NCL Sky with young children

[2910car]

We are going on a family cruise in June with us (grandparents) our children and their spouses and 6 grandchildren ages 2-7. We are trying to decide between 4 night NCL Sky and and 5 night RCCL Enchantment of the Seas. I will post this same question on RCCL board. I really coulduse some opinions from anyone who has sailed on eithr ship with young children. Thank you.

[Olive]

I have sailed on the Gem only with a young child (18 mos), but I can provide a little bit of insight for what it's worth. We booked a suite for the extra space and the ability to order meals from the specialty restaurants to our suite, since we know that our son has a hard time sitting through meals. We also sailed with family and had the opportunity to check out their balcony cabins. We were very happy that we chose to go with the suite, since there would not have been much additional space in the cabin if we went with a balcony. His toys and the pack n play just took up too much space. Our family had aft balcony cabins, so not sure if those are slightly smaller than the others. We did order from the specialty restaurants or main restaurant into the suite for most of our dinners. We brought our son to the buffet for most meals. There were lots of friendly staff in the buffet (and throughout the ship) who paid extra attention to our son. A few times I had a hard time finding a high chair and didn't get any assistance, and no offers to help carry it once I had located one. Our son was mostly kept entertained running around the ship or being wheeled around the ship. We brought a small inflatable pool for him to splash around in on the balcony. There was also a small play area for the under 2's (I think this is something they have on all NCL ships). We had a very nice time and would sail on NCL again with our son.

 

I hope you get some responses specific to your ship!

[racepoint]

I have only 7 cruises under my belt, but I have done both RCCL Enchantment ('03) and, just recently (Jan. '08), NCL Sky. Your question seems geared towards what is the better cruise for the kids. I can only speak from personal experience for RCCL because this recent NCL cruise we left the kids at home;). On Enchantment, the kids had a blast! The kids' staff was really fun and my girls both looked forward to scanning the daily paper to plan what they'd be doing the next day. (I have to add that the other cruises that we took our girls on were Princess and, either they were having an "off" week, or their programs for kids just weren't up to par. They just couldn't compare with the girls' first cruise on Enchantment). The nice thing about Enchantment (that I didn't see on Sky) was a dedicated area on the pool deck for the young teens. They had their own hot tub and place to hang out in the sun. Don't get me wrong. I LOVED Sky . . . and I LOVED Enchantment. Both terrific ships. But for the various ages you're trying to accomodate, and in my personal critiquing the many aspects of these ships , I think I'd be inclined to go with Enchantment.

[14ersco]

We were on the Sky went it was still the Pride of Aloha and DS was 4. He had a great time and the staff was great, but since that was our first cruise he didn't know that were better ships for the kids area. For the non-teenager kids there is a large room in the stern divided into threes by partitions for the 3 age groups. For the 2 to 5 group their part of the room was about 15 x 20 with a bathroom. There was also a small (about 5 x 10) pool with a little waterfall on the top deck stern for the younger kids. Where NCL stands out on their cruises is with no set dining times and on any sea days the kids club is open from 9 AM to 10:30 PM with no closure times.