Summer 2025

[nyyhoneybee]

Hi!

 

We are looking to cruise Summer of 2025 in Europe with the kids. They will be 12, 8 & 3. We are leaning toward NCL, although we prefer RCL just because of pricing.

 

Would you recommend any of these?

Northern Europe: Iceland & Norway

British Isles: England & Ireland

British Isles: England, Ireland & Scotland

Greek Isles

 

Just looking what's available now to get an idea of what might be there.

[Essiesmom]

Have you been to Europe before? Have the kids been to Europe before?  Why do you want to cruise Europe?  Europe cruises are usually port intensive, few sea days to enjoy the attractions of the ship, or park the kids in the clubs.  It’s about art, history, architecture.  Iceland is about geography/geology.  The cruise in the Greek islands would be the best option for a beach day, although European beaches are not the white sands of the Caribbean.  But if you choose Greece, avoid July/august, as it will be beastly hot then.  
    I suggest you get copies of Rick Steves’ Mediterranean Cruise Ports, and Scandinavia and Northern European Cruise Ports.  Read up on what there is to do in the ports, think about what interest you, and what might interest the kids at that age.  In the meantime, look at what is offered for the same areas in 2024, it’s likely to be much the same in 2025.

  Go to the boards here for the cruises that interest you and ask if anyone has done those itineraries with kids the ages yours will be.  You have two years to plan this for the best experience possible…. EM

[nyyhoneybee]

5 hours ago, Essiesmom said:

Have you been to Europe before? Have the kids been to Europe before?  Why do you want to cruise Europe?  Europe cruises are usually port intensive, few sea days to enjoy the attractions of the ship, or park the kids in the clubs.  It’s about art, history, architecture.  Iceland is about geography/geology.  The cruise in the Greek islands would be the best option for a beach day, although European beaches are not the white sands of the Caribbean.  But if you choose Greece, avoid July/august, as it will be beastly hot then.  
    I suggest you get copies of Rick Steves’ Mediterranean Cruise Ports, and Scandinavia and Northern European Cruise Ports.  Read up on what there is to do in the ports, think about what interest you, and what might interest the kids at that age.  In the meantime, look at what is offered for the same areas in 2024, it’s likely to be much the same in 2025.

  Go to the boards here for the cruises that interest you and ask if anyone has done those itineraries with kids the ages yours will be.  You have two years to plan this for the best experience possible…. EM

 

Hubby & I have done Western Med before. This would be for my oldest her Bat Mitzvah as well as celebrate hubby & my 40th birthdays. I'm worried about it with the younger kids, hence my questions on here. Alaska would be another option, a bit easier for the younger kids I think. I do have Rick Steve's Med guide, it was super helpful both for our West Med and his guide in Turkey. 

[Kerry's Girls]

For Europe, I don't care which line with kids since the ship is basically just a moving hotel and secondary to the ports, so I choose based on price and itinerary.  Staying out of the Med is a great idea in my opinion because it's so hot/crowded during the summer, two things that can make travel with kids miserable.  The nice thing about Northern Europe is also that usually the ports don't require a long drive to get to the actual destination.  At those ages it's so nice to get off the ship and explore.  With that many of you, it will be economical to do private tours so you can avoid museums and shopping stops and just hit the places of interest to your family where the kids can wander and you can stop for meals/treats when it suits you.  

[nyyhoneybee]

On 11/7/2022 at 2:27 PM, Kerry's Girls said:

For Europe, I don't care which line with kids since the ship is basically just a moving hotel and secondary to the ports, so I choose based on price and itinerary.  Staying out of the Med is a great idea in my opinion because it's so hot/crowded during the summer, two things that can make travel with kids miserable.  The nice thing about Northern Europe is also that usually the ports don't require a long drive to get to the actual destination.  At those ages it's so nice to get off the ship and explore.  With that many of you, it will be economical to do private tours so you can avoid museums and shopping stops and just hit the places of interest to your family where the kids can wander and you can stop for meals/treats when it suits you.  

 

I always do private tours because it makes more sense. I just need to choose where and probably have my oldest since it will be her present start looking into the ports. 

[The Chandlers]

We are doing a British Isles with NCL in July.  We will traveling with 2 other families for a total of 6 adults and 5 ages, ages 4-10.  I can update how things go after.  

[kitkat343]

We traveled to Norway with a 2 and 6 year old.  Norway is amazing, and a wonderful destination for families.  Our three favorite stops were Geiranger, Olden and Flam (please note that Norway is limiting cruise ships that can travel to the heritage fjords to those that are fuel efficient, so you will need to check to see if you can find a good itinerary in 2025.  Also, please note that cabs are not allowed to transport small children without car seats, so we found ourselves stuck a few times and unable to use the cabs in the taxi waiting areas.  You'd need to arrange all transportation ahead of time (the cabs are required to provide car seats when requested ahead of time.)  

 

Some ports in Norway could be a bit tough with the age range of your children - the 3 year old might not be able to hike Pulpit Rock, but the older ones would probably want to go (its a relatively easy hike but my husband and I couldn't carry our 2 year old, so we had to skip it).  But most places in Norway are very well designed to allow cruisers with disabilities to easily access the beautiful views.  In Olden, the Loen Skylift is a beautiful and easily accessible gondola ride for a child.  My 2 year old was able to hike to the Briksdal Glacier (there are golf carts you can rent that take you most of the way).  In Flam, the railroad is easily accessible for a  3 year old, and in Geiranger there are many lovely views you can drive to.  In Flam, we also spent a lovely day on a goat farm that your children might like (the details are in my trip report in my signature line).

 

Another very special cruise with kids is the Baltic cruise.  That's a bit tough to evaluate because  the absolute highlight of that cruise was St. Petersburg, and it's impossible to predict when that might be able to return.  We took a 3 year old on our Baltic cruise for St. Petersburg but were amazed at how many wonderful cities there were.  Copenhagen, Stockholm and Tallinn were all really special.  There's more detail about what we did in my signature line.  But that's a bit more touring cities, as opposed to viewing beautiful nature so which cruise you chose will depend on what your family wants to do.  The weather should be better in Northern Europe as opposed to the Mediterranean in the summer.  All of the ports (except for Berlin, where you can choose to stay in the local area instead of traveling to Berlin) are very close to the ports (just be careful in Stockholm, because there are several ports in the city, but mega ships need to dock a few hours away.  It's an easy direct train ride, but you miss a beautiful sail in through an archipelago)

 

Europe is generally all about the itinerary (although a ship with lots of waterslides and things for the kids would be lovely).  The one cruise line I'd caution you about is NCL; they've been making changes after final payment for nonemergency reasons (on my cruise they dropped one port entirely and the morning of a second one to help the environment and wouldn't let me cancel; on a Panama Canal cruise they dropped Costa Rica and Nicaragua for safety reasons and replaced them with Acupulco and Jamaica and the overnight stop in Panama was replaced with a late afternoon stop, which means the passengers won't get a chance to see the locks in action).  

 

The kids club on NCL is currently not guaranteed.  All the phone reps at NCL could tell me ahead of time is that each ship is setting its own kids club hours; on the NCL forums some people have reported no kids clubs on some ships this summer but I don't have any direct knowledge of that or know how they are aware of that.  Some people have reported the kids club isn't running at all on port days (on my January NCL cruise, the kids club was open on port days at night but closed during the hours that the ship was in port).  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by kitkat343