Cruise with a 2 year old - Ventura or Anthem of the seas?

We are looking to book a cruise in September on either of these ships but we are torn between them.

The Anthem of the seas is approx £1,000 more than Ventura and we are not sure if it is worth paying the extra.

On Ventura kids club can we attend with our child as this seems to be the case on Royal Caribbean who have a dedicated 45 minute session with parents? Our daughter is very clingy and likes to be with one of us most of the time.

Also we have done both P&O and RCI cruises before and have found the RCI cruises more fun and we are worried booking a p&o cruise that there wouldnt be much to do on board as a family (it looks very beige) and on the Ventura there doesnt seem to be many family oriented public areas?

Looking forward to any views people have on this

Rob

I understand your dilemma. We've just booked on Ventura for a cruise in October. Our first choice would've been to sail with RCI but we couldn't justify the extra cost at the moment (and the dates of cruises didn't work out so well for us). The one good thing about P&O is the free night nursery for babies and younger children. I'm hoping that once our daughter is asleep she'll be fine to stay there for a few hours. I'm desperate to go on Anthem but we've decided to wait a year or two until she's a bit older to go to the kids club and we can enjoy more aspects of the ship. However if money was no object I'd definitely go on Anthem! Good luck with your decision.

Anthem has a nursery for 6to 36months, where you can drop kids off to be watched - but being a brand new ship, it is extremely pricy at the moment.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I believe Anthem also as a nursery but I don't think it's free.

We did Ventura with a 17 month old last year and I think the only way you can accompany children in the kids club is if you use the "baby" room and I think (although I wouldn't swear to this!) they can only use this room during the day up to 24 months. We asked about using the climbing equipment in the main toddler room but were told we couldn't accompany our daughter but as she wasn't 2 yet she couldn't be left by herself so couldn't use it.

Other than that we didn't have a problem. There is a toddler pool which you can use (even if not toilet trained) and we used the basketball court for a lot of running around. theres also a children's tea at 5 in the buffet everyday. We didn't use the night nursery (we also have a clingy child) but P&O don't have a curfew for children like some other cruise lines so we just let our daughter sleep in her pushchair whilst we did what we wanted.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I believe Anthem also as a nursery but I don't think it's free.

You are correct - the nursery is fee-based.

We are looking to book a cruise in September on either of these ships but we are torn between them.

 

The Anthem of the seas is approx £1,000 more than Ventura and we are not sure if it is worth paying the extra.

 

On Ventura kids club can we attend with our child as this seems to be the case on Royal Caribbean who have a dedicated 45 minute session with parents? Our daughter is very clingy and likes to be with one of us most of the time.

 

Also we have done both P&O and RCI cruises before and have found the RCI cruises more fun and we are worried booking a p&o cruise that there wouldnt be much to do on board as a family (it looks very beige) and on the Ventura there doesnt seem to be many family oriented public areas?

 

Looking forward to any views people have on this

 

Rob

Without a doubt it would be Ventura for me with a two year old. I just think P&O excels when it comes to pre-schoolers even if not quite as exciting as Royal Caribbean. I much prefer clubs on P&O as I think staff:child ratio better. This on top of things like dedicated children's tea in the buffet etc. and baby equipment e.g they will give you a baby bath for shower tray (my kids would not shower when little) While kids were v young we sailed almost exclusively with P&O because it was such an easy holiday.

We went on P&O Ventura last year when our smallest was 6 months and were on the RCI Explorer last week - she is now 18 months old. We also have a 7 year old. P&O in general caters better for babies/toddlers. I believe Anthem has a purpose built nursery but Explorer didn't - or a pool she could go in.

That said we would still choose RCI because we found P&O boring. The actual entertainment was good but there is not the same atmosphere/buzz as you get on RCI. We found the buffet much better on RCI than P&O which is our food place of choice with small children. Next year we are going on Independence which has better baby facilities like Anthem so we can have best of both worlds.