Christmas cruise experiences?

So we booked a Christmas cruise instead of deciding to stay home or visit one set of family.

About an hour later, the oh crap, there's going to be over a thousand kids on this cruise thought hit. (We went the week after Thanksgiving last year, and one of the casino staff mentioned that the prior week there were 12 or 13 hundred kids on board and sales were off. So I'm expecting nearly as many for Christmas)

Anyone else cruising this Christmas or have any advice?

We don't hate kids or anything, but I wouldn't want to work in a day care either. I'm hoping we don't have to hideout in an adults only area, and I suspect the adult pool won't be that week.

I'm guessing the evening activities and nightlife will be more off than normal, but who knows maybe the parents will need a break to and it'll be fun. I'd be interested in hearing anyone's experiences.

I'm not sure as this year will be our first Christmas cruise. We will have two teenagers with us. Hopefully you will only encounter well behaved kiddos on your trip. Honestly, we were hesitant to go over Christmas not because we dislike kids but rather dislike inattentive parents.

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We have been on several Christmas cruises. A lot depends on the layout of the ship and the length of cruise. The longer ones we've taken at Christmas have not had that many families with children. The shorter ones do.

As long as your ship has adults only areas, you'll be OK. The worst ship layout we experienced was the Sun Princess. The supposedly adults only pool is right beside the family pool. Kids did not pay any attention to the signs and were using both pools.

We are going on two short cruises after Christmas this year. We'll be on the Caribbean Princess for cruises that start Dec. 27 and Dec.30. It adds up to a week, but they were cheaper than booking a weeklong cruise. I'm not worried about too many kids since we have sailed on this ship before and know the places to go to avoid them.

What ship are you going on ? As long as it is one that has activities and things for kids to do, it may not be bad.

Cruising over any holiday will have more children.

We cruised over Thanksgiving and there were a lot of kids but we still enjoyed our vacation.

Honestly, we were hesitant to go over Christmas not because we dislike kids but rather dislike inattentive parents.

Bingo!!!!:D

Some parents see this as an opportunity to enjoy their vacation at the expense of others onboard.

Reader

Thanks for the info everyone.

We'll be on the Emerald Princess, 7 day W carib out of Houston.

Thanks for the info everyone.

We'll be on the Emerald Princess, 7 day W carib out of Houston.

Mark I sincerely hope you have a wonderful cruise:)

Reader

It really depends upon the ship and the itinerary. We have done 4 Christmas cruises. The most children we encountered was on HAL, then Last year with Silversea we had just too many poorly behaved kids. We have had a good experiences with Cunard. If there is a good kids program onboard you should be just fine.

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Thanks for the info everyone.

We'll be on the Emerald Princess, 7 day W carib out of Houston.

Princess offers some pretty good activities and programs for kids of all ages and it seems to keep most of them occupied. We mostly cruise Princess and even though we have been on some cruises with a lot of kids, we didn't really notice them. We've been on the Emerald and it's sister ships and there are a couple of pool areas that usually are kids free, the pool near the Sanctuary and the aft pool which is adult only. And maybe we've been lucky but most of the kids we've run into through most of our cruises have been pretty polite; some of the adults on the other hand, that's another story! Enjoy your cruise. Dave

We have had a good experiences with Cunard.

Glad to hear that! We've book a QM2 TA for the week before Christmas, and I'm hoping that the combination of uninviting weather and many schools still being session will keep the kids to a minimum. I don't think I noticed more than a handful on out last (June) crossing...

Hope you have a good cruise. As many of the people have posted depends on the cruise line somewhat, carnival for example has the youngest average age of cruises, i.e., tons of parents in their 20's -40's, with many that will want to take their children/teens for the holidays. Cruise line like say Holland American caters more to the older crowd 50's -70's, so probably some grandchildren, but they (Holland for example), do not overly promote their cruises for kids/families. Consequently, I never go on a cruise the week of Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Years, or June/July. For example, going on a week cruise this 11/29 - 12/6, Carnival out of Miami, sat - sat, leaving on the saturday after thanksgiving, will be virtually no kids as who is going to take their kids out of school the week after thanksgiving when they just were out most of the prior week for thanksgiving, first two weeks of December are also great weeks to choose in the future (no kids, most people are shopping for Christmas, attending Christmas parties, etc. so you can usually get great rates and ships are not crowded). Not putting down people with children, but not only are there a lot of children/teens on holiday weeks/summer. So many of the cabins that typically go out with 2 people per cabin most of the year, will go out with 3-4, with children in those fold down bunk bed things or open up sofas, so you have many more people on the ship vying for pool area, restaurants, shows, waiting in line to get off ship in ports, etc. etc. Hope you have a good cruise and sure you will still have a good time even if there are a lot of children/teens, but figured you and other readers would appreciate the downside of taking some cruise lines during holiday weeks and or July/August if you don't have children.

Prices are at a premium, a lot of kids and if you are flying to/from, depending on the specific dates, airfare can be WAY more then if you going to fly other times. Personally.... I'd stay home, light a fire, crack open a bottle and spend Christmas at home in your jammies with your partner and take an early January cruise. Cruise rates for the earlier part of January are discounted a bit.

We took a Christmas cruise in 2011 in and out of San Juan on RCL. For us, it was pretty much a normal cruise. On Christmas Santa was in the Centrum with the kids (I don't know if he gave gifts) but generally that was the only time you would run into hoards of kids.

Christmas itself was a sea day but since we were visiting former British colonies, Boxing Day was also a holiday so there were some closures on land.

The ship (the Serenade) was beautifully decorated thanks to a contest among the crew to create Christmas "trees" from discarded materials, like old light bulbs and beer cans.

My main complaint, though, was that they played the same music on a loop for a week. If you didn't already hate the song "Wonderful Christmas Time" you did once you got off the ship!

Glad to hear that! We've book a QM2 TA for the week before Christmas, and I'm hoping that the combination of uninviting weather and many schools still being session will keep the kids to a minimum. I don't think I noticed more than a handful on out last (June) crossing...

We are going to be boarding as you are leaving in NYC. My good CC friend will be onboard with you, it will be her 3rd time. You are bound to have good company. Enjoy G32 in the evenings.

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Prices are at a premium, a lot of kids and if you are flying to/from, depending on the specific dates, airfare can be WAY more then if you going to fly other times. Personally.... I'd stay home, light a fire, crack open a bottle and spend Christmas at home in your jammies with your partner and take an early January cruise. Cruise rates for the earlier part of January are discounted a bit.

Yeah, the cruise is twice as expensive that week vs most other Dec and Jan cruises, only the New Years cruise is more expensive. With work/vacation schedules it was just a lot easier to get the time off Christmas week. 1200 kids, if there are as many as we were told there were last Thanksgiving is a scary prospect, lol, but I'm sure we'll have a great time.

This is the CHRISTMAS Cruise. I did it 2 years ago and didn't notice a lot of children. If anyone is taking the HAL cruise I'd like to do a meetup.

For the couple of posters who are sailing Cunard/TA....we came home in August on QM, there were very few kids. No matter when you sail, there are not a lot of kids on TA's, whether it be a repo cruise or a Cunard TA. And we LOVED our crossing!!!!!!!!! As long as you don't have awful awful awful weather, I think (and hope) you will, too. We had a more modest cabin and with Cunard's O/W air VERY special pricing, and then O/W on QM, the trip was very little more then if we flew R/T.

We're back, I'd take a Christmas cruise again if that's the best time to schedule vacations. The ship was decorated and there were Christmas activities, but it wasn't over the top. There were 600 kids on board, not sure if that's the under 18 or under 21 count, this is significantly less than we were told were on a Thanksgiving cruise.

There were more older teens and early 20's passengers than children, and a few more extended family groups than normal, but it really wasn't a big deal at all. During bingo they said the average passenger age was 36, which is a bit hard to believe. I saw under 21 getting refused for alcohol and under 18 turned out of the smoking lounge more than once, but not really any unruly behavior except for some loudness in the halls the last night.

The disco was busier than normal, I saw a few other gay couples but never went to the LGBT get togethers. Overall, it was one of our favorite cruises, mostly for our time together and shore activities vs. the Christmas part of it though.

We cruise at Christmas 2013. Loved it. Cruising out of Houston was easy, but delayed because of fog. Nice ship Emerald Princess. Nice decorations. Families but not too many unruly kids. We'd go again.

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