Why do cruise lines not check school holidays when planning itineraries?

[tactic]

Bit of a rhetorical question really.... Looking to plan our holidays for next year. There are very few cruises which tie in with Christmas, Easter and half term holidays in the UK. Most schools follow the same patterns for holidays might be useful if someone involved in planning itineraries took these dates into consideration. People with children ought to be tied to these dates and those with or without children who work in education definitely are, yet it seems that a huge customer base is being missed here. Spent time today searching for something to fit in with dates yet a lot of cruises sail on the last day of term or return after term starts :(

 

Perhaps if someone from cruise lines reads this it might be taken into consideration for future years. Looks like my half terms are not going to be spent at sea next year!

[Velvetwater]

Bit of a rhetorical question really.... Looking to plan our holidays for next year. There are very few cruises which tie in with Christmas, Easter and half term holidays in the UK. Most schools follow the same patterns for holidays might be useful if someone involved in planning itineraries took these dates into consideration. People with children ought to be tied to these dates and those with or without children who work in education definitely are, yet it seems that a huge customer base is being missed here. Spent time today searching for something to fit in with dates yet a lot of cruises sail on the last day of term or return after term starts :(

 

Perhaps if someone from cruise lines reads this it might be taken into consideration for future years. Looks like my half terms are not going to be spent at sea next year!

 

US holidays depend on state and European schools differ from country to country. I am imagining P and O and Thompson do give some consideration as they are the only targeted at the UK market.

 

I guess the UK is a small part of the cruise market as a whole.

 

As a teacher I cruise during the summer but have found lots of 7 days that tie in with Easter/Christmas especially in the Caribbean. Longer itineraries by the logic of maths are harder to fit into a 2 week slot.

Edited May 29, 2014 by Velvetwater

[JustinPlusLauren]

I think that school holidays can vary between regions - I think that school holidays can be different here in parts of Canada than the USA so it would be hard to organize ones that would make everyone happy. But yes that is frustrating for you! Sorry to hear that.

 

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[gooch47]

School holidays can vary even between school districts within a small geographical area (suburb by suburb).

[Mouikey]

I also find that school holidays vary depending on the county or whether you go to a private or state school!

[Alliezona09]

Very hard for cruise lines to plan itineraries around schools and colleges around them due to the fact they are all different~ example, college spring breaks can be anywhere from March 1-April 15. My kids are already out of school for the summer, have been for a week and they go back August 6. Other states are in till mid June and go back after Labor day.

 

Imagine how long it would take cruise lines to research every school district in the country?!! :eek:

Edited May 29, 2014 by Alliezona09

[rvsullivan]

Since cruisers come from around the world, how would they manage? The U.S. has at least a dozen or more different sets of dates for spring break. Every school district in the U.S. sets their own. There is no central coordination point for school spring breaks.

Up to the parents to coordinate. It's all about choices, take them out of school, use different ports etc. Seems to me that July and August work for more than any other time frames world wide.

[tactic]

It wasn't my intention to change the world, it was more me venting frustration....

 

I've had a typical girls nightmare, shop with money in your pocket and you see nothing to buy, shop without money and you see lots to buy....

 

A day wasted. Think I should get hubby to plan holidays in future as he us getting an easy life!! ;)

[Warm Breezes]

I have one child in a local university and the other at our local high school. Their breaks are not the same at all. For examples DS's Spring Break was the first week of March. DD's Spring Break was the first week of April. DS gets out for summer a whole month + before DD does and goes back to school a week before she does. All their other vacations have similar differences. That's just the differences for our family....imagine trying to plan that for the whole world :eek:. Impossible.

[beachbum53]

It wasn't my intention to change the world, it was more me venting frustration....

 

I've had a typical girls nightmare, shop with money in your pocket and you see nothing to buy, shop without money and you see lots to buy....

 

A day wasted. Think I should get hubby to plan holidays in future as he us getting an easy life!! ;)

 

Rather than get frustrated about what's NOT available when you're able to go on a cruise, make the best choices you can based on what IS available. Even with a less than stellar itinerary, you still don't have to cook, clean, make youir bed, or do any other domestic chores while on a cruise. How can you beat that?

Edited May 29, 2014 by beachbum53

[Velvetwater]

Just a quick note for the US readers of this post

 

All over England the school holidays generally start and finish at exactly the same time (give or take a few days...with odd occasion being a week out). As a teacher who trained with various other teachers that work all over the country we pretty much all finish on the same days year by year.

 

Other parts of the UK are very very similar as well.

 

 

OP, have you tried Carnival? They do 5-7 day Caribbean routes and almost every ship has a journey that falls with Christmas and Easter break next year.

[tartanexile81]

Just a quick note for the US readers of this post

 

All over England the school holidays generally start and finish at exactly the same time (give or take a few days...with odd occasion being a week out). As a teacher who trained with various other teachers that work all over the country we pretty much all finish on the same days year by year.

 

Other parts of the UK are very very similar as well.

 

I used to teach in Yorkshire and I was able to cruise every holiday I chose to. As others have said, British lines are the best option. P&O seems still to offer cruises to fit in with school holidays at Christmas, Easter and Summer. However, the Scottish holidays are entirely different: for example the Summer term in our Local Authority ends on June 28th and schools start again mid-August so another conundrum for cruise lines.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

School holidays can vary between regions

[SteveH2508]

NCL Jade from Rome sails 23rd Dec 2014 for 11 days. Fits the holiday perfectly - I am constrained by College term dates as well.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thanksgiving and Christmas are very popular holidays here in the states and there are tons of itineraries for families during that time.

As for "half term" holidays -- many districts here in the states do not have things like that.

Many schools do have Easter and spring breaks and many don't. Where we live many districts do not have spring breaks --colleges vary. As for Easter -- some districts get Thursday, Friday and Monday off. But this year we had so much snow that in our area some of the districts only got Easter Friday off. Some districts had to go a couple of Saturdays. Normally the district where we live, the school year ends around June 5 -- not this year -- they will go through June 11. Each district is different. Each state is different.

The cruise lines could not make itineraries to suit everyone.

[cb at sea]

Lol! What an idea! The cruiselines know that folks will book no matter what....they don't care about school holidays...not that they could if they wanted to!

 

Even schools within the same state have different "break" times.....there's simply no way to do that.

[marco]

Other then the month of July and pretty much the Christmas/New Year break, not everyone has the same vacation period. Some schools in the southern US end early May and resume early August. Most northern schools end end of June and resume early Sept. Even within the same state, some districts have a week off in Feb and a week in April (not same weeks) and some have just a week in March (again, not the same weeks). The only cruises that "works" for folks with children or work in education is one scheduled for the week you have off and there are virtually none that are longer then 7 days that would fit anyone's vacation schedule. And even if they did, lets say the Christmas/New Years break was a Wednesday to a Monday and a line scheduled a cruise specifically to accommodate this time span and the ship normally sailed a 7 day Sat to Sat itinerary. What does the ship do Sat to Tuesday and then Monday to Sat? Much to convoluted. Like I said, you'd just have to pick a cruise that fits into YOUR schedule.

[donnatello]

Just wondering.....was the intent of the OP with this question to accommodate folks with kids or work in the education field or to specifically AVOID cruises during school vacation periods?!?!?!?!?!

[BruceMuzz]

It wasn't my intention to change the world, it was more me venting frustration....

 

I've had a typical girls nightmare, shop with money in your pocket and you see nothing to buy, shop without money and you see lots to buy....

 

A day wasted. Think I should get hubby to plan holidays in future as he us getting an easy life!! ;)

 

You did make the mistake in thinking that cruise lines want more children - and their parents - to take a cruise. Except in a very few rare cases (like Disney) we do not.

 

Children cannot gamble or drink alcohol.

Children rarely go on expensive excursions.

Children rarely make spa appointments.

Children do not purchase jewelry.

Their parents spent all their money on the children and school, so have very little left to spend onboard.

The parents often cannot afford to tip for the children, claiming that the children are no bother for the staff and make their jobs easier (exactly the opposite of reality).

Children often bother the passengers who do spend money on our ships, chasing them away.

[Laurie S.]

Why in the world would cruiselines schedule around school holidays? That makes no sense, they're businesses, not educational facilities.

[bearette]

I'm sorry I laughed when I saw this. As a teacher myself it is frustrating when a cruise I want is a day or two off my break, but I make do as I am not their only target audience.

 

For example school districts in my area all had drastically different Christmas breaks ( or winter breaks as we call them.) Mine had our last day December 13. My sister in laws got out December 20 and my local school districts was out that day but they returned a week apart in January. That is within 25 miles of me so looking globally you will see that the similar UK holidays are a minor portion of the many school schedules across the state's and other countries. I doubt they look at any school calendar expect maybe the captains children's school.

 

They will near make everyone happy so they use what works better for them financially and to keep their businesses partners happy.

 

We have to adapt to them.

[Dayenu]

Bit of a rhetorical question really.... Looking to plan our holidays for next year. There are very few cruises which tie in with Christmas, Easter and half term holidays in the UK. Most schools follow the same patterns for holidays might be useful if someone involved in planning itineraries took these dates into consideration. People with children ought to be tied to these dates and those with or without children who work in education definitely are, yet it seems that a huge customer base is being missed here. Spent time today searching for something to fit in with dates yet a lot of cruises sail on the last day of term or return after term starts :(

 

Perhaps if someone from cruise lines reads this it might be taken into consideration for future years. Looks like my half terms are not going to be spent at sea next year!

 

Alcohol is a huge part of income for cruise lines. Children don't drink, and parents with children present drink less.

[Cruisin' Chick]

My kid's school district (the second largest in the US) always schedules the week leading to Easter off for spring break (even some 40-50 years ago:eek: when I was a kid, Los Angeles schools always followed this) while the Catholic schools take the following week off. But I'm guessing other school districts schedule their spring break differently.

 

We don't have snow days here so it's easily to plan an early summer vacation if the kids don't have other obligations (summer school, sports). But a few years ago, the school system decided to start the school year in mid-August rather than after Labor Day. Which is a royal pain here where I live because we WILL have temperatures over 100 for several days between August and mid-September (and sometimes warm weather lasts til October). First they had the high schools in just the Valley make the change -- as I said, we're the hottest part of the city of LA at that time of year.

The next year, it was going to be all schools in the district. But after announcing that (which meant a shortened summer for many schools), it was announced that they had to delay this for for complex budgetary reasons. But the announcement wasn't that clear so I had to write to my board of education member to find out if my high schooler to be was going to be affected or not. And I bet it caused a lot of havoc in houses with kids who would be still on the September to June plan and on the August to May plan.

 

Thanksgiving week was also a major struggle to find out how many days each kid in your family was getting off. There were furlough days (again, major budget crisis) and then those were removed. Very chaotic trying to figure out what the real schedule was.

 

Fortunately we've been able to take our last three cruises during the holidays (late December) and those were all two-week cruises.

[sail7seas]

You did make the mistake in thinking that cruise lines want more children - and their parents - to take a cruise. Except in a very few rare cases (like Disney) we do not.

 

Children cannot gamble or drink alcohol.

Children rarely go on expensive excursions.

Children rarely make spa appointments.

Children do not purchase jewelry.

Their parents spent all their money on the children and school, so have very little left to spend onboard.

The parents often cannot afford to tip for the children, claiming that the children are no bother for the staff and make their jobs easier (exactly the opposite of reality).

Children often bother the passengers who do spend money on our ships, chasing them away.

 

 

A rather complete and rational answer to the question.

 

Sure makes sense to me. :)

 

[dsrdsrdsr]

Alcohol is a huge part of income for cruise lines. Children don't drink, and parents with children present drink less.

Children do drink, just not alcohol; and soft drinks make pretty near as much profit as alcoholic ones on British lines. Beer etc. is less than half the price the American lines charge. (Gambling isn't a big earner, either. There are enough places to gamble in the UK that people don't make it the raison d'etre for cruising.)