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The best time to cruise without kids is.....


bryanjaync
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First, yes, yes, we all love kids, but....

 

I have found the best time to cruise without school/college age kids is from the Monday after Thanksgiving to mid-December. And the best cruise lines for less kids are Celebrity and Holland.

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I usually cruise the first or second week of September. That way, I'm pretty much assured most kiddies of all ages will have just started back to school and parents won't take them out.

 

I've never seen over a dozen kids on any cruises during that time frame. Yay!:D

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We usually cruise after Thanksgiving through the middle of Dec. too. Fewer kids & also prices are better too. Enjoy going from winter weather back to summer in the Carribbean. We've been on Carnival & Norwegian & have an RCI scheduled for Dec. Want to try other cruiselines, although never been on a cruise I didn't like!

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  • 1 month later...

We enjoy cruising

in Feb. We also like the Celebrity ships and have rarely seen children on board. We choose late dining-in many situations, people with children usually choose first dining seating.

Its so nice to be able to cruise, enjoy the beautiful weather and when we go back home winter is starting to fade away..............

Nadine

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We also love kids, however, don't want to see 600 running around loose on a ship. Therefore, we cruise mostly in January-February time-frame. Even on Carnival in February there were very few children. Although, I haven't cruised on Holland America or Celebrity, I understand they normally have very few children.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've cruised just about all times of the year, from 1 three day cruise, but mostly 7 days. Haven't sailed on Celebrity, but HAL, in my experience typically has the fewest kids. I sailed once in the middle of Oct on the Ryndam and there were fewer than a dozen on the entire ship, my then 14 year old being one of them. Having said that, there will always be fewer kids when schools are typically in session; also on longer cruises, 10 days or longer, numbers will be very low.

 

In case any are tempted to feel sorry for my 14 year old on the Ryndam cruise, she remembers it as the best of all of her 21 cruises. My guess is because the entire youth staff devoted so much time to interacting with her. Guess they had little else to do, lol.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Yancycruiser--Our first 3 Carib. cruises were in Jan. or Feb and there were 600+ kids on each cruise. It was a shock the first time to see kids, period, let alone out of school in the middle of winter. But we have a different mindset from today's younger parents. Besides the school-age kids,we've seen babies younger than 6 wks and toddlers barely walking. I just shake my head.

The kids were not a problem, but I still don't understand why anyone would want to bring them. It can't be really relaxing to still have the responsibility.

We took our 5 kids camping when they were growing up and didn't have the money for cruising until they were out of college and we were empty nesters.

 

1/02 Explorer E. Carib.

1/03 Explorer W. Carib.

8/03 Summit Alaska cruise/tour

2/04 Adventure S. Carib.

2/05 Galaxy Panama Canal

6/06 Jewel Brit. Isles/Nor. Fjords + 3 days in London

7/07 Mercury Mexican Riviera

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. . . we love kids, too -- but ours is grown and we're both in our 60's. We've been on 3 Carnivals ... either early April or early November (specifically to not land in the middle of kiddie-world) and there were not very many kids on any of the three. We have a friend's experience of being on board for a large highschool "senior trip" cruise ... they said it was the cruise from hell ... everybody complained bitterly and they wound up getting a partial refund (actually a deep discount on the next cruise) ... I know I'd be beyond angry if I spent a couple of grand on a cruise and wound up being made miserable day and night by out of control high schoolers acting VERY badly.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I think it is harder to find times with few kids onboard. So many parents are now home schooling, or taking kids out of school for the "educational value" or a cruise, or some school systems go to school year round so there tend to be more kids than a few years ago.

 

We usually go right after Thanksgiving or early January. There seem to be fewer kids then. We have also gone early May and there weren't many then. I guess it depends on how long the cruise is.

 

Although, we went to the Panama Canal last year on a 10 day and there were quite a few kids onboard. Fortunately though, most were well behaved. There were only a few who screamed, yelled, ran around the dining room etc. But, it was their parents' fault as these kids were only 2 or 3years old and the parents were late for late sitting dinner every night by at least half an hour, so it was well past 9 when they strolled in. That's way too late for little kids to be having dinner. Of course though, the cruise wasn't for the kids, it was for the parents. The parents were a PIA thru most of the cruise.

 

Little kids to me are fun to watch and rarely cause trouble. It's the teens with nothing to do and the college break kids who get into more trouble. I try not to go when it's spring break for college kids.

 

Katie

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We like to cruise Celebrity. We have cruised in February-March-April and have had very few children on our cruises.

Well behaved children are always a welcome joy. ( as with adults )

I have 4 children, when i cruise, if the children ( of any age are behaved ) then its good. Unfortunately, the parents who cruise and feel that its their vacation and that means not paying attention to their childrens behavior--then it ruins it for everyone.

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  • 3 weeks later...

It's hard on teachrs who like to cruise, but usually the only times they can go are when children are out of school too. Beyond that, I recommend the longer cruises - the 7 day seem to attract the most children. We've travelled most lines, tho' not Carnival, and haven't had any problems on the longer cruises. Nancy

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just sailed on HAL's Volendam Nov. 13-23 (pre-Thanksgiving). Only a handful of children, due to the time of year, cruise line, and length of cruise. I saw the most children the day that Half Moon Cay was canceled and we were forced :D to spend another day at sea.

 

Roz

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We have two simple rules for avoiding kids on ships. Cruise when they are in school and take longer cruises (at least 2 weeks). This being said, this past April we did a 19 day Transatlantic and there were actually a few school aged kids and quite a few pre-schoolers. In fact, they had to drain the pools when a Mom decided it was OK to take her toddler into the pool (I guess the brown water was the clue).

 

Hank

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  • 1 month later...

:D The best time to cruise without kids is..... always - just leave 'em with someone you trust :D please LOL 'cause we do love children .

 

Now, seriously, I think kids storage on RCCL must really be great 'cause even when there are 100 or so under 18 on board we hardly ever see them. Our cruise times have been: Jan, Feb, Apr, Aug, Oct, & Nov. I qgree that the longer the cruise - over 7 nights - the less likely to see kids.

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  • 3 weeks later...

We mainly sail on Celebrity ships & some times on RCCL. Nov 2004 Thanksgiving we sailed the Voyager of the Seas & there was some 900 children on board;but,they seemed well behaved & no bother.

 

As grand parents ourselves we have come accustom to the young ones again & don't mind having well behaved children on board.Sort of livens up the ship a bit.

 

We sailed April,Oct,Jan,Feb,March & Nov .They are great months.

 

Happy Sailing whether at Sea or on Land:)

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  • 3 weeks later...
We usually cruise after Thanksgiving through the middle of Dec. too. Fewer kids & also prices are better too. Enjoy going from winter weather back to summer in the Carribbean. We've been on Carnival & Norwegian & have an RCI scheduled for Dec. Want to try other cruiselines, although never been on a cruise I didn't like!

try HAL...you will love the demographics!

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We have a friend's experience of being on board for a large highschool "senior trip" cruise ... they said it was the cruise from hell ...

. I know I'd be beyond angry if I spent a couple of grand on a cruise and wound up being made miserable day and night by out of control high schoolers acting VERY badly.

 

I would be steamed, too!!!!!! :mad:

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  • 11 years later...

I went on an 8 day Carnival cruise the day after Thanksgiving 2018. We were told by the Cruise Director at a Q&A onboard there were a total of approximately 3500 passengers on board of which approximately 1300 were kids. That's a lot of kids, way too many for us. We love kids too. I have two of my own, but they took over the pool every single day and were running around the decks inside and outside, screaming and carrying on. It was too much. Never will we go after Thanksgiving again. 

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Viking Ocean...No Kids, No Casino, No Formal Nights. Trying them out this Spring.

 

Otherwise, we avoid ship loads of kids by choosing a schedule when the little nose miners should be in school.

 

We love children that are properly behaved, but today's young parents seem to be raising feral children. Everyone's a winner and everyone gets a trophy.

Edited by SargassoPirate
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On 12/8/2018 at 9:45 PM, karster63 said:

I went on an 8 day Carnival cruise the day after Thanksgiving 2018. We were told by the Cruise Director at a Q&A onboard there were a total of approximately 3500 passengers on board of which approximately 1300 were kids. That's a lot of kids, way too many for us. We love kids too. I have two of my own, but they took over the pool every single day and were running around the decks inside and outside, screaming and carrying on. It was too much. Never will we go after Thanksgiving again. 

That was 1,300 too many, we will stick with Viking Ocean, which has a minimum age of 18. You can cruise any day of the year with Viking and experience a quiet and relaxed atmosphere.

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We prefer not to travel during popular vacation periods.  We like children but it is really a question of crowds and pricing.

 

We can travel whenever we want.  So why would we pay a premium for Thanksgiving travel when we do the same trip, just before or after, for less money and have few crowds?

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