Thanksgiving Week Cruises?

[boozecruise78]

How are cruises over a holiday period...crusing Thanksgiving week, are they normally more or less crowded or family oriented?

Also do they do anything special on the cruise over holidays?

[kristy29]

I don't know about it being more or less crowded, there were a lot of kids and I assume more than normal. I stayed out of the pool because it was full.

 

As for Thanksgiving Day they offered a turkey option in the dining room but that was all that they did that was special.

[tciscruisinnow]

I am cruising the week of Thanksgiving, and this will be the third cruise during that week for us. There are a lot of families, which means a lot of kids. We have ours too, so that doesn't bother us. It is nice to have someone else cook for you, and it works out better for us work/school schedule wise. We love cruising this week. The turkey has always been good. You really don't pay any attention to it being a holiday. We always cruise with family, so we have all we need. Have a great cruise. Just a few more days :)

[nothomeonacruise]

It's not just children, but it's grandparents and other family members, too. The holiday cruises have larger families cruising. I love seeing large families with grandparents enjoying their meals. My mother comes with us on ours. There's a nice atmosphere during the holidays.

Yes, there are a lot of kids during this time, but they are kept pretty active. Last year, we had around 1000 kids on the Triumph at Thanksgiving, but we didn't really see them (except around the pool area). There is a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings. The nicest part is Thanksgiving is the formal dinner night with full service. Look at it this way, you get to eat with the ones you love, leave behind the ones who you cause holiday headaches, and you don't have to cook! It's a win win situation in my book. :)

[abitaturbodog]

I agree with the other posters, lots of families on Thanksgiving. If you don't like a lot of kids on your cruise, pick the week just after Thanksgiving. We've gone that week as well and there were very, very few kids on board.

 

The thing I like about sailing on Thanksgiving is NOT having to eat turkey on Thanksgiving day! There are other choices on the menu, so if turkey's not your thing you can have fish, chicken, pork or steak instead!

[jpg1747]

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite weeks to cruise. I only have to use 3 vacation days instead of 5. I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for the family for more years than I care to remember, so it's nice to be away from all that. As far as all the children, I do late dining and I stay away from the areas where they tend to congregate so I don't notice them much at all.

[Sting Ray]

We're cruising on the Carnival Fantasy the week before Thanksgiving in 2009. For a family of four, it will cost $800 less than the week of Thanksgiving. If you have children and don't mind seeing them miss five days of school, I imagine you could save a lot of money by sailing the week before or after Thanksgiving.

[Sgt. Jeff]

Will the ships be decorated for Christmas on Thanksgiving day???? We are going to be on the Inspiration.......My wife was hoping to get a picture for our Christmas cards on the ship!!!

[sk8rpatty]

I did this cruise last year. Yes, there were a lot of kids, but it only seemed overwhelming when I was waiting in the long line to check in. Once on the ship, I hardly noticed.

 

The only problem for me was that the nightlife was almost non-existent. By 11:00 the ship was dead.

 

The funny thing was how many people that I talked to that were on the cruise to avoid an uncomfortable family situation Such as fighting over who's house to go to, a crankly MIL, etc.

[mosaic_mom]

Will the ships be decorated for Christmas on Thanksgiving day???? We are going to be on the Inspiration.......My wife was hoping to get a picture for our Christmas cards on the ship!!!

 

We are on the same cruise you are. We are hoping it will be decorated for Christmas as well.

 

Anyone know for sure??

[travel girl23]

We have cruised over Thanksgiving twice and, yes, there are lots of families and lots of kids. That said, we never had any problems with the kids on board. But there are a lot.

Both times, the ships were decorated for Christmas when we boarded.

We got a turkey towel animal on Thanksgiving night and for Thanksgiving dinner they had a parchment souvenir menu rolled up and tied with a ribbon on our plates in the dining room. Turkey was offered along with other options. That is about all they did for Thanksgiving.

[nothomeonacruise]

Yes, we had Christmas decorations on both our previous Thanksgiving cruises.

[cruiserami]

We've cruised three times over Thanksgiving and there were never Christmas decorations up yet. We've always had a wonderful time, though. Much better to lay on the beach or at the pool than to spend all morning cooking. We've been with our family every time and I love the fact that it's perfectly acceptable to go have a nap in the middle of the day whereas if we were home, it's only O.K. for the guys to do that. Is my family the only one where the women do all the work? I think women must book the majority of holiday cruises.

[abitaturbodog]

We've cruised a couple of times over Thanksgiving and the ship has always been decorated.

[dec2007w3boys]

We cruised last year and it was decorated beautifully - looking forward to that again.

[Muumuu]

This will be our 4th Thanksgiving cruise and there were always lots of kids on board, about 1,000. Yes, one thousand. But once on board it never seemed like there were many. I am really not a kid lover but I have never been bothered or annoyed at any on the Thanksgivig cruises.

 

Each cruise was already decorated for Christmas.

 

And we will be back on for Thanksgiving next week for an 8 dayer .

[izzyvet]

We've cruised over Thanksgiving and it was a big family cruise with brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews. Yes, there were A LOT of kids,,, but since some of them were with us, it was great!! We've never cruised with kids before and their energy is quite infectious. We had a great time! First time seeing the ocean for some of them,,,, so cool!

 

We had a really yummy turkey dinner for Thanksgiving and having it with the whole family and not having to clean up afterwards was wonderful. I would definately consider another Holiday cruise if I could convince family to join me again.

[BeachBum47]

As a Canadian I am excited that I get to have TWO Thanksgiving's this year! (we Canadians celebrated Thanksgiving already this year - in October). We are going on the Spirit out of San Diego on Nov. 20 - can't wait!!