Planning a cruise with the kids

[first2008time cruiser]

This will be our first cruise and my kids will be 11 and 14. I have been looking at the family cruising forum quite a bit. We are the type who take the kids on all our vacations, at least until they THINK they are too old to go with us. lol We looked into carnival for the price wise it is a little more in our budget, but looking at all the extras RC has, I would really love to try to get a good deal and go on their line. Problem with that is there is no taking the kids out of school here, so we need to go summer. but anyway to my questions.

 

What are some of your kids favorite things to do on the ships and excursion wise? We will be doing both family type activities and I am sure the kids will be wanting to go to the clubs. I posted in another thread, that my son is a little backward and I am not so sure he will take to the club as much, but we will see.

 

Any activities done in the club after 10PM are $5/hr correct? Are there any activities earlier than that, that you have to pay for also? I know I have read about hidden costs somewhere, so I like to double check these things.

 

Once it gets close enough to book, I will be absolutely sure which ship we are going on, and then I am sure I will have more questions. Thank you in advance for any help.

[funfamilyfun]

I am also interested in this. We have booked the Mariner...but I just noticed that Carnival has an organized program for 13 year olds...I'm not sure if Royal Caribbean's is organized or just drop in for his age. Thanks