Family Ports

[BalancingWanderlust]

Hello,

 

My husband and I are thinking of doing a European cruise from Southampton UK next spring (April-ish). We have two young kids (will be ages 2.5 and 4.5 at time of cruise).

 

What are some of your favorite cruise ports to do with kids? Typically we like smaller more walkable towns/cities with a few fun thing for the kids (cool playgrounds, kid friendly museums, nature attractions,  park walks, etc.). 

 

Thanks 🙂

 

Sarah. 

[ljandgb]

My kids were older when we started really traveling, but Tallin and Copenhagen seemed like they'd have been good for younger kids.  At that age, kids are happy anywhere there's a bit of green space and maybe a puddle to splash in.

 

[BalancingWanderlust]

6 hours ago, ljandgb said:

My kids were older when we started really traveling, but Tallin and Copenhagen seemed like they'd have been good for younger kids.  At that age, kids are happy anywhere there's a bit of green space and maybe a puddle to splash in.

 

 

Thanks! Yes I agree a good puddle is the best 🙂

[cmph]

My kids are teens, so I can't vouch for personal experience with little ones, but based on our Baltic cruise this summer - I would suggest Stockholm, Riga, Visby, and Tallinn as good options.

 

We did a pre-stay in the Gamla Stan area of Stockholm, which is very walkable and had at least one cute little pocket park with a funky playground. There were tons of kids in the palace area, watching the guards, so I'm guessing that was entertaining to them. Also, that area is an easy ferry ride over to the island with the Vasa museum - which I think they would also enjoy. It's an impressive sight! And they have a little kids area featuring a children's book.  

 

We did OYO touring in Tallinn, and after we wrapped up Rick Steves' suggested walking tour, we walked back to the ship. A good portion of our walk was through a big, lovely park. It had a large playground that I didn't capture a photo of, but it was neat to walk through this big park alongside the old buildings:

 

We also did OYO in Riga, b/c the port is super-convenient to the main tourist areas. There was a unique little playground plunked down in the middle of town:

 

And we went on a canal boat ride that left from a beautiful park area:

 

Visby was a sleeper hit, so very pretty and quite easy to walk around the ruins, and they always seemed to be surrounded by pretty flowers.

 

There is a big garden in Visby, too, right alongside some ruins.

 

Hope that helps with planning! We absolutely loved our itinerary. 

 

 

Edited July 22, 2023 by cmph

[hallasm]

A Norwegian fjord cruise might also be ‘child friendly’ - the Flåm Railway in Flåm, Skylift in Olden, viewpoints in Geiranger or the funicular in Bergen. 
Many small town with farm visits or just relaxing or RIB boat trips.

[CCJack]

20 hours ago, hallasm said:

A Norwegian fjord cruise might also be ‘child friendly’ - the Flåm Railway in Flåm, Skylift in Olden, viewpoints in Geiranger or the funicular in Bergen. 
Many small town with farm visits or just relaxing or RIB boat trips.

I agree a Fjords cruise would be a good choice.   Ports are small cities / towns - all walkable usually with your ship in sight.   Bergen, a bit larger but still very walkable.   Most of your time will be outdoors.   You won't be spending time on subways, or waiting in lines with the kids.   Highlight of the cruise may be the fjords themselves which you will enjoy from the ship - while the kids do their thing on the ship.    

[BalancingWanderlust]

21 hours ago, cmph said:

My kids are teens, so I can't vouch for personal experience with little ones, but based on our Baltic cruise this summer - I would suggest Stockholm, Riga, Visby, and Tallinn as good options.

 

We did a pre-stay in the Gamla Stan area of Stockholm, which is very walkable and had at least one cute little pocket park with a funky playground. There were tons of kids in the palace area, watching the guards, so I'm guessing that was entertaining to them. Also, that area is an easy ferry ride over to the island with the Vasa museum - which I think they would also enjoy. It's an impressive sight! And they have a little kids area featuring a children's book.  

 

We did OYO touring in Tallinn, and after we wrapped up Rick Steves' suggested walking tour, we walked back to the ship. A good portion of our walk was through a big, lovely park. It had a large playground that I didn't capture a photo of, but it was neat to walk through this big park alongside the old buildings:

 

We also did OYO in Riga, b/c the port is super-convenient to the main tourist areas. There was a unique little playground plunked down in the middle of town:

 

And we went on a canal boat ride that left from a beautiful park area:

 

Visby was a sleeper hit, so very pretty and quite easy to walk around the ruins, and they always seemed to be surrounded by pretty flowers.

 

There is a big garden in Visby, too, right alongside some ruins.

 

Hope that helps with planning! We absolutely loved our itinerary. 

 

 

 

Thank you! Your info was super helpful 🙂

[BalancingWanderlust]

1 hour ago, CCJack said:

I agree a Fjords cruise would be a good choice.   Ports are small cities / towns - all walkable usually with your ship in sight.   Bergen, a bit larger but still very walkable.   Most of your time will be outdoors.   You won't be spending time on subways, or waiting in lines with the kids.   Highlight of the cruise may be the fjords themselves which you will enjoy from the ship - while the kids do their thing on the ship.    

 

Thank you for your suggestion. My husband and I were in Norway not too long ago and visited Flam while we were there. I agree a Fjord cruise would be great with kids but we were hoping to explore somewhere new as a family 🙂

[kitkat343]

this won't be helpful for the OP since it's also on the family board, but in case other parents are reading this forum I just wanted to chime in to agree with everyone else about both Norway and the Baltics being wonderful options for small children.  

 

We've done both the Baltics and Norway with young children (Baltics with a 3 year old; Norway with a 2 and 6 year old).  April could be early for Norway, but that is an amazing destination for children.  My three favorite ports were Olden, Geiranger and Flam.  Olden has the amazing Loen Skylift and Briskdal Glacier.  The glacier has been hit hard by global warming, but it is a beautiful ride and hike to the glacier (a troll car can be rented to take you most of the way there.  My 2 year old managed the short remaining hike and we all managed to see the glacier).  Geiranger has lovely viewpoints, and Flam has the amazing flam railway and we visited a lovely goat farm there.  Parents need to note that taxis in Norway are not allowed to transport small children without car seats.  They are required to provide them upon request, so you need to make all transportation arrangements ahead of time.  Please also note that Norway will be banning most cruise ships from the heritage fjords which includes Geiranger and Flam unless they comply with zero emission standards, so if you have the opportunity to visit them soon you might want to go.  

 

The Baltics had larger cities, but I found it quite manageable and wonderful for children.  My 3 year old absolutely loved Stockholm, especially the Vasa and the open air lemur exhibit at Skansen.  We visited the Molli steam train in Germany, and Tallinn is a great destination for children to wander around, plus there is a really good hands on seaplane museum that is wonderful for small children.  

 

There is a lot more detailed advice on these trips in my trip reviews in my signature lines (please note that I'd also strongly recommend Alaska and the Panama Canal cruises for families with young children)

 

My biggest advice for toddlers in Europe would be to stay off of ship tours whenever possible, and book private excursions (most of the Baltics are really easy to DIY  thanks to the amazing local public transportation systems) with the exception of St. Petersburg where you should consider a private tour for just your family if you can afford it if it ever reopens.    

 

The 10 day roundtrip Panama Canal cruises from Ft. Lauderdale are actually really convenient from the East Coast of the US (not sure where in Canada you are) and on Princess you'd visit Costa Rica, Cartagena which is actually incredibly beautiful though quite hot, the Grand Cayman Islands (there's a nice stingray city and turtle farm here) and Jamaica (we went to a different port in Jamaica on our cruise so I'm not sure what to recommend near Falmouth but Scotchies is has several locations and has really good jerk chicken).

 

If you are looking at April for Norway, just check to make sure the excursions you'd want are still running then.  We went in late May because we had to sail Cunard (our youngest was 2 and the Cunard kids club starts at 2) and they only had one cruise all year that went to Geiranger Flam and Olden, which thankfully started one day after our son's second birthday.  We had a little difficulty arranging excursions in late May because not all of them were normally open, but in the end we were able to see everything we wanted to.  But some of the roads - especially in Geiranger - may not be open in April so you'd need to research that first.  

 

Because travel for families is much easier with private excursions, you need to be careful with NCL.  On my last sailing  they cancelled one port my kids really wanted (the Dominican Republic) and cancelled the morning of another (Antigua) which prevented us from seeing the giant toirteses because that's only open in the morning after final payment for "environmental reasons".  I called NCL and asked them to let me switch to the same cruise a few weeks later and they refused because they'd made the itinerary changes after final payment.  For an entire month, they continued to advertise the original itinerary on their website after the changes were made and even people who called NCL directly to book after the changes were not told  of the changes and weren't able to cancel either.  Other passengers have reported experiencing this also: