]

They are both good choices. It depends on what you want to see and how long you want to cruise. I believe the Southern route according to the brochure is a couple days longer. We chose the Western route on VOS in June. I am looking forward to having a blast. I think they will both be fun.

[leighuf]

AOS itinerary is port-intensive (St Lucia route) and only has 1 sea day. If sea days are desirable, that may affect your decision. Obviously, flying to San Juan may be more costly and may create longer flight time for your family. Check out the shore excurions offered by RCI to get a feel for things to do at each island/port of call.

 

The Voyager-class ships are amazing and are GREAT for any family since they offer more. I also agree that you can't go wrong.

 

My favorite cruise, to date, was my AOS cruise in 2003. One day I plan on returning for the Aruba itinerary. :cool:

[emen822]

We also chose the Mariner because she was large and new. My husband loved the ship so he wants to stick with it and just do the Western Caribbean. I wanted to venture a little more and go on a different ship. AOS is definitely port intensive. I believe they only have one sea day. We had 3 on the Mariner (Eastern) - which we liked. We are beach people and aren't much for the tours on the ship. I compiled so much information on here last year that I knew which beaches we wanted to go to before we left. My kids also heard there was a slide on the AOS so you know they are pushing to go on that one! I'm just worried about the flight to PR...definitely longer and more expensive (we are planning to travel during Easter next April). I don't think we can go wrong with either one. Thanks for your input. :)

[ckrobyn]

We also chose the Mariner because she was large and new. My husband loved the ship so he wants to stick with it and just do the Western Caribbean. I wanted to venture a little more and go on a different ship. AOS is definitely port intensive. I believe they only have one sea day. We had 3 on the Mariner (Eastern) - which we liked. We are beach people and aren't much for the tours on the ship. I compiled so much information on here last year that I knew which beaches we wanted to go to before we left. My kids also heard there was a slide on the AOS so you know they are pushing to go on that one! I'm just worried about the flight to PR...definitely longer and more expensive (we are planning to travel during Easter next April). I don't think we can go wrong with either one. Thanks for your input. :)

 

Our southern itinerary has 2 sea days :)