Right Choice for Alaska Cruise with 10-year old

[Savviertravel]

Hubby and two sons went to Alaska a few years ago. We did the seven days on Norwegian with Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan, the Inside Passage and the Gulf of Alaska - loved it! Now we have decided to take the children, their mates and the grandson (will be ten then) in July 2021. We would really like to do a Denali and Yukon Cruisetour, starting and ending in Vancouver and hitting all of the ports and sites we saw before so everyone can see what we saw and more. Holland America Line (HAL) is the only line that offers the Yukon portion that begins and ends in Vancouver in the price range we are willing to pay since we are paying for Oceanview cabins for the adult children and a Balcony for ourselves. We have cruised Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian several times. MSC once and never again; Princess I would tolerate again if I had no other choice. Although I am a Senior Citizen, I like to be on a ship with a diverse age range and I do not like stuffy. Since the grandson will be with us, I REALLY want to be sure that we will not be surrounded by mostly Seniors. Has anyone been on the HAL Alaska/Denali/Yukon with pre-teens? Were they bored? Would we be better off taking a Royal Caribbean or Norwegian Cruisetour including Denali ending in Fairbanks and forgetting the Yukon portion? I don't want the grandson to be miserable because he is the only child in the family and being surrounded by nothing but adults can get to be boring after a while. We want him to have a balanced experience, history, sightseeing, travel experiences and a bit of play with others his age. How is  Royal Caribbean for Alaska? Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide.

[Host Kat]

Howdy and welcome to Cruise Critic!  

 

Thank you for your new thread on the Ask a Cruise Question forum that is for general questions about cruising. 👍 

 

Since your thread concerns cruising with family and especially your grandson, I have moved your thread to the Family Cruises forum where it will be on-topic. It is our forum where you will get the best family cruise advice.  Please browse through the thread titles on the forum looking for threads of interest. You will probably find your fellow Cruise Critic members have already posted questions and received answers that will be of interest to you.  

 

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Edited February 11, 2020 by Host Kat
Typo due to fat fingers & skinny laptop keys!

[kitkat343]

I hate to move you again, but if you don't get a lot of responses here you might want to consider also posting your question in the Alaska forum.  In general, I believe that HAL and Princess have historically been the two strongest lines for Alaska.  Princess, although not your favorite, is a very good choice for young children, since they have an excellent kids club and strong onboard activities (playing with puppies on board, in the past bring naturalist to the kids club to teach them about the animals of Alaska.)  10 is a tough age, since it is getting closer to where you want to be on a newer RC/NCL ship with things like rock climbing, bumper cars and other exciting amenities.  But you know your grandchild - are they excited by the thought of visiting Alaska?  Everyone told us we were insane to bring a 3 year old on a Baltic cruise, and he loved every minute of it.  The highlights of the cruise for him were the Vasa and St. Petersburg (and we took a standard tour to all the museums in St. Petersburg) so it depends on your kid.  IF you have a child who is genuinely excited about Alaska, I'd recommend HAL or Princess but if the child isn't that excited about this vacation, I'd look for a more preteen friendly line.  I visited Alaska 10 years ago, so the other lines (RC or NCL) might have more experience and people might be happier with them now.  10 years ago, the general consensus on the Alaska board was to go for HAL or Princess because they had the Panamax ships that could get closer to the glaciers, and did a good job there.  But you might want to get more up to date recommendations on that board.  There were a ton of kids on the Princess sailing which left in mid May even in the shoulder season prior to schools letting out, so I wouldn't worry about a lack of kids on the ship.

Edited February 12, 2020 by kitkat343

[kitkat343]

Sorry - should have been clear - in general Princess ships don't have as many splashy kids activities like bumper cars, but when I said they have strong onboard activities I meant that in Alaska they bring a lot of interesting experiences on board for people to experience  (playing with puppies on board, in the past bringing naturalists to the kids club to teach them about the animals of Alaska).  If you have a preteen who is fascinated by Alaska, it might be enough.  If they aren't fascinated by Alaska, you might want to consider more preteen friendly lines.  My children are younger, so Princess has been great so far but I can see a day where they might be happier on a new RC/NCL ship with all the fancy kids amenities.

[Savviertravel]

Thank you kitkat43. I will check the Alaska Board out too. I will also look at Princess to see how the Alaska options look.

[phxbne]

We did an Alaska cruise on HAL when DD was 10. She really enjoyed it - she is an animal lover so I chose animal focused shore activities. Our choice was based on dates, round trip Vancouver and an ‘Alaska expert’ cruise line. We did not do the land portion.

As KitKat said, what does the 10 year old like to do and what do they think might like to do in Alaska? While she has enjoyed the kids club on other cruises, she did not really care for the HAL one - no particular reason that she articulated. I have read good advice from others on this forum about focus 1 being itineraries and activities. There are a lot of stories here about kids who don’t like clubs, and just as many about those who do.

What a treat for your family - Have a wonderful cruise and create marvelous memories!

[cb at sea]

There WILL be other kids on Hal in July...no worries about that.   I wouldn't have any compunction about doing the cruise line that offers what you want to see!

 

[RSLeesburg]

Didn't I read somewhere that HAL was eliminating their kids clubs?   

 

To OP:  If Yukon is that important to you, then maybe you should go with a cruise line that offers it - or, you could just plan to arrive a few days earlier and do a DIY to see the Yukon.  But, if you wanted to see what a land/sea cruise with Royal looks like, check out my review.  We did a 3 night land tour and 7 night southbound cruise on Radiance in 2018 with our son, who was 8 at the time.  I know everyone raves about Princess and HAL being the kings of Alaska, but our cruise was fantastic, and would not hesitate to recommend Royal for Alaska.  One other piece of advice - at the end of the day, Alaska is all about the shore excursions.  You want to get off the ship and explore the interior as much as possible, so if budget is a concern, I would book the cheapest cruise that you can find and save your money to do more or better excursions.  

 

 

[Savviertravel]

Thanks to everyone for the excellent information regarding Alaska Cruisetours with a 10-year old. I have pretty much narrowed it down to Royal Caribbean first or Norwegian second. We were planning to get everyone (except us) an Ocean View Cabin but if we go with Royal, we might be able to do three balconies and a suite for us. We have cruise both of these lines several times and I think a 10-year old would be more comfortable on them. 

 

We are definitely focused on the excursions. On our previous Alaska Cruise, we enjoyed the excursions so much that we decided we had to see more of Alaska, thus the Cruisetour. 

 

Thank you for the insight and I hope to book within the next week.