Sapphire -- kids and a few other things

[anniebj90290]

Hello all,

We are booked on the Sapphire to the Mexican Riviera and I hope my newbie questions don't bother anyone. This is our second cruise, the first one last June to Alaska on Royal Caribbean.

#1 -- I'm not totally clear on the personal choice dining concept; we booked late and were told that traditional dining wasn't available. Does this mean I should still figure on formal night wear?

#2 -- We regard this as a family vacation and the children -- ages 8 and 5 -- will be eating with us, except for maybe one night when my husband and I fly solo. For formal nights, should I plan on dressing them up as well. We did on RCCL. (Lest anyone panic, my kids have eaten in a lot of fancy restaurants and are very well behaved. That and I stash crayons on my purse for emergencies.)

#3 -- Judging from posts here, I am getting the idea that people on Princess dress up more. My husband wore a jacket every night to dinner on RCCL but I'd have to say he was in the minority. I saw Hawaiian shirts, T-shirts, etc. I had expected more dressing up. Should I expect dressing up here? Someone posted that about 25% of the men wore Tuxedos on formal night. Is that the case?

#4 -- We are going April 15 -- a holiday week when most schools are out. Would you veterans anticipate a shipload of kids? Won't bother us, just want to make sure there are playmates around!

#5 -- Weather. Mexican Riviera. Any thoughts? How cold on board at night? Sweatshirts or down vests?

Thanks for your help --

Ann

[Cruisin' Chick]

Hello all,

We are booked on the Sapphire to the Mexican Riviera and I hope my newbie questions don't bother anyone. This is our second cruise, the first one last June to Alaska on Royal Caribbean.

#1 -- I'm not totally clear on the personal choice dining concept; we booked late and were told that traditional dining wasn't available. Does this mean I should still figure on formal night wear?

Every day's Patters will list either "smart casual" or "formal" for the dinner that night. That's for traditional and PC dining. Buffet is dress as you want (well not swim suits, but you get the idea). We have always done traditional so all I know about PC is that you can just show up at the PC dining rooms or you can make reservations. I'm sure others who have done PC will chime in on this.

#2 -- We regard this as a family vacation and the children -- ages 8 and 5 -- will be eating with us, except for maybe one night when my husband and I fly solo. For formal nights, should I plan on dressing them up as well. We did on RCCL. (Lest anyone panic, my kids have eaten in a lot of fancy restaurants and are very well behaved. That and I stash crayons on my purse for emergencies.)

Kids usually dress up too. I've seen tuxes on the boys but a suit is quite fine. If my girl has dined with us there on formal nights, she'll wear a dress.

#3 -- Judging from posts here, I am getting the idea that people on Princess dress up more. My husband wore a jacket every night to dinner on RCCL but I'd have to say he was in the minority. I saw Hawaiian shirts, T-shirts, etc. I had expected more dressing up. Should I expect dressing up here? Someone posted that about 25% of the men wore Tuxedos on formal night. Is that the case?

I'm sure you'll hear from people on this one. My hubby wears a regular suit for formal nights. I usually wear a cocktail dress or crepy pants suit. You'll see some tuxes and sparkly dresses. We save our matching Hawaiian dress and shirt outfit (bought on our honeymoon) for one of the smart casual nights. For smart casual, you're husband won't have to wear his jacket unless he wants to.

#4 -- We are going April 15 -- a holiday week when most schools are out. Would you veterans anticipate a shipload of kids? Won't bother us, just want to make sure there are playmates around!

Usually the week before Easter should have a lot of kids. The Los Angeles school district gets out that week and a big percentage of people who go on the M. R. cruises are from Southern California. After Easter is traditionally when Catholic schools take off. So you may still have some kids from those schools or from other school districts who take off the post-Easter week.

#5 -- Weather. Mexican Riviera. Any thoughts? How cold on board at night? Sweatshirts or down vests?

It depends, LA weather is very unpredictable until July. We had temps in the 80s last week and then by Friday, it was rainy and in the 40s and 50s. It can be overcast the morning that you sail so make sure you bring a coverup for your pre-cruise and post-cruise stay and your first day leaving San Pedro. A couple of days later, you should be hitting warmer weather. Thanks for your help --

Ann

Enjoy your cruise.

[Cruisin' Chick]

sorry, one of those double posts

[jlp20]

#1 -- I'm not totally clear on the personal choice dining concept; we booked late and were told that traditional dining wasn't available. Does this mean I should still figure on formal night wear?

 

Yes, traditional and PC both dress.

 

 

 

#2 -- We regard this as a family vacation and the children -- ages 8 and 5 -- will be eating with us, except for maybe one night when my husband and I fly solo. For formal nights, should I plan on dressing them up as well. We did on RCCL. (Lest anyone panic, my kids have eaten in a lot of fancy restaurants and are very well behaved. That and I stash crayons on my purse for emergencies.)

 

Simple answer, yes. Be aware there is a childrens program that also takes care of and feeds the ankle biters

 

 

 

#3 -- Judging from posts here, I am getting the idea that people on Princess dress up more. My husband wore a jacket every night to dinner on RCCL but I'd have to say he was in the minority. I saw Hawaiian shirts, T-shirts, etc. I had expected more dressing up. Should I expect dressing up here? Someone posted that about 25% of the men wore Tuxedos on formal night. Is that the case?

 

They call it smart casual, basicly anything with a collar or better.

 

 

 

#4 -- We are going April 15 -- a holiday week when most schools are out. Would you veterans anticipate a shipload of kids? Won't bother us, just want to make sure there are playmates around!

 

YES, and get back to us after you get back. I will be suprized if your views will remain the same.

 

 

 

#5 -- Weather. Mexican Riviera. Any thoughts? How cold on board at night? Sweatshirts or down vests?

Thanks for your help --

 

At most, light jacket or sweatshirt

 

HAVE FUN

[DanJ]

For what it's worth, there were 250 kids on board the last 2 weeks of January. There was a sheet of paper on the wall on the galley tour with the passenger count for the cruise following ours that said 2900 passengers, 250 kids, and they told us our cruise was at about the same numbers. I would imagine it would be slightly higher for easter week.

[tiggyfrank]

Hi, we'll be on that cruise too! :D

Got two boys, 4 & turning 6 that month and I just hope they will like the kids activities so we can have some time alone! Maybe our kids could play together. Join our roll call

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=187089

 

Leslie

[lysette]

Hi! We did this cruise last Thanksgiving and had a really good time. We had five kids in our party, ages 10-16.

 

>>>>#2 -- We regard this as a family vacation and the children -- ages 8 and 5 -- will be eating with us, except for maybe one night when my husband and I fly solo. For formal nights, should I plan on dressing them up as well. <<<<

 

I had my son wear the same suit every formal night, and we just bought a really inexpensive one. It doesn't get much wear by the time he grows out of it. On the casual nights, he wore slacks and a polo-type shirt. I would say he was as dressed or more dressed up than his peers. My daughter (16) and I traded off dinner clothes. One of the younger girls in our party (10-ish) didn't want to dress up AT ALL, and she wore very basic skirts and shirts even for formal night. She looked fine, no one said anything. But if you have a girly girl, I think it's fun to dress them up. You might get a good family photo out of it. For casual evenings, they can wear pants; just no jeans (though a few passengers wore jeans, they looked out of place) or shorts.

 

>>>>>We are going April 15 -- a holiday week when most schools are out. Would you veterans anticipate a shipload of kids? Won't bother us, just want to make sure there are playmates around!<<<<<

 

In the past, my kids have always enjoyed the kids' program. On the Thanksgiving trip, however, there were 700 kids! It was mayhem in the kids' program. My son still went to quite a few things, but I actually kept him with us and out of the kids' program on some occasions. The behavior in the program was really quite bad. I promise, if I had been a counselor that week, I would have quit. I can't believe what they had to put up with. My sister, who is a kindergarten teacher and really quite tolerant of kid antics, actually reported some of the behavior of some kids in the pool. You know it's bad when she gets afraid that someone is going to get hurt. But, like you say, it's a family vacation, and why not have your kids with you? With any luck, the number of kids won't be outrageous (on my previous cruises, it was reasonable), and the behavior will be under control.

 

I hope this helps. If you have further questions, please post.

[Qcruise]

I took my family of 5 (including Nana) aboard the Diamond last spring break to Mexico and I think I can answer your questions. Don't panic, but there were 900 children onboard last spring break... our twin boys were 10 at the time and they had a ball. We were able to set them up in the Pirateers program so that they could sign in and out on their own, we did not have to sign them out. They made friends onboard and would check in with us if they were roaming around on their own. We also took the walkie talkies and used them as well. We felt secure letting them have some freedom and they loved the independance. We had the early seating for dinner, but one night we ate late as we were missing all the sunsets while having our meal, and were able to just walk up to one of the other resteraunts at 8:30 with no wait. We dressed the boys in suits on formal nights, and just kakkies and polo shirts on others, the dress is not fancy on Princess, I saw more suits than tuxes, and I wore a black suit. Don't sweat the small stuff..... you'll have a ball:)

[lkmamom]

Hi Ann, we are also on the same cruise as you!:) As the other posters have said, on casual nights, your husband will be very fine in a nice golf shirt and dress pants. My husband always wears a dark suit on formal nights and our teen son wears dress pants and a blazer. This has been the norm on all of our cruises onboard Princess.Keep in mind, if you do not want to dress up, there is always the Horizon Court option as well.

 

It will most likely be a shipful of kids. We knew that when we planned for this cruise but, it is the only time that we could go due to our son's school schedule and all of us are in very deep need of a vacation at this point!!:eek: The last Easter cruise that we took we said that we would never do it again but here we are. I guess I would truthfully have to say that since there are so many children, you just cannot count on Princess staffers to do it all,(and not to imply that you do). Your children will most likely meet a lot of other kids and they will have a great time. As far as the alone time with my husband.....I guess we just never felt comfortable with that when we saw how many kids were in the groups. I am not saying this to put a damper on your vacation, it is just better to know up front instead of finding out later that things did not go as you had planned. Hopefully, I will be wrong.:)

 

You will love the Sapphire. It was our favorite ship from past cruises and we cannot wait for this cruise.Hope to meet you and your family at some point on our cruise! It is coming quickly!!:D Linda