UKexplorer

No. The drive to our nearest airport is an hour and a bit. The drive to Southampton is 2 and a half hours. So it’s much easier for us to cruise from Southampton than drive and fly to cruise.

To answer some questions: We’re looking at 2024 not this summer. August specifically as it’s for a special birthday. We don’t particularly want to fly if we can avoid it. The nearest airport is an hour and a bit away, Southampton is 2 and a half hours so it’s pretty straightforward to get to. I haven’t managed to find another cruise itinerary I like as much with other cruise lines so I’m tempted to gamble and just keep checking the pricing for a better deal. If we miss out then at least I’ve saved £8k!

We did it this year as our son is still 4, but from next year we can get a fine if we take him out of school. Not sure how much it is in our area but we’d have to take it into consideration. AlsoI want to go in August to be away for my 40th birthday.

Every cabin we were in on RCI cruises as 2 people had a pull out bed in the sofa which we definitely didn’t pay extra for. So not sure why the price needs to double for each adult to add a child to the booking 🤷🏻‍♀️. I checked the price for a balcony cabin for 1 adult and a child with an additional interior cabin for the other adult and it is £10k. The telephone RCI quote for 1 balcony cabin was £8961, the online RCI quote was £8537 and a third party site quoted £8007. P&O has a sailing on their new ship (Arvia?) for just under £5k for the 3 of us in a balcony but the reviews are a bit hit and miss. I’m not sure I can nudge the Mr away from RCI either! Thanks for the advice.

Thanks both. Yes @FamilyCruiserUK we seem to be hitting a wall with the “cheaper fare! @FionaMG it’s my 40th in August and I wanted to do something special, also we’re tied to the school holidays now unfortunately. We’ve only sailed with RCI but I think I’ll take a look at some other cruise lines to compare.

Thanks @firefly333 I gave it a try and it charged the child a near adult price (£5k) and the total came out as just over £11k. I’m finding their pricing structure very frustrating!

I could use some advice on the pricing. The last cruise we went on was before we had a baby. Now we have a 4 year old and want to try again next summer but the pricing when adding a child is baffling. I priced up a sailing in a balcony cabin from Southampton in Aug 2024. It was coming out as £4k per adult rather than the £2.5k showing on the search page. We have Emerald level C&AS and the discount wasn’t showing either. I called RCI and was quoted £4338 per adult and £285 for the child which totalled £8961 with our C&AS discount. However, when I price checked just 2 adults, the same cabin was £2884 pp (total £5592). So it seems we’re essentially being charged £3k extra for the child place?! Does anyone have any advice on getting a reasonable quote that includes a child? Or are we destined to be cruise-less until our son is too cool to holiday with us? TIA.