Many kids on the Oosterdam - Thanksgiving week?

[cawhite]

Hi everyone,

 

Our family of 4 is trying to decide if we should book the Oosterdam for a Mexican Riviera cruise during Thanksgiving week of 2007. Our kids will be 16 and 12 at time of sailing. Are there many kids on the Oosterdam during holiday weeks? How are the kids programs? My kids enjoy meeting people their own age on cruises.

 

We are also considering the Dawn Princess (same itinerary and also leaves out of San Diego), but my parents may be going on the cruise too and their favorite line is HAL.

 

Please help us decide which would be the best cruise for our family.

 

Thank you so much!!

 

Carole

[cawhite]

Anyone know about the # of kids on the Oosterdam during holiday weeks? I am completely undecided about whether to book this cruise, or the Dawn Princess for a Mexican Riviera cruise.

 

I posted on a recent HAL roll call, but was hoping to get a few more opinions by posting here.

 

Thanks.

 

Carole

[cawhite]

oops.... sorry. Double post!

[mom2m&a]

We did the Oosterdam this Thanksgiving (three weeks ago) with our kids ages 9 and 11. There were 400 kids (out of about 2000 passengers) for Thanksgiving. I read somewhere they expect about that same amount for Christmas.

 

Club HAL is not prepared to handle that large amount of kids. This was our first HAL cruise and we will never sail another one with our kids. My sons were both in the "Tweens" group, which groups ages 8 - 13 together (way too big an age range). Because the normal Club HAL room could not accomodate that many kids, this group met in an empty conference room. The counselors were very nice, but other than leaving the room to do scavenger hunts, the kids were stuck playing board games and other games in a conference room.

 

Here are my big issues:

 

Safety is a real problem. Club HAL forces you to let your kids sign themselves in and out of the facility (conference room) so that they can go on the scavenger hunts. They tell you if you don't allow your kids to sign in and out they have to be with the three year olds. I trust my kids, but I don't know the other 2000 people on the ship. When they left for an activity they were always in a group so that was fine, but they could just leave and wander the ship. Many times the counselors didn't enforce sign ins and sign outs. One day we looked for our son and they had no idea what time he had left or whether he had left.

 

This conference room does not have a private bathroom. If your child has to go, they leave the room by themselves and go to a public bathroom down the corridor. I would never allow my kids to do that on land - my 9-year-old went into a public men's room by himself on the ship.

 

The Club HAL activities, staff, and facilities were no where close to those on the Royal Caribbean and Celebrity cruises we have done. I think HAL wants to market itself as family-friendly, but simply doesn't know what to do with that many kids on a cruise.

 

Club HAL times are really short. This was not a problem for us, but may be if your kids like to spend lots of time there. They were open on sea days from 9 - 12, 2 - 5, and 8 - 10. You could pay for a couple more hours at night if necessary. Our issue was on port days, you had to sign up the day before or your kids could not attend. We came back early at one port and my son wanted to go in the afternoon but hadn't signed up so couldn't. They also didn't offer meals with the counselors like some other cruise lines do.

 

We saw that most of the kids didn't end up doing Club HAL by the end of the cruise. The main pool was crawling with kids the whole time. By the last day, there were only about 10 kids attending the Tweens group. Even my son, who loves these programs, was really bored.

 

I been on Princess with the kids so can't comment on the differences with HAL, but it was a very poor program compared to the other lines we have been on. There were some other family events - ping pong tournament, family trivia, towel-folding exhibition, etc. but usually only one a day. All in all, just not a cruise line geared toward families.

[cawhite]

Thanks mom2m&a for the very detailed description! This helps a lot.

 

In our case, the kids are allowed to check themselves in and out of the kids' programs (they are a bit older)... so I'm not so worried about that. Although, I am disappointed to hear that HAL has not allotted the appropriate space for kids' activities during times with a lot of kids (school breaks / holidays).

 

If the pool area was overrun with kids, that means that very few kids were happy with the program.

 

Your post is a big data point for my decision.

 

Thank you for taking the time to let me know!

 

Carole

[michmike]

400 kids on a 2000 passenger ship is one of the reasons we avoid holiday sailings like the plague. Truthfully, based on what the one poster had to say about Club HAL being overwhelmed, I really do think that Royal Caribbean is better suited to folks who have kids who want plenty of options for activities and entertainment. They deal with those sorts of numbers all the time.

 

From talking to folks who have had their kids on HAL, they seem very pleased with the Club Hal program when there are only 30-40 kids onboard, but the numbers during holiday periods are so out of the normal that I think they just get overwhelmed.

[mjwelch]

Club HAL has a good reputation both from the boards and friends who have used their services - but as mentioned earlier, it's been non-holiday cruises where the kid/staff ratio isn't whacked. Royal Caribbean's kids program is, for our purposes, an all-around good deal. Plenty to do and well supervised. Princesses program is OK but I'd rank RCCL higher.

[cawhite]

Thanks michmike and mjwelch - I agree. We have sailed RCI and really like their kids program. We are looking to sail out of San Diego (our home port), however, and the choices for Thanksgiving are HAL and Princess.

 

I did look into going out of LA on the Vision of the Seas... but we'd prefer San Diego, and also VOS gets to Cabo later in the morning than HAL and Princess... we need to get in as early as possible for scuba diving (main shore excursion on the trip!).

 

Carole

[chumley]

We sailed with our three sons (17,14,11 at the time) during Thanksgiving week 2005 and we has a fabulous cruise together. That was our first cruise on HAL, having been on Disney, Princess and RCI many times prior. I was hesitant about going on HAL with the kids but was very pleasantly surprised. There were a lot of kids on board, but HAL had the Club Hal programs appropriately staffed and my kids had a great time.

 

We have since gone on a Westerdam cruise with the kids and are leaving 12/16 for another Oosterdam cruise. I would have gone again this Thanksgiving, but the school schedule had changed and the kids were no longer off the whole week. Since I have two in high school, i couldn't pull them out for a cruise.

 

Hope this helps.

Leslie

[mom2m&a]

We also live in San Diego which is why we chose the Oosterdam even though we had read mixed reviews on Club HAL. The majority of the families (and there were tons of large family groups) were from San Diego - it was hard to meet anyone who WASN'T from San Diego. However, driving home from the pier my husband and I discussed that we would rather drive to LA to get a ship that was better suited to our family.

 

We had a disappointing cruise for reasons other than Club HAL. We liked the cabin (VA aft), our room steward, and the food in the Lido. We found the service in the dining room particularly, but basically all over the ship to be far worse than any cruise we had ever been on. We didn't like the layout of the ship or the common areas and our meal in the Pinnacle Grill was terrible.

 

We cruise as a family vacation so we don't expect (or want) the kids to spend the whole time in the kid's program but we got almost no "couple time" this cruise as my older son refused to go after the first day and my younger son got bored and wouldn't go much on the last two sea days.

 

I also want to comment that I have never seen a large group of kids so well-behaved as on this trip. Yes, there were lots of kids and sometimes big groups of kids together, but they were quiet, polite and respectful. I never saw any problems and I don't have much tolerance for kids that are rude. One night at dinner there was a group of eight young teens that sat at the table behind us, by themselves, and they were well dressed and well mannered. I would have been proud to be their parent.

[kryos]

Club HAL has a good reputation both from the boards and friends who have used their services - but as mentioned earlier, it's been non-holiday cruises where the kid/staff ratio isn't whacked. Royal Caribbean's kids program is, for our purposes, an all-around good deal. Plenty to do and well supervised. Princesses program is OK but I'd rank RCCL higher.

I've said this before ... at the risk of getting bashed by other folks on this HAL board ... but I couldn't imagine taking kids on a HAL cruise ... not when there are so many lines out there better suited for children. If you are going to cruise with your kids, then take them somewhere where they will have fun too. If you don't want to do that, then leave the kids at home. That's my feeling anyway.

 

Of course, there are exceptions, and maybe some kids would be happier on a HAL cruise, but I would have to assume that the majority of kids would be far better entertained and engaged on say an RCCL or Disney cruise, or even a Carnival cruise, than on a HAL ship.

 

There really isn't that much to do on a HAL ship for kids ... certainly not when you compare it with the ships of some of the other more child friendly lines ... and while they have the Club HAL, I can't imagine it is anything like the kids' clubs on some of those other lines. Also, those other lines have a lot more in the way of the kinds of facilities kids love ... rock climbing wall, ice skating rink, bungee trampolines, etc. If the prices are reasonably comparable, then why on earth would you take your kids on a HAL ship where maybe they get to play some computer games or sing karoke in the kids club, but that's about it?

 

Personally, if I were you ... and of course, only you know your kids and their likes and dislikes ... I would take them on a ship more suited to kids ... where I know they will have a great time and will have plenty to keep them occupied and engaged on the cruise. Then, maybe at a time when they are in school or whatever, you and your spouse take a nice relaxing HAL cruise ... leaving the kids at home with relatives.

 

Just my humble opinion ...

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[Rotterdam]

this post was reported on the 2/17/07 roll call for the NOORDAM - my partner & I booked the cruise & then saw the posting...we certainly hope this (400 kids) will not be the case on our cruise.....

 

I love kids but there is a time & place - I've seen many parents dump their kids for the cruise while they go off to all the adult activities...or worse seeing the little ones up at the late shows & dining hours....bad for the kids & bad for the rest of us that do not want to see this.

 

HAL is going after the baby boomers....(we are in our mid 40's) but please respect others & keep the little ones out of the aft pool area & nite time adult areas.....

[cawhite]

Thanks, everyone, for all the additional information.

 

There are 2 goals of this cruise:

 

(1) to have a nice trip with our family of 4, together with my parents / the kids' grandparents... we have never cruised together, and we thought that would be fun (and no one would have to cook Thanksgiving dinner!). The parents are getting older (80s) and this may be our last time to travel together. My parents LOVE LOVE LOVE HAL... and it would be a nice memory for them. They do like Princess, too... which is our other option out of San Diego for Thanksgiving.

 

(2) to provide a way to have my DH and DD go scuba diving. A 7 day Mex. Riviera cruise accomplishes this, as they can dive in Cabo.

 

So, I am trying to best meet these 2 goals.

 

Everyone mentions the great kids' programs of RCI and Carnival as being the best (we have been on both RCI and CCL and can agree whole heartedly on that!). However, can anyone, that has been on HAL and Princess, compare HAL's programs to those of Princess? My kids don't stay in the programs the whole day anyway... but they like to do some of the activities.

 

Chumley - you do give me some hope for the HAL option!

 

Thanks again.

[Old As Dirt Mom]

Carole (Cawhite):

 

I've kept out of this thread until now, because, frankly, I lack both the cruising experience and knowledge to give you the info for which you're looking. But throughout the thread, you've given me enough information about yourself, your family, and your travelling goals to enable me to give you my two cents. Please take my input with a grain of salt.:o

 

1. You say this may be the last time you're able to travel with your elderly parents, and that they enjoy HAL. Out of love for them, you may wish to consider their preferences first and foremost.

 

2. Oosterdam will be four years old at the time of your contemplated cruise, and Dawn Princess will be ten years old. Is the ship age a factor for you?

 

3. There will be large numbers of youngsters on either ship during Thanksgiving week, I would imagine. Even if your children don't care for Club HAL, if they are sociable and outgoing they will meet others their own age. You've stated your goal is family time, not exclusive kid entertainment time, and so perhaps Club HAL will not really be an issue, I don't know.

 

4. Our youngest daughter, aged 7 at time of first cruise, enjoyed Club HAL, and I was impressed with both the quality of the staff and the program. But there were only 140 kids on our cruise. Our oldest daughter, aged 17 at time of first cruise, decided that cruising is not for her, and has no desire to cruise ever again. Sometimes, you just can't tell until you're on board, unfortunately, how things will turn out.

 

5. Finally, you can call HAL ship's services prior to your cruise departure at 1-800-541-1576, and ask for the number of youngsters on your cruise. The service reps can give you a breakdown by Club HAL age category: ages 3-7, 8-12, and 13-17.

 

I doubt that I've helped you very much, but please be assured of my wishes for a wonderful cruise for you and your family.:)

 

Karin

[kryos]

(1) to have a nice trip with our family of 4, together with my parents / the kids' grandparents... we have never cruised together, and we thought that would be fun (and no one would have to cook Thanksgiving dinner!). The parents are getting older (80s) and this may be our last time to travel together. My parents LOVE LOVE LOVE HAL... and it would be a nice memory for them. They do like Princess, too... which is our other option out of San Diego for Thanksgiving.

Now you present a different set of circumstances. Frankly, at your parents' age ... if they LOVE, LOVE, LOVE HAL but are "okay" with Princess, I wouldn't even worry that much about the kids' programs versus the two lines. For this cruise, I would just book what my parents love and then even if HAL's childrens' program doesn't fit the bill, you could always keep the kids entertained with you. After all, there will be ports with interesting things for the kids to do, and they can have a perfectly nice time at the pool on sea days. I do know that HAL is of the philosophy that the childrens' programs are not a substitute for the kids spending time with their families ... so the hours the program runs are not as good as on other lines. But, I honestly can't speak to Princess' program, though I believe it is a bit more extensive than HAL's.

 

I would focus on my folks' needs for this cruise ... given their age and the family's desire to cruise together while you still have the chance.

 

Blue skies ...

 

--rita

[cawhite]

Thanks Karin and Rita.

 

It's difficult (without writing an essay!) to fully, but succinctly, describe why you're considering Option A, or Option B, but you're correct... it is necessary, to get the appropriate advice! If my parents do go (hopefully that decision will be made soon), they will be the #1 priority, not the kids program.

 

My parents live just a couple of blocks away from our family... so we do see them often. It's not like they are flying from miles away to vacation together... but even though we do live so close, our "busy" lives keep us from seeing the parents / grandparents as much as we should. This will be a very nice trip for all involved.

 

I'm sure my parents would be glad to do the Princess cruise, if they thought the kids would have a better time. But as long as there are a number of other kids on board, my kids will have fun...

 

Also, I figure we won't be hanging out with my parents the entire time... but we'll definitely be eating meals together, and doing a number of activities on the ship together (but probably won't be doing shore excursions together).

 

Karin - yes, I am wondering about the condition of the Dawn Princess too! I've been scouring the boards here and on other sites, reading trip reports and reviews, etc. to try to figure out the condition of the Dawn Princess. It has never been through dry dock in nearly 10 years! I do have a stateroom on hold on that ship... but have nothing (yet) on hold for HAL.

 

Well, I'll have to think about all of this a bit more. Research, research, research!

 

Carole

[cawhite]

:o oops... I hate it when I accidentally double post!

[cawhite]

Oh, Karin... there is one more "pro" for the Dawn / "con" for the Oosterdam....

 

In addition to being a large ship (my parents actually prefer the small HAL ships), I have read that the Oosterdam's layout is not that great... and a bit difficult to navigate.

 

The Dawn Princess is smaller, and I've read is very easy to navigate.

 

.... for whatever these characterisitics are worth!

[Old As Dirt Mom]

Carole:

 

Ultimately, you'll be making your own decision, as it should be. However, if I may go out on a limb and be perfectly honest, I would suggest you stick with the Dawn Princess. If I were to cruise Princess, the "Sun" class ships would be the ones I'd choose. If your parents are fine with that choice, then I think the Dawn Princess will meet everyone's criteria. Again, just my two cents, and I think you're leaning that way, anyway. We've only cruised on Zaandam, and in less than two weeks, we'll be on Amsterdam. So you see I was not kidding when I said that I'm not qualified to comment on the "Vista" class HAL ships.

 

Promise us, no matter which ship you ultimately choose, that you'll come back here and post a review.:) I'm really interested to know how things turn out. (I'll probably still be hanging around these boards a year from now, the Lord willing).:o

 

Karin

[cawhite]

Yes, Karin - I am leaning toward the Dawn Princess (assuming my parents are happy with that).

 

But I'm trying to get all the facts down, so that when I discuss the details of the 2 options with my parents, I will have all the answers. I think we'll be fine either way, but will be making a decision by tomorrow (our Dawn Princess stateroom in on hold until then!)

 

I still like the idea of a newer ship with the Oosterdam, however!

 

Carole

[chumley]

Carole,

 

I understand your struggle with which ship to go with. But I will tell you that my kids preferred HAL over Princess. We have only sailed on HAL during a school vacation time so there were plenty of kids for them to hang out with. I wouldn't sail HAL with them unless that were the case. We also sailed Princess during a school vacation week (see a pattern??) and although there were lots of kids, they just had more fun on HAL. This is not the way I thought it would work out! But we have only taken the Princess cruise once and we are just about to take our 3rd HAL. That tells you something...

 

Good luck on your decision! You'll have a fabulous cruise no matter which one you go with. For the last several cruises we have taken either my parents or my MIL with us. My kids have loved traveling with their grandparents. It's been a great experience for everyone.

 

Leslie

[Old As Dirt Mom]

Chumley's post has been swallowed up into the evil "disappearing post" vortex, and I am using my magic "bumping" powers to bring it up out of the void.:D

 

Karin

 

 

ps Voila! You observe the vanished post has miraculously surfaced. Drives me absolutely nuts when I can see that someone has posted, but then when I go to the spot in the thread where that post should be, it's not there. Am I making sense?

 

K.

[cawhite]

Oh... what a quandary I am in. Thank you, middle-aged mom and chumley, for telling me your honest opinions. I think I might be leaning slightly toward HAL now.

 

Let me chew on this a bit more....

 

Carole

[Wayneair]

My advice is not to take HAL. This was my first time taking the kids on HAL and they did not like it at all. HAL does a great job with everything else, but ClubHAL is the worst. I have sailed Celebrity three times with my kids and they just love it. The hours for ClubHal are bad (closed more than open),and you will notice, as soon as you drop the kids off, you are picking them up again. I thought the ClubHal Counselors were also not well trained to keep up with 400 kids. One night we picked the kids at 11:30pm and they Counselor thought it would be fun to feed the kids chocolate at night. My daughter who is 12 thought ClubHal was boring. She loves Celebrity now.

 

We have decided to return back to Celebrity for Thanksgiving 2007.

 

Other side notes about the Oosterdam. This was my 5th HAL cruise and by far the worst. The Pinnacle staff were rude, food was bland, and portions were small. Also, can you enjoy a nice meal when you hear the loud music from the nearby bars? Also, I would not call songs from Madonna as dinner music inside the Pinnacle. Our room steward thought it would be best to clean our room before we went to dinner. I put a quick stop to that. Also, our bathroom had a number of problems. After asking the room steward 5 times to repair them, I finally went down to the front desk.

[cawhite]

OK.... everyone. It looks like we're going to go with the Dawn Princess after all so I'll be booking that today (there's a promotion going on this week that I want to catch). I hope we're not disappointed Leslie (chumley)! I will look into HAL "next time" after we try out Princess.

 

Thanks again everyone!!!

 

Carole