LSUMom10312

On 5/6/2019 at 10:15 AM, OCruisers said:

 

How many bathrooms with toilets did your suite have?

Only one, but it was a very large bathroom with a full size tub and two sinks. 

I am from New Orleans and may have a different perspective...Mardi Gras with young kids can be fun, but it can also be stressful due to large crowds. With some planning it can be a great time. I want to stress the crowds will be crazy, especially the weekend before Mardi Gras when the most popular parades are. Crowds at these parades at certain places can be 20 people deep. For more family parades, try Uptown or Metairie parades. Go early to get a good spot. You probably will have a hard time finding a hotel in the French Quarter and I wouldn't suggest it. Stay in the warehouse district or even a little further out. Reserve a hotel as early as you can because they fill up! Do not bring your kids to Bourbon Street, not even during the day.  Other places in the French Quarter I recommend are Cafe du Monde (go early for a good table), the French Market, or Jackson Square. In the warehouse district is a Children's Museum that my kids have loved and the Audubon Zoo (Uptown) is fabulous. The Aquarium is downtown as well and very nice. There are too many good restaurants and it really depends on your price range, but do try the local cuisine (gumbo, crawfish, poboy, red beans, jambalaya). Hope this helps!

We took our first cruise last summer on the Allure of the Seas and lucked out with the kids sail free promo for the last week in May (no longer a kids sail free option). We booked a suite and got it for about $750/person. It worked out really well. We had a rollaway bed, the couch in one area and the king size bed in another separated by a curtain at night. We booked really late and there were no connecting rooms left and our kids ranged from 6-11. I was not comfortable having them in a separate room.

Our next cruise will be next February on Carnival Vista. We got two connecting rooms for about 40% less than what I paid on RC. My kids will be 13, 9, and 8. Of course I won't be in a suite this time, but we honestly were not in the room but to change and sleep. We also priced some of the 5 person family rooms on this ship and I would have payed more than booking two connecting rooms. 

This will be our first cruise, but we have a grand suite on Allure for 5/27/18 that cost me $750/person (there are 5 of us). Used kids sail free. Only booked 3 months in advance.

I booked a grand suite in March for a cruise in late May and the price I paid was not anything near that. Of course, I may have gotten a better price since it was a late booking and it was during the kids sale free promo. My final price was less than half that.

We haven't gone on our Allure of the Seas (RCI) cruise yet (May 27th), but I do have a family of 5 (husband, myself, and kids 11, 8, and 6) and we used the kids sale free option. We got a grand suite with a roll away bed so it would sleep 5. The pull-out couch is only a double bed. We booked late and connecting rooms were not available. However, if I remember correctly, if we had connecting rooms, only two of our kids would have sailed free. So make sure you get the specifics of any promotions they are advertising. Before I give what I paid, I will also say the grand suite does come with extra amenities that non-suites don't have but I felt the extra price was worth it. The room cost us $4300 (about $860/person). After hotels before the trip (we are going two days early to visit the Kennedy Space Center on the drive to the port), excursions, fuel, food, parking and drink packages we are looking at $6000.