Taking a friend, who pays?

[JHA65]

My son (12 yrs old) wants to take a friend on our next cruise which is a great idea. My question is who pays for the friend us or his parents?

 

Thank You!

JHA

[mikesteg]

That's entirely a personal decision. If you really want to consider it to be your son taking the friend, then I'd say you pay. If you want to look at it more as offering the friend the opportunity, then you probably need to talk to the parents about paying.

 

A third option is asking the parents to pay the difference. This only makes sense if you're putting the kids in a separate cabin. In that case, you'd pay almost the full fare with only having your son in the cabin, so the additional is small. Note that this puts most of the cost on you.

 

Or you could just split the cost with the parents 50/50. If you do that, don't forget to include the gratuities and gas tax in the total. ;)

 

On a personal note, it's very nice of you even to consider taking someone else's pre-teen on a cruise. They really ought to be paying you. :D

[crusinmama06]

YOU do. If it's your choice to bring a friend then you pay.

 

Now with that being said, to be polite, the child's parent *should* offer to pay for expenses. But I can tell you from experience that is not always the case.

[mcfam5]

I definitely agree. Since you are asking for the child to go, the right thing to do would be to offer to pay.

 

Now, if I were the parent on the receiving end of that offer, I would insist on paying atleast a portion of the cost. But, that may not be a universal feeling. With that being said, I would not ask unless you are entirely prepared to pay for the entire amount.

 

 

Another suggestion from experience, make sure you know your child and their friend will get along for the length of the trip. Nothing is more irritating then feeling a damper on your trip because you have two moody pre-teens that cannot get along long enough to make it through the buffet line! :eek: I would suggest an extended sleep over to test the waters.

 

Good luck with your decision!

[bwjm]

I am allowing my 15 yo DD to bring a friend along, and yes, I'm paying for the cruise.

She, however, is responsible for her flight and all extras. This was worked out and agreed by us parents, also.

Girls have been like sisters since 1st grade, and have done extended visits, as they're both the only girl/child in each family, so I would suggest that, too!;)

[Guest carlogesualdo]

I definitely agree. Since you are asking for the child to go, the right thing to do would be to offer to pay.

 

Now, if I were the parent on the receiving end of that offer, I would insist on paying atleast a portion of the cost. But, that may not be a universal feeling. With that being said, I would not ask unless you are entirely prepared to pay for the entire amount.

 

Let me add to that: please be prepared that they may take you up on your offer without offering to pitch in a penny to offset the cost. If so, try not to be upset and hold a grudge at them. There are some who have not been taught that chipping in is the expected corollary to accepting large gifts. There are others who have simply given up trying because the offering party always insists it to death. The important thing is that everyone has a good experience.

[CowPrincess]

Also be prepared for the parents to say "We can't afford it". You'd better know beforehand what you ARE prepared to spend on the friend, so if the parents DO say "We can't afford it", you can say "Well, we'd cover xxx and yyy, could you cover zz?"

[simplelife]

DD used to take a friend along on most trips when she was younger - We could NOT afford to pay the full amount, so we always made it clear BEFORE the offer was made, or at least at the time of the offer, what the costs would be. The conversation might go something like this "Suzy would like to ask Mary to join us. Mary would need to cover her "extra person" charge (or whatever you need to ask for) but we will take care of anything else (meals on the way, or whatever). I hope Mary can come - the girls always have a good time together."

If you don't know the people well enough to have this type of conversation, you don't know them well enough for thier child to travel with you.

[madiandcindy]

DD used to take a friend along on most trips when she was younger - We could NOT afford to pay the full amount, so we always made it clear BEFORE the offer was made, or at least at the time of the offer, what the costs would be. The conversation might go something like this "Suzy would like to ask Mary to join us. Mary would need to cover her "extra person" charge (or whatever you need to ask for) but we will take care of anything else (meals on the way, or whatever). I hope Mary can come - the girls always have a good time together."

If you don't know the people well enough to have this type of conversation, you don't know them well enough for thier child to travel with you.

Well said! I agree if you cant be upfront as far as the costs, then you probably dont know them well enough to have their child on a 7 day cruise. I also want to highlight what a RESPONSABILITY it is having someone elses child with you, especially in other countries. good luck.

[Marlissa]

DD used to take a friend along on most trips when she was younger - We could NOT afford to pay the full amount, so we always made it clear BEFORE the offer was made, or at least at the time of the offer, what the costs would be. The conversation might go something like this "Suzy would like to ask Mary to join us. Mary would need to cover her "extra person" charge (or whatever you need to ask for) but we will take care of anything else (meals on the way, or whatever). I hope Mary can come - the girls always have a good time together."

If you don't know the people well enough to have this type of conversation, you don't know them well enough for thier child to travel with you.

 

I agree and would add to speak to the parents before anything is mentioned to the friend. If it didn't work out, there would only be one disappointed child, and not two, to contend with.

 

BTW, DD's bf (18 at the time) went on a cruise with us, we paid for all except airfare. Next year our niece (22 at the time) went, the same was done with her. Both times, we discussed with everyone how much it would cost and when/how the money was paid. DDbf's airfare was booked at the same time as ours and we paid for it. He then paid us back by the agreed upon date. Niece booked and paid for her own airfare, she lives in a different state than us and was meeting us at the destination airport.

[Northshorecruisers]

We took my son's friend on our last cruise and we paid. His friend had just graduated from high school the previous summer, and hasn't had the greatest experiences in life up till now. So, as a graduation gift we popped for the passport, airfare, & cruise. It was worth the money to us. We would have had to pay a single supplement for my son to have his own cabin, so this way he had a friend with. The friend brought spending money for the ports.

When we got back from the trip, the friend came up to me and said Thank You - he said it was the trip of a lifetime (and this is the same kid we took to Disney and Universal). I was glad we could give him the experience. And the photos of the two young gents dressed in tuxedos for formal night will always be treasured.

[notentirelynormal]

I’ve done it three times. The first was my nephew and he was about 12. My brother paid for everything and he was the 3rd/4th in the cabin. It was a cruise of mostly family so it wasn’t a big deal.

 

My DS needed a room mate so I took my niece and called it a graduation present. Her parents wouldn’t pay for it even if the could have. I paid for almost everything. She paid for her passport and half of her tips and shore excursions. She thinks she paid for all of it, but I couldn’t ask her to put that much out. That was 8 years ago and she treasures her Panama Canal cruise and seeing the Caribbean. She had never flown before or since.

 

I also took my DS’s best friend for his 21st birthday. His friend wanted to pay his share, but since he was a student and only had a part time job I told him to pay me back when he could. If that happens to be in ten years, then so be it. After we were back he told me that no one had been as nice to him as I had, not even his parents and he was very greatful for the experience. I don’t regret taking any of them for a minute.

[beckyjohns]

hmmm...interesting. i remember taking a friend with me on family vacations as a child. The friends' parents always paid for her flight...and my parents paid for everything else (meals, hotel, activities, etc). That being said, when you stay in a hotel, you pay for the room, not per person, so it really was no extra cost to have a friend along. A cruise is different, though, you are paying specifically for that person. I would think the friend's parents should pay. Of course, there should be a discussion before the friend is even invited.

[Northshorecruisers]

I'm sure there can be a lot of views on this. For me, seeing the look on my son's friends face when we boarded the ship made it all worthwhile to me. And it just got better. The way he was treated in the diningroom, the fact that people called him "sir". This is a great, hardworking kid who deserved to find out that the world out there is a big beautiful adventure - not the narrow minded scum sucking world his mother thinks it is.

We had taken this friend on a trip the year before. For that trip he needed to pay his airfare and admission to Disney and Universal. The rest wasn't a big deal because my dad is in Florida in the winter and we stayed with him. Cooking for 4 isn't much more expensive than cooking for 3. When we ate out, the friend always offered to leave the tip.

My husband and I will finally have our own cruise this coming October to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. But, the next cruise will be a family one - it will be to celebrate my 50th birthday in Jan 2010. Friends we met on a cruise that live in Vancouver BC will join us. We will be paying for ourselves, my stepdad (he's in Florida anyway), and my two sons - at the time they will be 18 & 25. My 25 y/o will still be in school going for his masters, and since he lives on his own he is a poor college student. The thrill for this trip will be seeing his reactions to a cruise.

I'm either going to be paying a single supplement for my stepdad's cabin or my youngest might get to bring a friend to share his cabin with and then my oldest and stepdad can share. I would probably ask the friend to pay their airfare and a double occupancy fee. At this point, the friend would have some sort of job and it's far enough in the future that they could save. I don't mind popping for an extra hotel room precruise and I don't mind paying for some meals.

Here's another side of the story. My son used to go to school with a girl whose both parents are dentists. They are very successful, lots of money..blah, blah. They take a month every summer to spend in Italy with their 4 kids. When they asked if my youngest could go with them I agreed thinking we would pay his costs. They were very offended. Their point was that they never would have asked if they hadn't planned to pay. You never know what to expect from people. Unfortunately, my mother was on her death bed close to the trip to Italy, so we had to cancel my son going with. Probably best. I would have felt terrible if this girl's parents paid all that money and my son didn't fill the "spot".

I guess you need to look at the family's financial circumstances and go from there. With the recent financial crunch, you have families eating mac & cheese every night so they can live in their massive house.

[Crusin6]

DD used to take a friend along on most trips when she was younger - We could NOT afford to pay the full amount, so we always made it clear BEFORE the offer was made, or at least at the time of the offer, what the costs would be. The conversation might go something like this "Suzy would like to ask Mary to join us. Mary would need to cover her "extra person" charge (or whatever you need to ask for) but we will take care of anything else (meals on the way, or whatever). I hope Mary can come - the girls always have a good time together."

If you don't know the people well enough to have this type of conversation, you don't know them well enough for thier child to travel with you.

Very well put! Open disscusion is mandatory here. When any of mine are offerred something from a friend's parent I always know the parent well and the other parent knows that since I have a large family myself and while we are not exacty destitute, we are not rich either but do travel frequently. They also know that we could never invite or afford to bring another child along as we have enough already to make the trip enjoyable for all and another child would most likely feel uncomfortable what with the inter-family chatter that goes on. They might feel left out, and my other children would not want this so they too would have to be aware of everything they say or do in order to make the friend feel comfortable. Additionally, bringing another child along would mean a third cabin for us. That being said, since I am not in the position to be responsible for an additional child other than my own, I would offer to pay every single penny of my child's trip. Why? Because I really would not be able to reciprocate and would feel better without the obligation to. BTW, IMHO, bringing along another child is really only doable when you have an only child or a large age difference between 2 children, like teenager and baby, and then your child and the guest could really have fun together. I believe all other times are family memory making times and should be kept as such.:)

[CanadianTwosome]

I agree that if we were to invite a friend along, we would be prepared to pay for her.

 

On the other hand, our daughter and her friend keep talking about how fun it would be for the friend to come along on our next cruise. Since it's the kids talking and not our idea, I simply told the friend how much it would cost for her to join us and that if she wanted to ask her parents and they agreed, we'd be happy to have her accompany us.

 

I see these two situations as entirely different. In the first one, WE are offering to take someone along - which to me means TAKE them along, as in pay the expenses. In the second, someone is expressing interest and I've explained what has to be done on their part to make it happen. So, in my opinion, it really all depends on the situation. :)

[West Texas]

my kids have friends on trips often( not cruises) the most important thing, it to get the details settled up front, spending money, extras, excursions, remember they are charging to your room.

[Cruise, J.D.]

My son (12 yrs old) wants to take a friend on our next cruise which is a great idea. My question is who pays for the friend us or his parents?

 

Thank You!

JHA

 

It depends. Do you want to pay for him? If so, offer. If not, make that a stipulation of the friend going. I don't think it would be rude to make the offer conditioned on the friend's parents footing the friend's costs. If they reject, you can always pay for it yourself.

 

Also, decide what will be included in the arrangement - travel costs, insurance, incidentals, onboard purchases, excursions, etc. I wouldn't take a nonfamily member unless they had travel insurance that covered medical emergencies.

 

Whatever you do, make sure everything is settled upfront.