Spring Break vs. Summer for Family Cruising?

[Ccarroll1100]

Well I live in Texas and the water was ok for us in March.

 

 

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[reallyitsmema]

College spring breaks tend to be early March...some can extend to late March.

 

School spring breaks tend to be 3rd and 4th week of March to mid-April.

 

We have done 4 Spring Break cruises with my school aged kids as that is what works for our school and sport schedules. There are many multi-generational families on board. You can find a group of partiers (IMO they are typically adults) on any cruise which is why we tend to hang out near the kids pool. There will be a ton of kids on board and they travel in packs. I can see why this would be annoying to people without kids but for those of us with kids we think its great.

 

If you google college spring break, you can find when the worst weeks are each year. For 2018, it is the week of 3/10 and 3/17. There are some schools out the weeks before and the two weeks after, but the bulk is those two weeks. There is a TA website that puts numbers to it and they are in the millions.

 

Breaks for younger kids are harder to pinpoint since some schools get one week in March and other schools get a week in February and a second week in April. Some schools get a lot of time off around Easter too. The weeks that are always full of younger kids though are the week that includes President's Day in February, the week that includes Patriots Day in April and also Jersey week in November.

[CP3o]

I have never had a problem on the March cruises in 3rd or 4th week when most colleges are not having spring break.

 

Even if there were some college tour groups organizing a 7 night cruise, they would more likely book a Carnival or NCL Dawn more affordable ship out of Tampa or Port Canaveral.

 

If Palm Beach, Broward and/or Dade schools are off for Spring break, expect many kids under 18 but not college kids unless random few from oos cruising with their parents.

[renza]

I live in palm beach. We always cruise in March and June. I take my boys on a cruise every spring break, this year my one son is in college so we are going first week in March my 15 yr old will stay home with dad for school. We also are going may 31 on anthem this year. All of us. I have never found it crazy with spring breakers because we always take a 7 nighter. Either way is fine. We r going to try msc in March on new ship. Will see

 

 

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[ronandcarla]

We have been on two separate cruises during the "Spring Break" period and had wonderful times being around and amongst them; i.e., manners toward us, during the pool side activities, yes that be quite an eyesight, and for all of the dress requirement police hereon in our opinion most all of them are the best dressed people in the dining rooms and other venues.

 

We wouldn't hesitate to go during that period and also they add a lot of life to the atmosphere.

[elaineb]

As a side question...is there a way to find out when 'spring break' falls? Or does it totally vary by location/school? We are Canadian so March break is a specific week (usually around March 10th)

 

It varies. Besides Christmas week, the Northest states - New England & usually New York & New Jersey have the 3rd week off in February and then the 3rd week off in April. This is for Elementary & High School. Colleges are usually throughout March, and it varies college to college.

[cruiser123!]

In my very small amount of experience, it seems to matter where you port out of. I went on a spring break cruise last year out of Honolulu(7 day Hawaii on NCL). Very few kids and I don’t recall a single drunken college kid. I went summer out of Tampa and there were drunk people everywhere (7 day West Car on Carnival in ‘02).

 

I’m going spring break again this year out of San Juan. Hopefully it won’t be too bad. Planning a June ‘19 with a large group out of Miami. That one worries me.

[jamesr3939]

We have done two Carnival "spring break" cruises out of Galveston and never had an issue. I would avoid a 3-4 day cruise, but I don't think you will have a huge "party" issue on a seven day. I would base my decision on all the other factors and not just because it's spring break, which really is about six weeks long.

[maryjaden]

We have cruised (7 days) as a large family (15+) during the week of Easter a few times as well as during the summer. There were more college students on board during Easter but I can't say we saw any terribly out of control, drunk people on the Easter cruises than other times and we didn't see many. The main difference for us is the cost of the flights were more expensive during the Easter cruises. My personal preference is to cruise during the months of Oct-April only because we come from a cold weather state.

[rukkian]

We have cruised (7 days) as a large family (15+) during the week of Easter a few times as well as during the summer. There were more college students on board during Easter but I can't say we saw any terribly out of control, drunk people on the Easter cruises than other times and we didn't see many. The main difference for us is the cost of the flights were more expensive during the Easter cruises. My personal preference is to cruise during the months of Oct-April only because we come from a cold weather state.

 

Same here - we do not want to go to the Caribbean during the summer, as our weather is decent then. While flights are probably cheaper during the summer, we decided to go during spring break (early march).

[holden0301]

It's interesting to read all of the different spring breaks. Ours here in the Philadelphia area always starts the Wednesday before Easter and extends through Easter Monday. Kids go back to school the Tuesday after Easter. Easter varies from year to year; so does our spring break.

 

We also lose spring break to snow makeup days if necessary, except for the Friday before Easter (Good Friday).

[OCruisers]

Early June could work out quite well for you! :D

[rukkian]

It's interesting to read all of the different spring breaks. Ours here in the Philadelphia area always starts the Wednesday before Easter and extends through Easter Monday. Kids go back to school the Tuesday after Easter. Easter varies from year to year; so does our spring break.

 

We also lose spring break to snow makeup days if necessary, except for the Friday before Easter (Good Friday).

 

I have no clue what determines spring break, but it always seems to be around the 2nd week or march for us, and it always matches the community college as there are lots of high school kids that attend some classes there. I would suspect they no longer have it revolving around Easter as an over reaction to somebody complaining about time off due to religious holiday, but I could be wrong.