First Time Cruise and with our 6 year old. Opinions/advice please??

Hi everyone,

We are about to make reservations for our first cruise. It's a long term plan - we plan to go July 2017. A recent promotion and scheduling of projects this year at work won't make a nice vacation possible until then. We are leaning toward Carnival because they seems to be pretty kid/family friendly. Our 6 year old will be going with us. Since it is our first cruise, we are trying to be as educated as possible and consider every detail before booking it. I'm seeing 2 cruises that we have narrowed it down to. First is a 5 day Eastern Caribbean that stops at Nassau, HMC, and Grand Turk. The other is a 5 day Western Caribbean stopping at Cozumel & Grand Cayman. I feel like the first cruise we might want to start with something smaller which is why I'm looking at 5 days. Do you think this is a good approach or am I being too cautious? and locations... who has been to these locations and which do you think we would enjoy most? why? One is aboard the Carnival Paradise and the other is on the Carnival Conquest. Do any of you have any advice or anything to share about either ship? Or should I really be too concerned about the ship itself? Anything else I should consider since our 6 year old is going? I'm relying on some expert opinions here -- Yours!! No one better to ask than those who have done it. I really appreciate your insight and opinions as well as any advice you want to offer up on what to think of as we plan it. Thank you for taking the time to read this and giving a few minutes to offer your expert opinions and wisdom to us!!

5 days is fine, but 7 is better! The ship becomes your floating resort... If you're worried about feeling "stuck on a ship", you won't....no worries!

Your 6 year old will LOVE the kids clubs and activities....most kids don't want to leave at the end of the day!

Carnival, RCI and NCL probably have the most for kids, but Celebrity kids club gets high ratings, too...So it's really up to your preferences!

I would advise you to get a guidebook on your ports...the more you know about what is in each place, the better time you'll have ashore! Most things are easily done without a pricey excursion...the guidebook will help you with that. All of the Caribbean ports (even tho the Bahamas aren't in the Caribbean), take US dollars, and they speak English, so it's very easy to do things on your own! Your local library has guidebooks!

As far as your ports, only 1 of your picks has HMC...which is the private island Carnival uses...a lovely beach day that is! For your 1st cruise, more ports is probably the way to go...personally, I think 3 "sea days" is a bit much for a 5 nighter!

I vote for the first itinerary. It is a smaller ship, but since it will be your first, it will seem huge to you, and it may take the five days to find your way around. HMC is the private island for Holland America/Carnival, and is a beach day...they best beach you have ever experienced. Sand like powder, no rocks in the water. A beach picnic is provided. Grand Turk can be another beach day. The beach is right by the dock, and there is a great (free) pool at Margaritaville, also right by the pier. Nassau is what you make it. Shopping,beach again, Atlantis ($$$). Visit the Ports of Call boards here for excursion ideas. Be aware that on Paradise, unless you book a suite, your child will be sleeping in an upper bunk. EM

You also might want to discuss the Carnival ships on the Carnival forum.

Also, the Family Forum is a good place to get ideas about cruising with a child.

I'm another who would suggest you also look at some of the 7 day itineraries.

My daughter's first three cruises were on Carnival. Plenty of activities for the kids. We were on the Paradise back in 2001.

One piece of advice I'll give is to fly in to your embarkation port at least a day early. You may even want to consider a couple of days just in case the weather gets a bit iffy (July is during hurricane season, and even though you don't have to worry about sailing through a hurricane -- if you're on a western Caribbean cruise and it looks like a hurricane may pop up around there, your itinerary will be switched to a more eastern one, and vice vesa....but sometimes an impending hurricane may affect flight arrivals so you'll want to be already there).

If you enjoy the beach and looking for beach days I would 100% go with the Eastern cruise. HMC is beautiful and it's hard not to have a good time there. Grand Turk is the same, clear blue water and beaches right off the boat. Then Nassau is meh imo, find a good excursion and it can be fun though. Can't comment on paradise, but I have been on conquest ships and they are pretty good.

Took my 5 year old a few years back on a very similar itinerary, she loved it. Had a blast on the beaches and she really liked the kids club but she was in the 3-5 year old one and they just did daycare like activities all day. Not sure how the next age group up one is but if she is outgoing she'll probably enjoy it.

Our first cruise was 7 days and even that felt short. Not in the sense that we were having too much fun to stop but that we were just starting to get the hang of everything. DH also wished it had been a smaller ship to begin with, but we were on a ship about the size of the Conquest. Not one of the giant ones.