Least Amount of Kids

[acadran]

What weeks would you find the least number of kids on a Disney cruise?

The obvious answer is any week when school-aged kids are not on vacation. That said, has anyone experienced a time when there was a low number of kids on a Disney cruise? We'd love to try Disney but since my husband is a school principal---and we love kids---- we take cruises to get away from it all. We found early to mid-January on other cruise lines there are few kids. Also the 8-day cruises.

[cb at sea]

The longer the trip, the fewer the kids...especially, during school in session times.

[moki'smommy]

The fewest kids are on the longest cruises, but even that is increasing. A few years ago the trans-Atlantic had 400 kids age 0-17. The next year it was up to 600. Normal for the Magic is 1000-1200.

 

What you will also find is that the age groups vary. If you go in early September or January, you'll find large numbers of pre-schoolers. When President's "week" hits, suddenly the teen population explodes. So you can be on the ship with 1000 kids and basically not see them if it is a time when the school aged kids are few and far between. Pre-schoolers don't run around the ship without mom or dad. 10s-17s are all over the place!

 

There are always "non-traditional" schools, people who educate their children at home, etc. who are on atypical schedules, but the numbers seriously explode at times when the "normal" schools have breaks.

[ljandgb]

We were on the Magic this summer on a sold out cruise. I don't know how many kids were on it, but several of us made the comment that it just didn't seem like there were tons of kids running around. It was our first DCL cruise and we expected to see more kids.

 

This was Northern Europe, and too cold for the pool for most people, so maybe we'd have seen more kids if it was pool weather.

 

Maybe someone else can comment if that was an usual cruise for numbers of kids?

[moki'smommy]

The European cruises do tend to have fewer kids.

 

The ship can sell out in one of 3 ways--number of cabins, number of people at a particular lifeboat station, or number of kids of a given age.

 

On the European cruises, it is always number of cabins, and lots of those cabins sail with only 2 guests each.

[kstetser]

We were on the Magic the first week of September 2013 out of NYC to Canada (5 night). There were only about 300 kids on board. I thought this would be a good thing....not so much. We booked last minute and all the Palo brunch reservations were taken and the adult areas were overrun with (many rude) adults. I'm sure for the folks traveling with kids, it was great because the kid areas were not crowded. So be careful what you wish for!

[moki'smommy]

We were on the Magic the first week of September 2013 out of NYC to Canada (5 night). There were only about 300 kids on board. I thought this would be a good thing....not so much. We booked last minute and all the Palo brunch reservations were taken and the adult areas were overrun with (many rude) adults. I'm sure for the folks traveling with kids, it was great because the kid areas were not crowded. So be careful what you wish for!

 

Yes, on cruises with fewer kids, the adult areas are more crowded. However, often the family areas are often empty and adults are welcome to use this space as well. Half of the Palo reservations are held for booking after boarding, but yes, they can fill up...especially on a shorter (5 night) cruise which will logically have fewer sea days. Palo brunch is only served on sea days.

 

My guess would be that this cruise had primarily preschool kids who would be hanging out in the Mickey Pool area. That leaves the Goofy Pool area relatively free.

[LuCruise]

If you're trying to avoid kids, then avoid a Disney cruise.

[Tonka's Skipper]

Really fewer kids on longer cruises and the times school is in session.

 

This is the same for any lines that cater to families.

 

AKK

[perditax]

We were on the Magic the first week of September 2013 out of NYC to Canada (5 night). There were only about 300 kids on board. I thought this would be a good thing....not so much. We booked last minute and all the Palo brunch reservations were taken and the adult areas were overrun with (many rude) adults. I'm sure for the folks traveling with kids, it was great because the kid areas were not crowded. So be careful what you wish for!

 

 

I started out worrying about this, but now I think what I will be getting is a lot of pre-school kids and a lot of homeschool families (know the latter for a fact from my own roll call). Effect this will have on the adult only areas remains undetermined. Week after next, Dream.

Edited September 2, 2015 by perditax

[monty913]

We sailed in mid September 2013-7 nights. I did not think the ship was overrun with kids. I do remember a lot of smaller kids-not school age yet. It was very easy to avoid the kids.

 

On a 4 night in December there were a lot more school age kids. I was very frustrated at them traipsing through the adult area.

[moki'smommy]

 

On a 4 night in December there were a lot more school age kids. I was very frustrated at them traipsing through the adult area.

 

This is my biggest gripe on DCL ships. They do not enforce the adult only areas on the pool deck as being "ADULT only." Kids go thru walking, running, shouting, skating (on those heelie shoes that are supposedly not allowed), and even with parents pushing strollers or holding hands. It is more difficult on the Dream and Fantasy where a number of concierge cabins basically enter on the adult only area--they could avoid it with a little effort, but there is no attempt to get them to do so.

 

We have seen them remove children from the adult pool, but that's the extent of enforcement. The bar tenders in the Cove Cafe don't want to anger customers (read that "potentially lose tips") by telling the to leave the Cove. And DCL doesn't seem to care that this irritates some adult only families or those adults who have chosen to deposit their offspring elsewhere.