Royal Princess - or - Serenade of the Seas with two young kids?

[jennymaxgirl]

Looking at 10-night southern carib itineraries for each in November 2015.

 

We definitely want the ship to be fun and exciting for the kids. Just being on a ship in itself will have some excitement, but which would you recommend?

 

The Royal Princess is newer and beautiful. The Serenade is older, but has a few more kids-oriented activities.

 

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Jennifer

[kitkat343]

I haven't sailed on the Royal Princess. I almost booked my Baltic cruise on the Royal Princess, but was concerned since the ship can't dock directly in Stockholm (this won't matter to you) and also there seemed to be mixed reviews about the effects of their design choice not to have an interior staircase throughout the center of the ship. From the reviews, it appeared that some cruisers experienced significant delays trying to get on a midship elevator (since on certain floors there are no stairs and everyone was forced on the elevators, even to go up or down a floor or two) but other cruisers did not feel that the elevators were overburdened on the ship and that they did not have a long wait time. With a child, long wait times on an elevator might be difficult, and I'd be more likely to book a cabin mid-aft (assuming the kids club is aft) in case I needed to walk to the back of the ship to utilize the elevators. You might also want to ask the princess forum if they generally find this to be an issue.

[Kerry's Girls]

How old are the kids? On Princess, you can take under-3s to the kids area and play with them there. I don't know if the Serenade has a program for under-3s, so that would make my choice if you're with young children.

 

Best,

Mia

[jennymaxgirl]

Kids will be 5 and 8 so no problem with the kids club. It might be a bit boring though if there are few, if any other, kids in there at the times they visit.

 

I guess you can't always have it all -the itinerary and the ship you want :)

 

Most of the entertaining ships with the kids on them seem to do the western carib milk run.

[cb at sea]

It's an either/or thing. Longer cruises during the school year will certainly have fewer kids...no matter the cruise line. But, there are always some, so they will have others to play with...no worries!