Tips to make the cruise "extra special" for the kids?

We've decided to take our kids on a cruise next year. :D It's a year away, but I'm very excited!

My husband and I have sailed several times, but this will be our first "family vacation" (that the kids can remember, at least).

I'm looking for tips to make it more special for them.:)

Things like....

~Decorating the door (I never had any desire to do this when it was just me & hubby, but with kids I think it'll be fun)

~Having a Bon Voyage gift waiting for them in the cabin ("Fun ship Freddy?")

My kids will be 6, 7, and 9 years old at the time of the cruise.

Anything else you can think of to make the trip extra special? Thanks! :D

Will be watching this thread. Taking our boys on their second cruise in October and would love a few surprises....in addition to the cruise itself!

Just to clarify....

I don't necessarily mean stuff to spend more money on. :)

When we go to Disneyland, I have a countdown strip that we use to countdown the days (mostly for my youngest.). It has "mickey ears" for every day. I was thinking of making some kind of countdown like that with maybe a cruise ship for each day (??)

eta: the Disneyland countdown looks similiar to this:

How fun to make little cruise ships to count down!

Also, I want to make up some kind of photo book for when the cruise is over. :D

That is wonderful what you plan to do.

I would definitely make some type of photo book afterwards. We use shutterfly. I would make one for each child as when they get older this will help them to remember the cruise and it just makes it more special.

It sounds like you have already figured out some very nice things to do for them and the cruise itself is special just to begin with.

Consider getting a cap for all five of you or something else to wear.

Keith

I'll be traveling on a two week cruise to Hawaii on celebrity Century over Thanksgiving 2012with my two granddaughters ages 7 & 9. ;)

We have a paper chain, not as fancy as the mickey Mouses above. each link is dated and numbered with a countdown.

We will be attending a 'Connections party' and a 'Sail away party' - Our CC group has (Hula Birds) T-Shirts and buttons.

The girls are planning on decorating the door.

Being girls, I have purchased quite a number of fancy dresses for them. They are very excited about attending the first formal night.:)

I've even arranged for corsages, as a surprise for them.:D

They have had a hand in planning our shore excursions, which were designed with them in mind.

They've helped to gather stuff (Clothes) for their suitcase.

Each has her own backpack containing primarily 'Activity' things like coloring books, notebooks, crayons, colored pencils, playing cards, Etc. that they have helped to assemble.

They've even helped assemble a list of rules that they must follow. They're especially intrigued by the last rule, which is: "IF YOU'RE NOT HAVING FUN, YOU WILL BE GROUNDED":eek:

I'm sure once they get on board they will get involved in the children's activities, and I won't see much of them!:rolleyes:

We've decided to take our kids on a cruise next year. :D It's a year away, but I'm very excited!

 

My husband and I have sailed several times, but this will be our first "family vacation" (that the kids can remember, at least).

 

I'm looking for tips to make it more special for them.:)

 

Things like....

 

~Decorating the door (I never had any desire to do this when it was just me & hubby, but with kids I think it'll be fun)

 

~Having a Bon Voyage gift waiting for them in the cabin ("Fun ship Freddy?")

 

 

My kids will be 6, 7, and 9 years old at the time of the cruise.

 

 

Anything else you can think of to make the trip extra special? Thanks! :D

to make our cruise enjoyable, my wife and i leave our kids at home..:)

but our kids are 49, 46 & 37 :) all married and on their own...........

We've decided to take our kids on a cruise next year. :D It's a year away, but I'm very excited!

 

My husband and I have sailed several times, but this will be our first "family vacation" (that the kids can remember, at least).

 

I'm looking for tips to make it more special for them.:)

 

Things like....

 

~Decorating the door (I never had any desire to do this when it was just me & hubby, but with kids I think it'll be fun)

 

~Having a Bon Voyage gift waiting for them in the cabin ("Fun ship Freddy?")

 

 

My kids will be 6, 7, and 9 years old at the time of the cruise.

 

 

Anything else you can think of to make the trip extra special? Thanks! :D

We find the best way to make the trip special is to involve the kids in the planning. We present a variety of options of things to do, and then we all decide together. Last trip, DS1 wanted to try ziplining, so we made the arrangements and went. He had the time of his life! They also love history, so we did the tour to Lamanai in Belize. Not the usual family-friendly tour, but an amazing experience and the highlight of the trip for all of us.

We don't decorate doors, wear matching t-shirts or do special gifts for the trip, but we do have great experiences together! I do agree with making an album of the trip, NCL has given away free Shutterfly codes in the past, which makes it a little easier on the wallet :)

I'm 300 days and counting, but already looking for ways to make the trip special for my boys as well (5 and 8 by cruise time). For our Disney trip, I did a count down that had bits of trivia or trip details for each day of the countdown. They LOVED that and want to know when I'm doing another. So I guess I'm doing one for the cruise! My boys are big into animals, so I'm going to try to find books on animals they might see on the trip (manatees in Port Canaveral, dolphins, fish, and I guess iguanas would make sense too!). I'll probably start doling these out a month or two before the cruise. They LOVE the build up though. Once on board, I'm sure the ship staff and grandparents are going to do PLENTY of spoiling, so I don't think I'll have to do much else to make it all special. I do think they'll be excited to dress up for formal night with us, which will be fun.

My kids were 10 and 12 when we took them on their 1st cruise (their only cruise so far!). My son was quite anxious, he's really not a fan of traveling. But my daughter could not wait to set foot on that ship!

I did the Bon Voyage room decoration package, which they both LOVED! The room looked like a party. We kept it up for the whole trip. We sailed on Carnival.

I tried to have them involved in planning some of the excursions - but that's not always easy.

I also had ordered the kids backpacks, t-shirts and water bottles. Those weren't quite as exciting for them. The water bottles both broke and the backpacks were sort of small. I was hoping they could use them on the excursions.

Both kids had cameras they could take pictures with.

Next summer we're doing cruising again, this time the Mediterranean. To the kids it's still so far away. But we're preparing by watching some movies set in the cities we'll be visiting. This way the ports will be familiar to them. They're helping with planning the excursions. They helped pick the itinerary and the ship. And for sure I'll have cabin decorations again!

My kids are really too young to remember it but we're going on our first cruise in November. I've got them each a Mermaid sticker for the door and on the last night of the cruise I ordered a cake to be delivered to our Room. Its my Oldest daughters birthday the week after we get back so I got a Happy Birthday cake. She'll be 3 ;) I'll also make them each a photo book of the cruise.

DD is now 16 and has different ideas as to what is fun, but when she was younger, I would do lots of things - Iwould research each port and for each day would have a scavenger hunt list set (when we were in Venice, it included a winged lion, a gondola drivers hat, someone with a pigeon on their head, in addition to things like an orange baseball cap) it kept her more interested in sightseeing. If we got everything on the list, she would get a prize (Kinder egg, gelatto, whatever). During one of the sea days we would do a treasure hunt -- I'd make up clues and set them out throughout the ship (letting the crew near each know what we were doing so clues did not go missing). DH and DD would trail a clue or so behind and she wouldneed to work each out. I'd be waiting at the last stop where she'd find the prize.

Pre cruise, we'd reasearch each port and as a family decide what we would do.

To echo the others, we get our son (currently 5) involved in the planning for any vacation. We talk about possible things we might do and everyone gets input.

I try to plan excursions that have something in it for everyone. For example, we took a day trip from Tortola to Jost Van Dyke.

Husband liked it because we rode a cattameran

I loved it because I always wanted to go to JVD

Son loved the water trampoline and calm beach.

Letting him know what to expect and what was expected of him seemed to help alot.

Good Luck!

We are cruising in 12 days!! My boy will turn 9 the day before we fly down and my little girl will turn 7 the day after we get back. I am ordering the birthday cake from Bon Voyage. The room decorations have been sold out for two months so havent been able to order! I am taking cut outs of fish, sand dollars, etc and a big soak up the sun sign to hang on our door.

Some other ideas - They are each getting a camera for their birthday gifts - I bought notebooks for both of them (and me) and we are going to journal a little bit every day, then add the pictures to the journal when we get home. They can take whatever strikes them with their new cameras so should make for interesting keepsakes!

I bought them mesh shell gathering bags that they can hopefully find some cool shells to bring home.

We did the faster to the fun pass as well as hoping that may cut down on the waiting with two excited kiddos!

We have connected with some of the other people in our roll call bringing kids and are friends on facebook so they are really getting excited about it.

First cruise for all of us!

On our last cruise I went on orientaltrading.com and bought some hanging lights- seashells and sea animals and hung them in the kids room. They loved that. Another tip: I also brought them each a highlighter so they could highlight all of the activities on the kids club agenda that they wanted to attend.

I know this is a little off topic but I also recommend getting some "Bonine for Kids" chewable tablets. My son has had seasickness on both of our last 2 cruises and this really helped.

Hope your family has a wonderful trip!!!:)

My wife and I cruised first while she was pregnant. We had a great time and decided to wait until our daughter was old enough to remember and enjoy a cruise to do it again. We have been lucky enough to cruise again in 2011 and in 2012 (January~ aboard the Legend). (Next cruise wont be till 2014 sometime :(

Anyway, we make sure our daughter is set for Ports, we make a booklet about each port, word scramble, crosswords, facts about the island, coloring pages and each cover has the local flag. One of the worksheets we make up have answers she needs to find in port. We avoid beach time, ziplines, atvs etc.. and try to do museums, walking tours of town and local culture. Walking in Coxen Hole/Roatan, wandering into Belize City, visitng schools at every port and at times orphanages. We always try to visit schools.

On ship it is more relaxed. We don't have TV at home so I let her watch some a bit. And if they have a film on a big screen let her do that well. We arrange to have her homework from school, since we can only cruise in winter during school, and make sure she gets enough pages done on Sea days so Port days are easier. My biggest tip is to try to keep them on the same meal and bed times. Kids can crash and burn pretty fast. Our daughter (8) has a 8:30 bedtime, and on a port day, it is no problem, she (and I) are ready to crash then anyway.

Cruises can be awesome learning oppurtunty for children.

When my kids were that age, I had them make travel journals of our cruise. Before we left I found some travel journal pages on the internet that I print off as well as some coloring pages for traveling. I purchased a binder with a clear holder in the front so the kids made their own cover page and then put clear page protector sheets in the binder to hold their travel journal and coloring pages. We put empty page protectors in to put in pictures, post cards and any other souvineers that would fit in their journal (craft made at kids club, etc). They each got their own disposable cameras to take pictures for their book.

DD and I also made our own lanyards for the room keys with beads. She made a couple to match her outfits. We bought DS one's in our local stores of his favorite sport teams.

We also took their favorite (small) stuffed animals and took pictures of them with the towel animals. They started sailing with us when the kids were 4 and 7 and were on every cruise with us through our last one when they were 14 and 17.

My kids don't spend much on cruises, but there is one item that DS purchases on every cruise....the ship model. He has a collection of every ship we have sailed on with his S&S card next to it on display in his room.

Finally we have a tradition on every vacation of playing cards as a family. We have quite a collection of different card games that we take along (Uno, Euchre, Monopoly Deal, Sorry, etc). The kids love sitting out on the Promenda or Lido Decks and relaxing over a game of cards with us. It is great family together time.

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know. Have fun and enjoy your family trip.

Bumping up on old thread. :) Any new ideas??

Assuming it's a Caribbean cruise, get a beach or island mini calendar and a booklet of mini stickers for each child. (Bonus would be if those stickers could have a ship or beach theme.) The kids would have their own "countdown clock" to put a sticker in each day. Have a bigger sticker on cruise day.

Amazon has a good selection of cruise journals for kids to record their own thoughts before bed, and some include space for small freebies like the kids' daily program, postcards, cardboard coasters, etc.

There is a dvd made by a family on a Freedom of the Seas cruise that is fun to watch to get excited.

http://www.amazon.com/Cruising-Kids-Travel-Caribbean-Cruise/dp/B003OKW2H2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1444060929&sr=8-2&keywords=Cruising+with+kids+dvd

If financially feasible, get each child their own rolling suitcase in a bright color or character theme.

Make a gift basket within a beach bag/string backpack with lanyard, flip flops, sunglasses, mini highlighter, travel sunscreen with belt clip, hat, stickers, "gift certificate" to spend in the arcade or souvenir store, glow necklaces, travel toothbrush and paste, fun luggage tag, and anything else you can think of.

I'm guessing you've been on your cruise now since your original post was in 2012? How was it? Did your kids love it?

Our cruise is in April and they don't know yet. But I'm thinking of either telling them at holiday time in December (make it like a present) or New Years eve (i.e. something to look forward to in the new year).

As for the cruise, we'll be sure to make it kid/family centered. I'd like us to things together, and our ship has many things such as DreamWorks characters, splash pad, parades, etc so lots of great stuff for them.

I like the photobook idea. I created one after our Disney trip last and just keep it out in our family room. Sometimes they'll flip through it, so it keeps the memories going.

I'm guessing you've been on your cruise now since your original post was in 2012? How was it? Did your kids love it?

.

I'm looking into our cruises for next year now. The kids first cruise was almost a year ago. Yes, they liked it, but it was exhausting for us! LOL! Kinda felt like I do on land....spent a lot of time taking the kids from activity to activity. Just our everyday life I wanted a vacation from. :D two of our three will be able to sign themselves in and out of camp this time, though. Hopefully that helps.