Which ship for Feb. South. Carrib. cruise for couples / less kids?

[Ocruise]

Hi all. We are still planning our Souther carribbean vacation. I am a teacher & can only take off certain weeks. We were now thinking of a Southern carrib. cruise from San Juan in Febuary 18 (the week when my district is off). Here are my options:

Either the Celebrity Constellation, RCCL, Adventure of the Seas , RCCL, Serenade of the Seas, or Golden Princess.

I have read some reviews of the AOS suring the February break when a lot of schools are out & several reviews said the boat was overwhelmed with kids - something we would like to avoid. Which boat do you think would be better for couples who want to avoid a ship teeming with kids. I know any ship that week will have kids on it, but I would like to avoid a situation like I read on some Feb. break reviews.

Any advice would be appreciated,
Marina

[cruzenbabe]

If you don't won't a lot of kids around, I would go with Celebrity and Princess next.
RCCL has those rock climbing walls, and this may appeal to the younger crowd rather than the older.

[cynbar]

Princess strictly limits the numbers of children in each age group which they will allow on their ships, and I've heard they stick to this firmly. I've sailed them as well as RCI and Celebrity over spring breaks when our children were in high school, and I felt that Princess did the best job by far in controlling the kids and avoiding teens running wild in the elevators, etc. The teens have their own disco, and the children's areas in general are set off by themselves.Also, Princess encourages parents to feed their children in the buffet early, then take them to the children's program and eat in the DRs alone --- this is a big improvement over bringing bored, sleepy children in to eat with the adults. This is just my opinion, but I'd go with Princess.

[starsjohn]

My observations agree with cynbar. Our March Dawn B2B had very well behaved teens and not that many considering the break period. I saw huge numbers of party teens getting on the Carnival Destiny in San Juan.

[kendon]

Just off the Dawn, spring break. Princess limits the number of kids to 300 and sticks to it! We found this out as one time we got only one of our sons on. The TA had to find a delinquent payer to bump their kids so my other son was allowed on. We've been on 4 Princess cruises all on school schedules and too many kids were never an issue. Even my boys (10 and 13) don't like a ship full of kids who can easily go out of control.

[Jacqueline]

The Connie or Princess would be fine. There will be kids on either at this time of year- we just came back from this itinerary and there are plenty of families. Its not a disincentive for people to go to SJ.
I would steer clear of RCL if you dont want hordes of kids.

Jacqueline
Constellation 3/20/04
HAL Westerdam 7/30/04
Tahitian Princess August 2003
Grand Princess Western Caribbean 2003
Brilliance of the Seas Baltic 2002
Ocean Princess- Alaska 2001
Celebrity Zenith- Bermuda 2001
Grand Princess Med 2000

[brucejr]

Just to reinforce what others have already said, Princess only will book the number of kids/teens that their childrens programs are designed to accomodate. DW is also a teacher so we have to cruise when school is out. We just did a Spring Break cruise and although it was in March and yours is in Feb, there wasn't any problem even with the ship at full capacity.

Royal Caribbean, on the other hand, will book as many kids as there are extra beds in each cabin. RCI markets directly at the younger family to include their kids. Their other brand, Celebrity, is marketed more toward upscale adults, so it should have way fewer kids.

Also sailing out of San Juan will slightly reduce the population of kids on the ship as it is cheaper to fly to Flordia than San Juan and families airfares are a large part of the cost of a cruise.

<font color="FF6600">
if there's a way to construe my post as non-argumentative, please do so.</font>
Cruise photos on my Home page <font color="990066">
Spring Break was on the Grand Princess </font>21, March 2004
So when is the next cruise?