East/south caribbean excursions, royal princess vs adventure of the sea with kids 6&8

Ok, so im getting a little closer to narrowing this down! Choosing between the following 2...

royal - princess cay, st Thomas, Antigua, Barbados, st lucia, st kitts

adventure b2b - st Thomas, st Croix, Antigua, st lucia, grenada, st kitts, st marten, Martinique, Barbados.

differences - st Croix, grenada, st marten, Martinique.....downfall, leaves from san juan rather than ft Lauderdale.

Firstly, opinions on the ships, royal princess vs adventure of the seas?

My only concern is there is only one main pool on royal, seems rather lacking compared to the grand class. im assuming the plunge pool is very small.

secondly, I started comparing shore excursions to see if this help, mainly looking at minimum ages as our youngest will be 6.

it seems RCI is less for minimum age. they do horse riding in Antigua from 6yo, but princess in st lucia is 12yo!

Does anyone know if there is any horse riding in any ports for 6 yo? I have an infinity brochure from the TA that says st lucia from 5 yo?

dolphin swim in tortola from st Thomas is 3 yrs RC vs 7 yrs with princess???

does anyone know if there is a minimum age on princess cays for the paddle boat, banana boat, aqua bike or kayaks?

I couldn't find anything on their website.

Although princess still seems the easier choice flight wise, im still considering san juan depart so we can see many other ports. if we choose princess we will go to WDW after, but if we have to fly to san juan, we will probably skip florida and head straight back to LA.

TIA, ive been so confused, but love hearing everyones thoughts! I just want to get it right because we are coming such a long way!

Don't forget...you don't HAVE to do a "ship's" excursion at all...go to the "Port of Call" boards, and find out from others who have done what you want to do, who they used! There are many private tour companies, and their age restrictions may not be the same as the ship's. Also, a guidebook and google are your friend, when looking for info on your ports!

On Princess' private island, everything is a "ship's excursion"...I think you'll need to go through the booking process to get details on the activities you want....if it's not what you like, then don't complete the transaction....but it should pop up the details!

The cruise ship lines set their own age restrictions, which are sometimes much stricter than the independent operators restrictions. You are much better off setting up independent tours with children, so you should look at the cruise ship excursions and see if you can figure out which independent operators they use, and research their website to see what their age restrictions are.

On our Princess Panama Canal cruise, the Jamaica stop included a ship tour to Dolphin's Cove. Princess did not allow children under 12 to interact with the dolphins. Dolphin's Cove allows children of all ages to experience a dolphin's kiss with parental supervision if you book directly with them. We found independent transportation on trip advisor, and booked our own excursion. Overall, the independent excursion cost less, we set our own hours, and we were able to go to the restaurant we really liked in Jamaica with yummy barbecue (Scotchie's) easily. Private tours give families extra flexibility if you need to go back to the ship early or switch activities early, and you don't have to worry if you kid get whiny about ruining other people's tour.

In terms of the ships, you should read the reviews on Royal Princess. A significant design flaw of this ship and its sister Regal is that the midship staircase does not exist for several of the floors. The reviews on the effects of the staircase are mixed, with some cruisers stating that they waited forever for overcrowded elevators since people couldn't take the stairs midship all the way to the top (some reviews stated that passengers snuck on the crew staircase to get around the ship). Other reviews state that passengers generally didn't have a problem catching elevators on the ship. I haven't traveled on the Royal Princess, so I don't know who is right (and I guess it is possible that depending upon how full the ship is, whether you tend to move around at peak times or off peak hours and how willing you are to walk to forward or aft to elevators near working staircases would explain why for some people the elevators are a big problem, and for others it is fine). I would guess that if you are traveling with kids you'd want to be closer to aft, assuming the kids club on the Royal is aft like it is on other Princess ships. Your kids are older, so you might be fine, but for parents of toddlers bad elevators are a substantial problem, since I've sometimes experienced other passengers try to push ahead of me and my son even if I was waiting directly in front of an elevator longer (this happened most often with older passengers on HAL; I don't know if they lacked the peripheral vision to see my 3 year old son or if they simply don't want young families on their ships).

Thanks for that.

I think I would cope with the stairs/elevators layout.

My only concern is wondering if the pool is sufficient enough, it seems there is less than on grand class?

I've been reading lots more reviews, and no one has really mentioned it.

I love an aft pool, or at least hot tub, but it seems no lines do it now

I'd post the question about the Royal pools on the Princess forum, and hopefully someone will be able to answer it. Good luck!

Thanks everyone, we have decided on princess. Will be back closer to the date to research more about ports :)