What was your Christmas Eve like onboard?

[Ladydee]

Greetings, Cruisers!

 

We are going on our first Christmas Cruise aboard the Serenade of the Seas, and I am giving some thought as to how we can integrate this new experience with our own Christmas personality. There will be 11 of us in all, and we are a fairly traditional Italian family. For us, Christmas Eve is the big day, more so than Christmas Day - big fish dinner, full gift exchange, etc.

 

So far, we've talked about doing a grabbag (which we've never done), bringing small, packable gifts with us, and then hopefully finding some spot on the ship where we'd be able to park ourselves with a cocktail and open presents. I have no idea how feasible this is, however.

 

I'd love to hear from past cruisers, what you did, and how your family spent Christmas Eve!

[rkacruiser]

Christmas Eve on the Prinsendam:

 

We were in port at St. Barthelemy for the day, so there might have been more Christmas-oriented activities if it had been a sea day.

 

Throughout the day, there were 3 shows of the movie "White Christmas".

 

Lots of holiday music throughout the ship including some at Happy Hour time and pre-dinner cocktail times. Of course, the ship was festively decorated and crew and guests were in a very pleasant mood.

 

In the evening, a Gala dinner with a special menu in the dining room.

 

There was a regular evening entertainer, but the real Christmas Eve activities began at 11:00 P. M. The Sounds of Christmas Concert was held. This is a HAL tradition as each of the indvidual nationalities of crew, i.e. Indonesian, Filipino, formed choirs to sing traditional carols and holiday songs, most in their native tongue. There was even a chorus of Officers of the ship as well. At the end of the program, the Captain gave a very approrpiate speech that provided a fitting end to the program. Midnight Mass as well as an Interdenominational Service began at Midnight.

 

My traveling companion and I had agreed to forego exchanging gifts this year, but had we done so, that would have taken place in our stateroom on Christmas morning.

 

On a ship the size of Serenade of the Seas, I would think one would be able to find a good place for your family to gather for such an activity. Also, I imagine Royal Caribbean has their own Christmas Eve/Day usual schedule. Asking your question on the Royal Caribbean Board ought to produce a more specific answer to your question.

 

This was my 2nd Christmas at sea celebration and it was just as memorable and fun as my first! Enjoy!

[sbbquilter]

We have had wonderful Christmas Eve time with our much smaller family. Instead of packing gifts each of us had $15 to spend on a gift we found during the cruise - was lots of fun. The dinner in the main dining room was lovely with traditional items of both meat and fish. There was carol singing in the Centrum and a gift on our beds. Enjoy the family time.

[Quilting_Cruiser]

My family has done two cruises over the holidays. I brought along a small tree and window clings to decorate the cabin. We had a battery-operated lighted sign that said "Santa, stop here!" on it. I made sure my daughter knew that Santa could bring anything on the ship but that Mama had to get it home, so her gift list had only small items on it. LOL. We ordered milk and cookies from room service (something they said they'd been delivering a lot that evening). Other than the gifts from Santa, we did all our Christmas shopping on the cruise, so that made shopping in port a lot of fun. :D

 

I saw a number of family groups on Christmas morning in public areas off in corners opening gifts together. It was really quite fun to observe. We opened ours in the cabin on Christmas Eve.

[rkacruiser]

Quilting Cruiser jogged my memory: thank you!

 

From Ship Services, I ordered an 18 inch decorated and lighted Christmas Tree to be delivered to our stateroom and am surely glad that I did. It added the proper Christmas note to our "home" for the cruise and I took it home with me at the end of the cruise to enjoy in the future.

 

If this is possible on Royal Caribbean, I would recommend it!

[Quilting_Cruiser]

Quilting Cruiser jogged my memory: thank you!

 

That was my plan ;);)

[Ladydee]

Thank you so much for sharing your sweet memories! I'm enjoying them very much :)

[Cruisin' Chick]

Our last three cruises were during the holidays on two week Princess cruises to Hawaii. Either Christmas Eve or Day was a formal dinner as was New Years Eve. On the first of these, Hanukkah fell during the cruise and we put up a sticky foam menorah by our in-cabin TV. One lounge held candle lighting festivities (we left our regular one at home) and the retired rabbi leading the service invited the kids in the room to come up and help him light the candles.

 

Princess has various Christmas type activities in the piazza, including a crew choir singing carols while "snow" falls down (not sure if this is still happening every year). Our head waiter on the last cruise passed out boxes of candy canes to each kid and each cabin got a tiny stocking that was stuffed with candy. On one of our cruises, each diner in the MDR was given a cracker that had a paper hat and the other items found in them (fortunately we had a British couple at our table who showed us how what to do with the cracker).

 

We were in Maui on Christmas the last cruise and when we returned to the ship, we could see Santa on a tender leaving the ship. He presented each kid with a toy (my girl was 15 on that cruise so she didn't bother). I had done some research and found out that Whalers Village (an outdoors shopping center) would be open that day so we took a taxi.

 

New Years Eve would feature a party in the Piazza with a live band, countdown, streamers. At dinner, you can get a tiara or top hat to wear and many of the crew members would sport these too.

[wheezedr]

Have never done Xmas but did New Years on HA in the caribbean a few years back. cruise was good. New Years eve was of course a formal night and a good time was had by all with one exception. we were doing anytime dining as apparently was everyone else that night. Since we all wanted to stay up until the ball dropped most people opted to eat late. Waited over an hour in line even with reservations. Upside is that everyone was drinking and in a party atmosphere but dinner was a mess.

[4x4bob]

A few years ago we gifted our Daughter and her family a Christmas Cruise on a RCI ship.

 

We packed a small Christmas tree with lights and small presents for everyone that we handed out in our Cabin.

 

Our two grand daughters volunteered to go on stage for the Christmas show in the ship theater. Picture two little red headed girls wearing their plaid Christmas dresses dancing on stage with Santa Clause and a Purple Dinosaur named Barney.

 

Great fun had by all.

 

Bob

[rkacruiser]

As wheezedr said, HAL does New Year's Eve right! Lots of great music in the Ocean Bar with Piano music in the Crow's Nest who wanted a more sedate celebration, I suppose. The main celebration took place in the Showroom at Sea (remember I was aboard Prinsendam) with more music, dancing, free champagne, count down as Midnight approaches with a balloon drop as the band played. We were in Atlantic Standard Time zone at Midnight, thus, the party moved back to the Ocean Bar where a big screen TV had been set up. More music and dancing while we watched the celebration at Times Square and celebrated the arrival of 2016 once more at Midnight, EST.