Tween Boy summer or TG week

[gusmom]

Hi. It's been about 15  years since we've cruised (darn!) & used different ID then. 

Looking for cruise options for family with 12 yr old boy this summer or Thanksgiving Week -- very curious, loves travel (we have Galapagos on our list next summer as it was too late to do economically this year, for example; & he's been to iceland, london, parts of canada, & 20 US States including Alaska). Has requested a 'big boat' so we are looking for ideas. 

Considering Panama Canal over TG week but have never done Princess & wonder if it will be too old for him.  Husband & I have always preferred Celebrity. 7-10 days. Ideally $1500 or less pp. 

Thoughts? Recommendations? Teen programs (at night mostly) or is he better off just staying with us? 

 

Thanks!

 

 

[RSLeesburg]

7 hours ago, gusmom said:

Hi. It's been about 15  years since we've cruised (darn!) & used different ID then. 

Looking for cruise options for family with 12 yr old boy this summer or Thanksgiving Week -- very curious, loves travel (we have Galapagos on our list next summer as it was too late to do economically this year, for example; & he's been to iceland, london, parts of canada, & 20 US States including Alaska). Has requested a 'big boat' so we are looking for ideas. 

Considering Panama Canal over TG week but have never done Princess & wonder if it will be too old for him.  Husband & I have always preferred Celebrity. 7-10 days. Ideally $1500 or less pp. 

Thoughts? Recommendations? Teen programs (at night mostly) or is he better off just staying with us? 

 

Thanks!

 

 

we were considering the partial PC over Christmas, and our TA told us that even over the holidays the cruise would be much older crowd. He talked us into Alaska, and it was the best recommendation ever.  Amazing location and cruise.  If your son wants a big ship, Royal has Allure in Europe this summer.  

[kitkat343]

We sailed on the 10 day roundtrip Panama Canal cruise with our then 2 year old in 2013.  There were only 11 children on our sailing, which left January 8th.  The kids club staff told me they were so happy we hadn't sailed on the previous sailing (which had the same itinerary but sailed over new years when kids were out of school) since there were 150 kids, and they didn't have time to help the children under the age of 3 in the kids club.  Princess allows children under 3 to attend the kids club with parental supervision, and on our sailing the staff spent a lot of time helping our child do arts and crafts and play with whatever he wanted.  My review in my signature line describes the independent excursions we took on our Panama Canal cruise, and it has a lot of really good destinations for kids (I think they cut Aruba, which is a bit unfortunate since that was beautiful).  You'd need to check what ship they use - in 2013, it was either the Coral/Island which I quite liked, but at least in 2013, there wasn't much on the actual ship for kids although the kids club is excellent so we didn't mind, and even sailed on the Coral twice - once in Alaska, and the second time to Panama.  And RSLeesburg is correct - Alaska is also a great destination for kids.  But I actually quite liked the Panama Canal cruise for children also, and you might want to try posting on the Princess forum to see if anyone has any firsthand experience with the number of kids on this cruise over a holiday.  

 

Oh, and in addition to the tours included in my review I didn't know prior to my cruise about one place that you might want to research - there is a sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica near Limon.

 

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by kitkat343

[gusmom]

17 hours ago, RSLeesburg said:

we were considering the partial PC over Christmas, and our TA told us that even over the holidays the cruise would be much older crowd. He talked us into Alaska, and it was the best recommendation ever.  Amazing location and cruise.  If your son wants a big ship, Royal has Allure in Europe this summer.  

Thanks!  Good problem to have —

Husband & I have done Alaska cruise and we all spent a week inland (Anchorage & Denali) a couple of years ago so it will probably be a while before we do a cruise there :-) 

[gusmom]

31 minutes ago, kitkat343 said:

We sailed on the 10 day roundtrip Panama Canal cruise with our then 2 year old in 2013. ...independent excursions we took on our Panama Canal cruise, and it has a lot of really good destinations for kids (I think they cut Aruba, which is a bit unfortunate since that was beautiful).  You'd need to check what ship they use - in 2013, it was either the Coral/Island which I quite liked, but at least in 2013, there wasn't much on the actual ship for kids although the kids club is excellent so we didn't mind, and even sailed on the Coral twice - once in Alaska, and the second time to Panama.  And RSLeesburg is correct - Alaska is also a great destination for kids.  But I actually quite liked the Panama Canal cruise for children also, and you might want to try posting on the Princess forum to see if anyone has any firsthand experience with the number of kids on this cruise over a holiday.  

 

Oh, and in addition to the tours included in my review I didn't know prior to my cruise about one place that you might want to research - there is a sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica near Limon.

 

 

Thanks! See above re Alaska. :-)

Our son is a science/engineering kid, & an only child so used to spending time with adults. But also loves the idea of a kids space to hang out a bit. It looks like they have a lot of new things in their renovated kids club so we will see. 

I will cross my fingers that there are more kids though TG will surely have fewer than that busy week because it does require missing a

couple of days of school. 

I will definitely post in the Princess group to find out more. 

I’m hoping he doesn’t love the sloth idea lol (they gross me out) but I’ll ask :-) 

[kitkat343]

Some people have had success calling cruise lines to ask about the number of children scheduled for their sailing.  The results have been quite uneven, with some some people being told the number and others told it can't be released due to confidentiality.  So I guess it's worth a shot to try.  

 

Also, you can post to the destination board for the Panama Canal, and maybe someone would know.  I think your son would love all the ports (he sounds like my oldest) but you're right that he'll enjoy it more with more kids.

 

[cb at sea]

There WILL be other kids on the cruise...there always are plenty!  All he'll need is a few kids to hang with...so I think he'll be fine!

[kitkat343]

GusMom - 

 

I forgot - our other cruises might also be good for your son.  If he likes science/engineering, maybe a Baltic cruise?  There were a ton of kids on our August cruise, and he might really like the engineering of the fountains of Peterhof (there's no electricity - they run on gravity), Vasa, the Nobel museum, and the air/space museum in tallin.  And I'm sure you could find more science/engineering things in those cities if you look, and the Baltic forum can help you.    My signature line has a review of this cruise, although my son was only 3.5 so there might be stuff your son would like we didn't focus on as much.

 

Also,  we loved Norway, but that's better if your son likes outdoor beauty.