Average age

This was posted on cruise critic a few years ago. I cannot attest to its accuracy, but I have read before that of the major non-luxury cruise lines, the average age of passengers on Princess tends to be the highest.

 

From another CC string:

 

Passenger ages vary somewhat by sailing, but usually they are as follows:

Carnival Cruise Line: 0 - 45 years of age

Royal Caribbean Cruise Line: 25 - 55 years of age

Crystal Cruise Line: 55+ years of age

Celebrity Cruise Line: 35 - 64 years of age

Norwegian Cruise Line: 27 - 56 years of age

Holland America Cruises: 30 - 60 years of age

Princess Cruise Line: 35 to 65 years of age

I know that you said that you cannot attest to the accuracy, and to that point, those numbers mean nothing without a source. Otherwise, it reads as: "It must be true. I read it on the internet."

I have been on several cruises where the ships departing Miami , needing to fill their cabins, went to various sr centers and developments and gave then a special price and then bussed loads to the port.

The even did this on a Med Cruise Venice to Ft Lauderdale,, the first 2 weeks it was an age of 45-60, The second 2 weeks... went to 75-80.. I am a sr and this crowd was not pleasant to be around....demanding rude and arrogant....

So I would think that the port too has some relevance

We just finished a 10-day Caribbean cruise on the Royal Princess. The ship was great and we had a wonderful time. We were celebrating our 25th anniversary and wanted to have a more adult atmosphere so we decided to try Princess - we usually cruise with Royal Caribbean. It seems we went from one extreme to the other; the average age of passengers on this cruise was about 75 to 80. We are already planning our next cruise but can't decide between Princess and Royal Caribbean. Can anyone tell me if all Princess cruises attract mostly elders, or was our cruise unusual?

Maybe because school was still in session during your cruise?

Length of cruise factor? It can really be expensive for a family with a couple of children or teens to do a 14> cruise.

Longer cruises seem to have more 70-80 age group. Retired, and widows? That's been my experience on a few cruises with Princess and Celebrity. We are in are early 60's and enjoyed meeting folks of all ages during our cruises.

I have been on several cruises where the ships departing Miami , needing to fill their cabins, went to various sr centers and developments and gave then a special price and then bussed loads to the port.

The even did this on a Med Cruise Venice to Ft Lauderdale,, the first 2 weeks it was an age of 45-60, The second 2 weeks... went to 75-80.. I am a sr and this crowd was not pleasant to be around....demanding rude and arrogant....

So I would think that the port too has some relevance

Unclear. Which crowd was demanding rude and arrogant? 45-60, or 75-80?

Which demographic are you in ie. senior begins @50. :(

Enjoy good health,

King

I recall - way back when - when Princess was affectionately known as "God's waiting room." Personally, I prefer more mature (read: older) cruisers. I still enjoy going to the clubs and (trying) to keep awake into the wee hours. I think the Princess demographic tends to be on the mature side, but there is still plenty of room for the 30 somethings who want a finer cruise experience. Maturity is a blessing - age is just a state of mind.

Most of us live as active a lifestyle as our bodies will allow, and we're going and doing and seeing the world while we still can, so please be happy for us, instead of offended by our presence.

I make no bones about the fact that I'm 73YO. Do I stay up late at night? Yes, but I'd rather read a book than go to a show. I'm busy and active during the day and I'm having a ball just living life. I know I'm very fortunate but I worked long and hard to be able to do so. I know I'm not alone. Crabby, demanding people come in all ages and sizes. Sometimes it sucks being older because your body doesn't do what you could when you were younger.

Here I am zip lining across the Victoria River at Victoria Falls. Much more fun than climbing a fake rock. :)

Same for me. I've never taken a cruise with an average age of late 70's or older. And that's a lot of cruises, most of which were longer than seven days.

If you think about it, on a ship with 3000 passengers, for the average age to be 75+, then half of the cruisers would have to be that old and half under 75. I think 1500 is a rather large number of folks for that age range. I suspect that the poster who said this just assumes anyone with grey hair or a cane must be approaching 80. :rolleyes: (We should all be so lucky.)

(I will attest to the fact that is indeed Pam on the zip line! Not a stunt woman!)

I have been on several cruises where the ships departing Miami , needing to fill their cabins, went to various sr centers and developments and gave then a special price and then bussed loads to the port.

The even did this on a Med Cruise Venice to Ft Lauderdale,, the first 2 weeks it was an age of 45-60, The second 2 weeks... went to 75-80..

So they bused seniors from Miami to Madeira? That must have been interesting....

Hear! Hear! I often hear, "I hope I'm as busy and active when I'm your age."

 

I make no bones about the fact that I'm 73YO. Do I stay up late at night? Yes, but I'd rather read a book than go to a show. I'm busy and active during the day and I'm having a ball just living life. I know I'm very fortunate but I worked long and hard to be able to do so. I know I'm not alone. Crabby, demanding people come in all ages and sizes. Sometimes it sucks being older because your body doesn't do what you could when you were younger.

Well, I couldn't agree more! Of course, we just seem to get older with each cruise and since we started later in life I guess that we just don't have any choice but to age! ;)

As for the average age demographic, seems to me you are only as old as you think you are! The best couples we meet are often like Mr. Thomas & Mrs. Dorothy Churley, (ages appeared to be in early 90's) Princess Cruise Lines “Most Traveled Passengers” of the 2013 Hawaiian voyage. This was their 6th b-t-b cruise to Hawaii. They were also booked on the return cruise. We saw them quite often around the ship because they enjoy life and were quite active. She stated that when she was ready for another cruise, she would simply burn supper that night and they were quickly booked on some cruises! :eek: :D

OK to be clear I am close to 70... still active and work part time because retirement bores me...

The group I spoke of as being nasty was the 75 to 80 group.... the ship must have chartered a 747 because there were about 900 passengers in that age group out of 1500. ( ship was not full) that came on most from south Florida !! They had to close the library because people were stealing books, prying off logos and art .... screaming at staff.. the works

.People were getting run over by scooter drivers, who would cut in lines and flip you off. ..... it was amazing They cancelled trivial pursuit because they were stealing the prizes... a sense of entitlement was present among the older folks... and I found out they were paying around $40 a day for the cruise!

I got this from the cruise director who had had it as had the Captain too... he said the cruise was not filling and they cut the fare 75% and included transportation.... in the fare....

It was like" black Friday" at sea... every day. Whether it was a function of price or age or a combination of them it did not work well for the rest of us....

After that I started sailing smaller and smaller and more expensive cruises just to insure the demographics... not for status but to insure less passengers means less options or chances of stuff going wrong.. a Darwin approach..

 

The group I spoke of as being nasty was the 75 to 80 group.... the ship must have chartered a 747 because there were about 900 passengers in that age group out of 1500. ( ship was not full) that came on most from south Florida !! They had to close the library because people were stealing books, prying off logos and art .... screaming at staff.. the works

 

.People were getting run over by scooter drivers, who would cut in lines and flip you off. ..... it was amazing They cancelled trivial pursuit because they were stealing the prizes... a sense of entitlement was present among the older folks... and I found out they were paying around $40 a day for the cruise!

After that I started sailing smaller and smaller and more expensive cruises just to insure the demographics... not for status but to insure less passengers means less options or chances of stuff going wrong.. a Darwin approach..

A Darwin approach? How flattering. I hope you are happy on your expensive cruises. Did you just pop over to the Princess board to insult the older passengers?

If you think about it, on a ship with 3000 passengers, for the average age to be 75+, then half of the cruisers would have to be that old and half under 75. I think 1500 is a rather large number of folks for that age range. I suspect that the poster who said this just assumes anyone with grey hair or a cane must be approaching 80. :rolleyes: (We should all be so lucky.)

 

 

 

(I will attest to the fact that is indeed Pam on the zip line! Not a stunt woman!)

That is the median age . Average - you add them all up and divide by the number. With an average you can easily have an older grouping/cluster of an age which can skew average higher.

To Pam- you go girl!!!

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If you think about it, on a ship with 3000 passengers, for the average age to be 75+, then half of the cruisers would have to be that old and half under 75. I think 1500 is a rather large number of folks for that age range. I suspect that the poster who said this just assumes anyone with grey hair or a cane must be approaching 80. :rolleyes: (We should all be so lucky.)

 

(I will attest to the fact that is indeed Pam on the zip line! Not a stunt woman!)

Well I'd mess up that assumption-currently 52 and using a rollator or canes, 1 in each hand, but prefer the rollator for feeling safe! That'd bring down the average age a bit! *wicked giggles*

Crochetcruise :cool:

Unclear. Which crowd was demanding rude and arrogant? 45-60, or 75-80?

 

Which demographic are you in ie. senior begins @50. :(

 

 

 

Enjoy good health,

 

King

Sorry to have to disagree with you. I'm not a senior until I collect social security and am eligible for Medicare. At 54 I'm only a sweenior.

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We've done 7 Princess cruises, all but one were 14 nights long. The 7 night one was Alaska which we felt had the highest average age around 50-60. All the others I'd say were around 40-50.

I find this thread to be very very funny, for a number of reasons. First of all many of us had pursuits in life (motor homes, children,demanding jobs,seeing the USA,etc.) with no plans to ever cruise. Also the cost of a cruise and the travel to get to a port excluded many of us from cruising. I could go on and on, but the facts of life are that many do not have the time or frankly the inclination to cruise, until later in life. My wife and I have been retired now for many years. We find cruising and exploring other countries wonderful experiences. Can't afford more than one a year, but take one each year. Have enjoyed Alaska, Hawaii, Caribean, and other places many times. Oh, almost forgot...I am one of those "old folks". Soon to be 82 and proud of it. (If you want a totally old, sound asleep group of folks try HAL) We find the folks cruising on Princess overall to be a great group regardless of age.

Please no sideswiping at HAL.

I asked a 14 year old once what he meant when he said old people. His answer: 25 years old! (true story)

No; but we just finished a 12 day on the Ruby and I have never seen so many walkers and Rollators in one place in my life.

 

I think the length of the cruise plays a large part.

 

Mike:)

Imagine what it was like on a 29 day cruise! Longer cruises tend to have older passengers...who else can take 29 day cruises except retired people! On our recent 29 day, the official average age was 76!!! :eek:

On our cruise someone even said, "The only people who can take a cruise like this are retired people and rich people!" LOL!

I had to admit that on some nights we were in bed much earlier than we are at home, but I think that was mostly due to the time changes. Some nights we actually closed Fusion! (We're 61 and 62)

Agree that the length of the cruise and time of year play a huge part. Not many younger couples, especially ones with kids, can afford, or be away from work long enough, for a 10-12 day cruise. Also, not many couples would take the kids away from school that long during the school year, especially during this time frame when they will already be out next week for Thanksgiving.

 

This is correct on most cruiselines. Is common sense.;)

Agree that the length of the cruise and time of year play a huge part. Not many younger couples, especially ones with kids, can afford, or be away from work long enough, for a 10-12 day cruise. Also, not many couples would take the kids away from school that long during the school year, especially during this time frame when they will already be out next week for Thanksgiving.

 

Just got off the Coral on Thursday from the 11-day Panama Canal partial transit. I didn't see a single kid the whole time on board, though my wife said she did see 2 kids with a couple.

We just finished a 29 day cruise and we had a family with 3 school age kids and some families with toddlers and babies. The only thing I can think of, is that those kids were homeschooled, otherwise they couldn't have been away from a traditional school for that length of time.

Please no sideswiping at HAL.

 

I asked a 14 year old once what he meant when he said old people. His answer: 25 years old! (true story)

When my daughter was 17 and working as a hostess in a restaurant, she came home one night and said that some old guy was hitting on her and how she thought it was so disgusting! I said, "that's terrible, how old was he?" And she responds, "He was about 29 or 30...ugh!"

ROFL! :rolleyes:

That is interesting if that is the case. I have only been on Holland America once but I recall it being much older than Princess' demographic. I also would have thought that Crystal would skew slightly older than Princess - but that might just be my assumption based upon their cost.

 

The oldest passengers I ever saw were on our Asia cruise on Princess. The average age on that one was easily 65 or so' date=' with myself being the youngest person I ever saw onboard that was not crew - and I'm 41 (was in my 30s then). I never saw so many walkers, scooters and wheelchairs as I did on that cruise. I was so glad that my mom (who is extremely fit for her age) was able to do these cruises while she has no mobility difficulties. I did applaud those folks for going though -- it was a long flight and a lot of intensive shore excursions.

 

I do think that age often is just a number though -- my 75 year old mother in law can out speed walk me with little to no effort. Between she and my mom (who does a few miles a day on the treadmill), I say don't play the older folks cheap. Both never take the elevators on the ship unless they are going up at least seven decks either -- I don't either but I do it begrudgingly. :)[/quote']

 

For the past 8 consecutive years, the average age of a Princess passenger, fleetwide, year round has been 58.

 

For the past 8 consecutive years, the average age of a HAL passenger, fleetwide, year round has been 57.

For the past 8 consecutive years, the average age of a Princess passenger, fleetwide, year round has been 58.

 

For the past 8 consecutive years, the average age of a HAL passenger, fleetwide, year round has been 57.

Wow, I stand corrected. I am really surprised about that, I thought HAL would be at least 5-10 years older than Princess. I am just curious - where did you get those statistics? I am not questioning their validity, just curious.

For the past 8 consecutive years, the average age of a Princess passenger, fleetwide, year round has been 58.

 

For the past 8 consecutive years, the average age of a HAL passenger, fleetwide, year round has been 57.

Wow' date=' I stand corrected. I am really surprised about that, I thought HAL would be at least 5-10 years older than Princess. I am just curious - where did you get those statistics? I am not questioning their validity, just curious.[/quote']

 

First of all, Bruce works for a cruise company (you can easily view all his previous posts). We're not sure which one, but his previous posts are chock full of interesting facts and explanations. Given this current factoid, I personally suspect he's with Carnival Corporate. While he can be brutally direct and to the point, I personally take Bruce's information as factual.

 

Now, I have some training in statistics and if the average age of the two lines differs by only one year, I sincerely doubt that's what we call "statistically significant". Of course Bruce could likely supply the standard deviation for those two numbers to figure that out but it's not really necessary. What we really know now is that over all Princess and HAL cruises, there really is no significant difference in average age.

 

It would be interesting if Bruce can supply this information: What is the correlation between length of cruise and average age on that cruise?

 

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BTW, multiple posters on this thread had stated that if the average age of passengers is X, then half the passengers are younger than X and half are older. This is absolutely not true as average numbers can be skewed by outliers. Now, if they were to say the median age was X, it would be true that half would be younger and half would be older.

I'm very interested in this. My first cruise was late season Alaska, mostly an older crowd- only 49 kids on the whole ship. Then we did a carnival cruise and decided that Princess was a much better clientele for us. Kids running amuck everywhere!

Just got home from a TA on the Regal and we are in our 30's and it was definitely an older crowd, but those "active seniors" kicked our arses! They were constantly zumbaing, line dancing, swimming laps, etc. it's really hard to guess ages these days, we obviously stuck out, but still an older crowd.

We have a NYE cruise booked and I'm afraid I am going to be disappointed with the number of children onboard. I've heard it will be packed because most cabins contain 4 people. I'm trying to brace myself and be ready to grab a seat in the adult area at the crack of dawn. I think we have 34 days until this experiment begins...

I do think in the future, we will continue longer itineraries when the kiddies are in school and we will be just as happy.

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