So many kids

[Thisguylikestocruise]

3 hours ago, Engineroom Snipe said:

One must anticipate children when school is out and holiday weeks.

 

To do otherwise is to stick one's head in the sand and complain about what you see when you pull your head out.

 

To expect an adult only cruise on Royal is to doom your vacation to disaster if it is critical to the vacation experience.

 

You know the time that is best for what you want.

 

It’s not about expecting adults only. I think it’s reasonable to expect parents not to abandon really young children for lengthy timeframes. I have no problem with kids unless they’re grabbing food with bare hands, running into people, or purposely trying to disrupt other passengers vacation. It’s hard to predict when schools are out around the world, many of the kids are not from the U.S.

[pyrateslife4me84]

2 hours ago, livetravelcruise07 said:

I think it really depends on the itinerary as well. We went on an Alaskan cruise last September and there were barely any kids on that sailing. We are wondering how it'll be on our Mediterranean cruise coming up, but from what I have heard those sailings don't have many kids on them. 

Is it the Oasis-class Med itinerary from Barcelona/Civitavecchia? Plenty of kids when we did that. 

[pyrateslife4me84]

9 minutes ago, Thisguylikestocruise said:

It’s not about expecting adults only. I think it’s reasonable to expect parents not to abandon really young children for lengthy timeframes. I have no problem with kids unless they’re grabbing food with bare hands, running into people, or purposely trying to disrupt other passengers vacation. It’s hard to predict when schools are out around the world, many of the kids are not from the U.S.

Unfortunately, many parents don’t parent now. We have twin 11-year olds and find the unparented kids really frustrating. Like we will ask our kids to respectfully stand next to the hot tub and finish their ice cream cone before joining us to warm up while an unparented 8-year old waltzes in with theirs and promptly drops it in the water. Ugh. Not the 8-year old’s fault but where are the parents?

 

My wife and I are teachers so we have no problem using “teacher voice” on the unparented kids, however. Something tells me they are used to hearing that voice lol…

Edited February 29 by pyrateslife4me84

[sgmn]

7 hours ago, A&L_Ont said:

Plan for kids, unless you are on Virgin. Trans-Atlantics have less of them, smaller ships and longer cruises but that’s no guarantee.

 

All I can say is expect the worse, and hope for the best. 

Two other UK cruise companies have adult only ships, P&O (only two ships are adult only) and Saga is age 55 +. Never been on either though friends who have been on Saga rate it highly 

Edited February 29 by sgmn

[livetravelcruise07]

11 minutes ago, pyrateslife4me84 said:

Is it the Oasis-class Med itinerary from Barcelona/Civitavecchia? Plenty of kids when we did that. 

Nope, Voyager 🙂 And it's an 11 night Barcelona to Athens. 

Edited February 29 by livetravelcruise07

[sgmn]

Currently on Spectrum. Checked before we booked it wasn't school holiday in SIN, UK or AUS, didn't check Malaysia 🤔  

There's over 5000 people on board and nearly 1000 children.

Both pools packed with kids. According to people on board the previous cruise was much quieter with hardly any kids , so it's almost impossible to plan a quiet time. It's always holidays somewhere 

 

[sgmn]

33 minutes ago, cr2000 said:

 

It's a family cruise line, singles or couples without kids ARE NOT the target demographic. Royal does not care about your experience as the majority of income derived from sailings is from family passengers. You just have to accept it and move on, don't complain about it.

Very much agree ,  but companies change direction and target markets over time.  When we started cruising Royal Caribbean I don't remember any particular group being their focus market.  Seems to be a shame that they are no longer catering to everyone.  

We will contine to cruise longer cruises on smaller RC ships but will start looking at other lines too.

We cruise for itinerary not ships and often RC just do the same old, same old itineraries 

[SUgwoz]

29 minutes ago, sgmn said:

Very much agree ,  but companies change direction and target markets over time.  When we started cruising Royal Caribbean I don't remember any particular group being their focus market.  Seems to be a shame that they are no longer catering to everyone.  

We will contine to cruise longer cruises on smaller RC ships but will start looking at other lines too.

We cruise for itinerary not ships and often RC just do the same old, same old itineraries 

I would say the target of Royal 20 years ago was adults. Families didn't book cruises with kids as most cabins was designed for two people and very little in terms of activities/entertainment was geared towards kids.  

 

There is no shortage of adult oriented cruise options with various price points. In terms of family/multi generational cruising it's pretty limited. 

Edited February 29 by SUgwoz

[asomante]

7 hours ago, lifes-a-beach said:

Frankly, kids are better than drunks.  We just got off a Carnival cruise and OMG the drunks.  There was a fight in the piano bar.  The PIANO BAR!  I'll take some noisy kids any day.  Of course, YMMV.

Agree 100%.  I enjoy drinking, but I’ll take a cruise full of kids having fun to one full of obnoxious drunks.  

[PhillyFan33579]

8 hours ago, lifes-a-beach said:

Frankly, kids are better than drunks.  We just got off a Carnival cruise and OMG the drunks.  There was a fight in the piano bar.  The PIANO BAR!  I'll take some noisy kids any day.  Of course, YMMV.

Your post addresses one of the many reasons why I no longer cruise on Carnival. 

[Thisguylikestocruise]

What would a 9 night Greek Isles cruise from Civitavecchia in late September be like? Already have it booked, wish I would’ve picked Celebrity for this itinerary instead.  

[sgmn]

3 hours ago, Thisguylikestocruise said:

What would a 9 night Greek Isles cruise from Civitavecchia in late September be like? Already have it booked, wish I would’ve picked Celebrity for this itinerary instead.  

We've done 10 day Greek island cruise before, though on Jewel OTS.  It was great 👍 

Also did a Celebrity 10day around  Med and Malta , also great

 

 

Edited February 29 by sgmn

[Scottdalfonso]

12 hours ago, IAMGPW said:

I am just wondering if all Royal cruises are packed with children.  I have nothing against them, but, a lot of parents were busy drinking and not watching their kids.  Also, the pool was FULL of children.  This was two weeks ago and it wasn't even a school break.

 

Thank you.

Apparently a lot of states have off for Presidents day week (we are in PA and have NEVER had more than just the day off) so that could be part of it.....

 

12 hours ago, gumshoe958 said:

Welcome to the new normal.

 

Since Covid millions more kids are home-schooled, and more and more parents think nothing of taking their kids out of school to go on vacation when it’s cheaper.

 

 THIS is the other part. The last two times we sailed, it's been during school because it's cheaper, and we don't really want to visit the Caribbean in the dead of summer.  We have no issues taking our kid out of school for a few days to spend quality time with family while exploring and learning about new places. It's a win win for us. 

[kernow]

6 hours ago, Thisguylikestocruise said:

What would a 9 night Greek Isles cruise from Civitavecchia in late September be like? Already have it booked, wish I would’ve picked Celebrity for this itinerary instead.  

Should not be too bad, all the schools in Europe are back then.

[lovesthebeach2]

6 hours ago, Thisguylikestocruise said:

What would a 9 night Greek Isles cruise from Civitavecchia in late September be like? Already have it booked, wish I would’ve picked Celebrity for this itinerary instead.  

We’ve never noticed any problems with kids on any Med cruises. I think it will be fine but what ship is it?

[Mum2Mercury]

I've never seen kids behaving the way people describe on this board on any ship.  What I have seen:  

- The captain once announced on the noontime address that a group of teens threw deck chairs overboard, and their families were (against their will) being disembarked on the next island.  

- Once late at night I saw some teens doing "flips" in to the pool from the handrails.  I asked them to stop, saying it was dangerous, and they just laughed -- I called security in, and that stopped it.  

 

That's it.  In 20 years of cruising, those are the only stories I have about bad kids.  Oh, I've seen some being a bit loud -- but I've never moved my pool chair because of them; whereas loud adults have prompted me to move.  I have seen kids in the MDR in outfits I wouldn't have allowed, and I have seen kids /teens overfilling their plates, but that's not really bad behavior.  

 

When our children were younger, we had a set of strict rules, and we found that most parents had similar expectations for their kids.  

 

 

Edited February 29 by Mum2Mercury

[mjkacmom]

If it was Presidents’ Day week that is a major school vacation week in the northeast. March is spring break for colleges and some school districts, and then many school districts have a week off in April, especially butting up to Easter.

[Keksie]

We tend to cruise on the smaller ships, or longer itineraries which cuts down on the amount of children.  We also hang out a lot in the solarium which is child free.  We also don't cruise during spring break or in the summer.

[MommaBear55]

9 hours ago, Thisguylikestocruise said:

What would a 9 night Greek Isles cruise from Civitavecchia in late September be like? Already have it booked, wish I would’ve picked Celebrity for this itinerary instead.  

It will be fine. It's after school resumes and it's a longer cruise. We did similar in October last year and I don't remember any kids, which means whatever kids were there were well behaved. 

[MommaBear55]

We had similar happen on a 2 week cruise out of Australia. I didn't realize they got two weeks off around Easter. It was awful, first time in 25 cruises that we'd had a bad experience with feral children, including an 7 year old shepherding 2 younger children up and down the elevators with dripping ice cream cones. 

[Thisguylikestocruise]

3 hours ago, lovesthebeach2 said:

We’ve never noticed any problems with kids on any Med cruises. I think it will be fine but what ship is it?

Odyssey 

[TeeRick]

@IAMGPW with all due respect - the newer of the RCCL ships have been built as floating amusement parks and you should expect them to be full of kids and families.  In my experience Celebrity has far fewer kids if you want a quieter ship.  

[lovesthebeach2]

14 minutes ago, Thisguylikestocruise said:

Odyssey 

We’ve done that itinerary on Odyssey and it was fine.  Enjoy!

[SUgwoz]

2 hours ago, Mum2Mercury said:

I've never seen kids behaving the way people describe on this board on any ship.  What I have seen:  

- The captain once announced on the noontime address that a group of teens threw deck chairs overboard, and their families were (against their will) being disembarked on the next island.  

- Once late at night I saw some teens doing "flips" in to the pool from the handrails.  I asked them to stop, saying it was dangerous, and they just laughed -- I called security in, and that stopped it.  

 

That's it.  In 20 years of cruising, those are the only stories I have about bad kids.  Oh, I've seen some being a bit loud -- but I've never moved my pool chair because of them; whereas loud adults have prompted me to move.  I have seen kids in the MDR in outfits I wouldn't have allowed, and I have seen kids /teens overfilling their plates, but that's not really bad behavior.  

 

When our children were younger, we had a set of strict rules, and we found that most parents had similar expectations for their kids.  

 

 

Different people have different tolerances of children/adults.  A child yelling/behavior seems to trigger some people, while an adult yelling/arguing/fighting is more easily ignored.  Often I think its because someone is normally not around kids, and more used to dealing with adults bad behavior.

 

 

[ONECRUISER]

19 hours ago, IAMGPW said:

I am just wondering if all Royal cruises are packed with children.  I have nothing against them, but, a lot of parents were busy drinking and not watching their kids.  Also, the pool was FULL of children.  This was two weeks ago and it wasn't even a school break.

 

Thank you.

Not on my Sailings. Average 10-25 Kids on my Radiance Class doing longer sailings