Am I the only one that didn't know not to book a March cruise?

[LiseD]

Wow....just back from a 4 night Bahamas cruise and at 52 years old, I had to be the oldest person on this ship! It was full of drunk 20 year olds. Is it just the shorter cruises that are this wild? Not sure I would ever book a March cruise again!

[lordchaos]

the shorter cruises always attract a younger crowd, i am assuming because they are cheaper. and on top of that, you went during spring break, so double whammy.

[EVALUATOR]

Wow....just back from a 4 night Bahamas cruise and at 52 years old, I had to be the oldest person on this ship! It was full of drunk 20 year olds. Is it just the shorter cruises that are this wild? Not sure I would ever book a March cruise again!

 

Book one of the longer 10/11 nighters in the fall. At 52 you might be the youngest on the cruise.:eek:

[reallyitsmema]

Many college kids on spring break during March. Earlier weeks in the month are worse as far as volumes of students out but this past week there were still many schools on spring break. Book a longer cruise next time, that does help.

[temple1]

Book the end of March and most of April and it will be elementary to high school.

[beachlovnlabtech]

We made the same mistake last March - had no clue it was spring break that 1st week of March and oh boy ! :eek: Never again will we cruise during spring break.

[TheDailyMel]

We did a cruise to Alaska last July and there were TONS of kids on the ship. At least they were young kids though, not drunken Spring Breakers. ;) Our next cruise is a 16-night transatlantic next April leaving out of Ft. Lauderdale. I'm actually kind of looking forward to the fact that means there'll likely be very few young kids on it since it's such a long cruise and is during the school year. I'll be 50 by the time we cruise and figure there's a good chance I'll be one of the younger cruisers. My BFF that I'm cruising with will be 38, so at least I won't be THE youngest guest. LOL

[Dharma517]

I am sure your are not the only one! So sorry that no one thought to warn you!

[rrodriquez2]

Wow....just back from a 4 night Bahamas cruise and at 52 years old, I had to be the oldest person on this ship! It was full of drunk 20 year olds. Is it just the shorter cruises that are this wild? Not sure I would ever book a March cruise again!

 

The shorter cruises are normally the targets for the spring breakers but rest assured we ran into it two weeks ago on the Indy on a 6 night as well.

 

I've done March cruises before with no problem. I won't book another March cruise with RCCL after this one as they seem to be party central with the ability to stuff underage drinkers in with 21 year olds (unlike other lines).

[Cruising89143]

We ran into this on a seven night Carnival cruise so it's not limited to RCI as some would like for you to think. ;)If you choose to cruise with Carnival, NCL or RCI during this time of year you are taking your chances. We were on Celebrity for a seven night cruise this month and no issues.

[kingsgirl]

I hate to sound like the RCI cheerleaders I so annoy at times, but seriously, your trip is what you make it. We had a lot of spring breakers who called the cruise the "booze cruise" and we still had a great time.

 

They were loud and sometimes obnoxious, but you know what else? They mingled with other cruisers - SMALL KIDS EVEN - who wanted to join in the activities too.

[Langley Cruisers]

Book one of the longer 10/11 nighters in the fall. At 52 you might be the youngest on the cruise.:eek:

 

 

Haha, very true indeed! LOL

[Paul65]

Nobody cruises in March - it's too crowded. :D

[reallyitsmema]

Wow....just back from a 4 night Bahamas cruise and at 52 years old, I had to be the oldest person on this ship! It was full of drunk 20 year olds. Is it just the shorter cruises that are this wild? Not sure I would ever book a March cruise again!

Ok, now I am confused. From your prior posts, you have two college students, were cruising with one of them, talked about spring breaks and crowds on your roll call and now didn't know it would be full of young college kids?

[KuffMUp]

From reading the boards, I think the month of March is not good for a short trip. You will undoubtedly find college binge drinkers. I took a huge chance and booked Majesty for a short weekend trip since we hadn't had a vacation in a while. I went into it thinking it would be a party boat. Yes, there were younger passengers because, well, it is a weekend. They were all, while appearing intoxicated, were not loud (ok a little) but I have to say I was really, really pleasantly suprised. I think I would stay away from most any ship during spring break after reading these boards.

[fletch1027]

Wow....just back from a 4 night Bahamas cruise and at 52 years old, I had to be the oldest person on this ship! It was full of drunk 20 year olds. Is it just the shorter cruises that are this wild? Not sure I would ever book a March cruise again!

 

We were on Freedom last week and I saw 0 groups of college kids on spring break. By contrast, we saw TONS of them on our drive from Georgia to Florida, so they were in the area, just not cruising on the Freedom.

 

Also, there were not very many groups of families, but the ones we did see all seemed well behaved and there weren't any groups of kids running loose like I had read discussed on other threads.

 

Like other posters have commented, I think the college spring breakers tend to cruise on the less expensive 3-4 night cruises. Either that or there are more beaches and other options in Florida to compete against a 7 night cruise...

[LiseD]

RC was promoting the spring break atmosphere......lots of parties for them...loud music and they seemed to ignore all the alcohol abuse. The 21 year olds were buying unlimited drink cards and then giving (or we even saw one boy selling) drinks to the underage kids!

[Nvtitan89]

If you're a CC member, yes you should have known what to expect.

[MommaBear55]

Book one of the longer 10/11 nighters in the fall. At 52 you might be the youngest on the cruise.:eek:

 

Too true! My husband and I (64 and 57) went on a fall 14 day repositioning and were definitely among the youngest cruisers. I am sorry you were caught up in the spring break crowd. It would be my definition of hell.

[Nvtitan89]

Ok, now I am confused. From your prior posts, you have two college students, were cruising with one of them, talked about spring breaks and crowds on your roll call and now didn't know it would be full of young college kids?

 

Yes this peaks my interest as well

[RealDeal]

Ugh...this is exactly why I never cruise in March...and almost never in the summer except for Alaska only in early June!

[rrodriquez2]

RC was promoting the spring break atmosphere......lots of parties for them...loud music and they seemed to ignore all the alcohol abuse. The 21 year olds were buying unlimited drink cards and then giving (or we even saw one boy selling) drinks to the underage kids!

 

People get confused between you cruising with people around college aged, and all college aged kids wanting to get smashed all week.

 

I've said it before, if RCCL doesn't figure out how to administer the drinking packages while maintaining some basic drinking age enforcement cruising for anyone not in a fraternity or sorority in March is going to be tenuous at best.

 

We saw the handing off of drinks all week long too. The kids were talking about it pretty much everywhere. Heck I'd do it if I were that age it was so easy.

[LiseD]

I did have a 19 yo with me and stupid me....of course she was on break....I just didn't think about that everyone else was on break too. She was just as horrified as I was by the behavior of the kids on this boat. It truly would break your heart if you are a parent to see kids acting like this. We have always seen families on cruises....never thought there would be almost a full ship of college kids traveling without their families!

[Nvtitan89]

I did have a 19 yo with me and stupid me....of course she was on break....I just didn't think about that everyone else was on break too. She was just as horrified as I was by the behavior of the kids on this boat. It truly would break your heart if you are a parent to see kids acting like this. We have always seen families on cruises....never thought there would be almost a full ship of college kids traveling without their families!

 

I'm sure she was just horrified :rolleyes:.

 

And no, a lot of us parents wouldn't because we had wild spring breaks too. Not everybody is born 50 years old ;)

[The Sunset Glow]

In Canada spring break can run anywhere from mid February to early April for the universities/colleges and they seem to be really spread out as to when they take it each year. School age kids tend to have their spring breaks between mid March to early April.

 

By the sounds of things it seems like spring break in the US is more concentrated in all of March??? We were thinking of booking an 8 night cruise out of FLL for March 2, 2014 - would this be a wise choice if we want to avoid the 20 something partiers?:confused: