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? about cruising with kids


Taylan

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If anyone could help me with this question, I'd much appreciate it! My DH and I are planning a cruise next spring with our two kids, who will be 8 and 9. We are looking at either Royal Caribbean for 11 days Hawaiian or Carnival for 15 days Hawaiian. As it's during the school year, is one better than the other for having kids on board? I don't want them to be bored with no friends to play with. We have never been on these cruiselines before so we aren't sure what to pick! Thanks!

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If anyone could help me with this question, I'd much appreciate it! My DH and I are planning a cruise next spring with our two kids, who will be 8 and 9. We are looking at either Royal Caribbean for 11 days Hawaiian or Carnival for 15 days Hawaiian. As it's during the school year, is one better than the other for having kids on board? I don't want them to be bored with no friends to play with. We have never been on these cruiselines before so we aren't sure what to pick! Thanks!

Unless the kids are "home schooled" I do not think there will be many on board. Not too many parents pull their children out of school for 2 weeks and most adults take the long cruises knowing there will be very few children. (I find this to be MY experience in cruising).

 

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Well, during school year automatically reduces the number of kids on board. Also, usually the longer the cruise, the fewer the number of kids. With that said, there will surely be far fewer kids than normal. I think you should just pick which cruise sounds better to you. You may have to spend more time "entertaining" your kids than normal, might not be a bad thing?

Sounds like two great options, enjoy your cruise.

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Hmmm, I had a sneaking suspicion about that. Outside of the 'fewer kids phenomenon', which cruiseline would you guys say is better for the kiddies?

I think either one would be fine. They both have great childrens programs. :o

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Yup, what they all said...

 

Two years ago the wife and I did a 2 week cruise in October from California to Hawaii and back, and according to staff I talked to, there were a whopping 8 kiddos on board. Two I met were foreign and spoke limited english (home schooled or different school vacations?), and at least 3 were still in diapers, so not much use to your active teen / pre-teen crowd. At 50ish, my wife and I were youngsters on board, as the average passenger age was 65. We loved the cruise, but doubt if any of our boys would have been to excited about it in their pre-teen years.

 

We were on Princess, though, which would tilt it even further from the youthful crowd than RC or Carny, which you are looking into.

 

Doug

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Thanks so much everyone. I'm spoiled with very independent confident kids who can entertain themselves. From what I've read, I have a feeling Carnival may be the better fit for them even though the cruise is longer. I've got a tough decision to make! :)

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You should also compare amenities outside of the kid's clubs on each ship from you children's point of view. Number of pools, kid's pool area, climbing walls, ropes courses, water slides. Do a side by side ship comparison with your children and let them give you their opinions.

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My oldest was that age when we sailed on RCCL, my youngest was (just) 10 when we were on Carnival recently.

 

We went on an off week (1st week of December) but it was only a 7 day. There were over 300 kids on the Carnival cruise. We went in July on RCCL and yeah.... never again for us (just to many people!!).

 

Comparing the cruise lines for kids stuff, my kids still call the RCCL cruise the "one they hated" to be honest. We were on one of the bigger RCCL ships at the time with a lot of bells and whistles (ice skating, rock walls, floriders, kids splash zone) and the Carnival Legend which really doesn't have anything on it.

 

My kids would pick Carnival any day for their kids program over RCCL.

 

That being said I understand how you feel. My kids are older and we have scheduled an 11 day over Thanksgiving 2013 at the moment. I am sure there will be more kids at this time in general vs a normal in school time longer cruise, but we know there will be less than the summer/spring. My kids were fully expecting to have very few other kids on our last cruise and it turned out to be over 300!

 

I think no matter how people say anymore there will be less kids during the school year, home schooling is becoming VERY popular! We live in a city of less than 500,000. Not a big city, but it's not a tiny one at all. My oldest is cyber schooled and had to take the state assessment tests this year. They had 4 locations to take them in, the one we went to, had over 200 kids. That was twice the size of my graduating HS class and we still live in the same area if that gives any indication of how much home/cyber school is effecting things!

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