Children on a river cruise

[Aorinka]

How will it work with an 11 yo girl on a river cruise in Europe? Will she have any company? Thank you for your opinions.

[nana541]

Pick your cruise and time of the year very carefully.... But the short answer is likely NO. Sorry, I am sure there are children once in a while but rarely.

[lcj4]

Uniworld has a couple of Family Friendly cruises where children are welcome. Check their website. They are only in the summer and are very limited.

[steamboats]

Except for the family cruises it´s pretty unlikely she will find any company.

Some river cruise companies don´t accept kids under the age of 12y.

Also make a search on this bord for kids or children. Some older threads should pop up with more information.

steamboats
who´s DD had her first European river cruise at the age of 5y.

[we're sailing away....]

On our ship in April there was 0 .

[we're sailing away....]

She will have a lot of new Grand parents . And the staff will love her ...

[tassietravellers]

Originally Posted by Aorinka

How will it work with an 11 yo girl on a river cruise in Europe? Will she have any company? Thank you for your opinions.

There werent any children on our cruise and I didnt see any in the many other cruises we crossed paths with, IMO there would be very little on a river cruise to keep a child occupied.

[nana541]

Been thinking about the OP question again and while I still feel it is unlikely that other children will be found aboard a river cruîse (except on rare occausion ) or on cruises "family Friendly".....
In thinking about my own grandchildren I decided it really depends on the child. I have one grandson whom while I love dearly, would never ever take him on a cruise of any sort. On the other hand my 9 yr old grand daughter would be happy as a "traveling clam" as long a she had a camera and a journal to record her adventures....she is just charming and a child full of questions. She recently lecture her siblings on "funeral and burial" practices at the King Tut exhibit in Seattle...
I also believe there is an age limit on many cruiselines.

[pacmom]

Both Uniworld and Croisie Europe(French co.) have multigenerational cruises in the summer. Cruise lines do have age limits. You would have to book a suite because the nother cabins don't have room for any extra passenger. Also Road Scholar has tours and cruises that are geared toward those traveling with children--also has age limit. Pat

[Donray]

Another problem is only two to a cabin. So it would it be a Mother daughter cruise only?

Three river cruises so far and no kids.

[grand isle joe]

Check out Tauck Bridges tours. We did the river boat in June/July on the Danube and my daughter was 11yrs. old. About 1/4 of the cruise was "kids" with the 9-10-11-12-13 yr. olds numbering about 12 in that age range. The crew of the ship Swiss Jewel were great spoiling the kids while on board. I would suspect that would be your best bet.

[hcross888]

I never saw a child on either of our river cruises. I think Avalon doesn't book children under 12.

I honestly don't think that a river cruise would be much fun for a child unless it was one of the multigeneration tours that are offered.

[Aussie Teen]

Maybe it would be better to do land travel and just do some day or overnight cruises on the river, on our recent Rhine cruise I noticed several day trip and shorter tours particularly around the Rhine Gorge area.
I don't think the time on the boat would be the main trouble but more that the land excursions are not aimed at children. Perhaps you could go your own way on shore at your own pace if you are really keen to do a river cruise.

[pixiegirl-loves-travel]

I was surprised how many children were on our Russian River Cruise in July. We had 2-3 grade school aged boys (8 to 10 range) and several high school age kids. They seemed to have fun, but they weren't in our travel party, so I never saw them off of the ship to know how they were on tours and such.

That being said, I fully agree with other posters who say it all depends on the child. Many children are independant in their play, social without being annoying and enjoy museums and historic sites. Others are great kids, but also rambunctious and impatient and need a lot of constant attention and guidance. Think hard on where your child fits in the behavioral and contentment side of things and then make your decision.

My daughter would have loved our cruise at any age and probably would have made herself the darling of the ship. My son's? They would have "made do", but it would have been at the price of my sanity and probably that of other passengers. They would have done well on a big ocean cruise that had swimming pools and climbing walls and activities geared towards them.

[Aorinka]

Thank you for all your opinions and advice. I'll take them all into consideration and investigate on the children friendly cruises.

[4774Papa]

Originally Posted by Aorinka

How will it work with an 11 yo girl on a river cruise in Europe? Will she have any company? Thank you for your opinions.

I took my 10 year old Son on a Nice cruise in 1985 and he loved it. There was nothing on the boat for kids, but he was fascinated by what we saw in Egypt.

Still, I wouldn't go to Egypt now or take my kids there.