redxpanda

This is amazing! Thank You!!

Kids Club schedules are hard to come by, so I'm sharing what I picked up during our cruise in March 2017. These are from Celebrity Silhouette, Western Caribbean from Fort Lauderdale.

I have a full set of the Cadet (6-8 years old) schedules, and partials for the other age groups.

It won't let me upload all the files due to size limits. Visit this link to view more.

In our experience, cruising at 15 months was better than our experience at 24. It was a much more agreeable age. On the cusp of two her toddler attitude was starting to come out! When we cruised next at 3.5, it was much better.

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Two twin beds is standard for cruising. Normally Princess puts a topper that reduces the gap. That being said, we had the worst bed in our cruising experience on our last Caribbean Princess cruise.

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We have explored most of the family friendly cruise lines. DCL, NCL, CCL, Royal, Princess, and tomorrow we set sail on our first Celebrity cruise. We have enjoyed all of them in their own ways. They all market themselves towards a particular experience and clientele. So far, our favorites are DCL and Princess for the same reasons you state and more.

The entertainment production DCL has outshines all of them, even a bingo game is entertaining! Princess is sneaking up slowly with the new Stephen Schwartz productions. Magic To Do is fabulous. The CD you get can also increase the entertainment factor on Princess. Some royal ships have a full Broadway show, that is also nice. We also enjoy the more adult entertainment offered on all the cruise lines, which does seem lacking on DCL.

We also feel the food is pretty equal between DCL and Princess. We do enjoy the flexibility in dining on the other cruise lines. We are almost exclusively "any time" diners and enjoy eating lite at the buffet or grill on occasion. On DCL I feel like I'm missing out if we don't go to the MDR.

Princess has the second best inside staterooms, with DCL being the best. The size increase is very nice and the sleeper couch is much nicer than banging you head on a Pullman. I do like the closet arrangement more on Princess. The closet is walkin style, feels more open and you can store more stuff.

Our daughter was to young for the kids clubs when we sailed DCL, but we did open house activities with her. I know she'd love it now. She has also enjoyed the clubs on Royal and Princess very much. NCL was so-so to her, but it was spring break and jammed full of kids. I expect she will enjoy the Celebrity club as well.

And of course, price. If you wait for the right sale on almost any cruise line, you can get a great rate. If you wait on DCL, you'll see a large price increase. And lately they have gone way up in starting prices. Even the FL rates are high, to me. They should have put an order for ships a lot sooner.

Last thing, we love Princess for their range of destinations. On DCL you are mostly stuck with the same ports all year long. But I guess they do make up for that with the ship being part of the destination.

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I book Mr Sanchos thru Shore Excursioneer. There is a spot to select a date when you book and a small discount. [emoji4]

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When you use a TA that offers OBC above what the cruise line offers you run the risk of lesser service. The extra spending money for you is coming out of their commission. They are likely going to add it closer to travel which is why you don't see it.

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Next week we are doing the Native Way tour with a starfish stop. We selected it because we do want a snorkel stop, but you could opt to stay on the boat or jump in for a swim.

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Hi Redxpanda,

 

I was looking into doing the blue hole/tubing combo day -- and maybe lunch. Is it too much to do in one day? Will only be in port from 10-7 and I know Blue Hole is a ways from Falmouth.

 

Thanks to anyone for advice.

It was pretty go, go, go. But you do get to rest in the van between stops. They did it such that blue hole was first, as it is furthest, then tubing which isn't far from Blue Hole, then lunch about halfway back and a short shopping stop which I could have done without.

Courtney Taylors tour guide aimed to get us back to the port 2 hours before sail away, which does leave a bit of wiggle room.

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We're taking our 6 year old on a Stingray City excursion with 2 other stops included in a couple of weeks. I wanted to take her when she was 2, but we did the Turtle Farm instead (full access, booked through the farm). I'd recommend either of those excursions for kids.

Our daughter has had a lot of experiences with water excursions, loves swimming, and is quite comfortable jumping out into the water. We do have our own life vest we bring, especially for ocean excursions. It's softer and in better shape than what they gives you most times on excursions. :) We used to bring a "puddle jumper", but she recently outgrew that, so we invested in the same kind they use at the pool on DCL and Royal.

We're sailing on our first X cruise in 2 weeks. Our daughter is 6. She is well cruised and loves all things cruising. While we haven't done X yet, I'm sure she will love their club.

We've done a variety of Princess Cruises itineraries, one of which was 10N, and she loved every minute! On the 10N cruise she was one of 30 kids aged 3-12. She also had a good time on Oasis OTS. The only cruise that she was 'so-so' about was a NCL cruise over spring break. There were a TON of kids on that sail and the ship wasn't very big. I do think there is something to be said about smaller groups and ships that can dedicate more space to the kids club (Oasis also had a lot of kids, but also had the space to entertain them).

I'm pretty sure White River is what we did in November. Water was pretty calm with a handful of 'rapids'. Our 5 year old enjoyed it.

We booked a combo tour with Courtney Taylor and can highly recommend.

We did a river tubing + blue hole combo tour with Courtney Taylor. Included a stop for lunch at Scotchies. They start with the Blue Hole because it is the furthest from Falmouth, took an hour or maybe a bit more. It's not so much the distance is long, but once you hit the mountain roads, it's a slow ride up.

Lamanai is the only ruins we have done so far. Many more on our list to do. If you can handle the long day, Lamanai is more than worth it. I'd do it again when our daughter is old enough.

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We stayed in 11207, which is extreme FWD on deck 11. My husband is the type to have motion issues and while we could definitely feel the ship moving at times, it never once caused a problem for him.

It was most noticeable at higher speeds. Usually that's at night or on sea days at start or end of the cruise when they need to cross longer distances.

We were on board the Jan 8, 10 night cruise, on Crown Princess with this outbreak.

We managed to all stay healthy, which is GREAT and the odds of being among the sick did stay around 1.5% or lower for the duration of the cruise. Well, that is what they told us anyway. If the max sick at a given time was 40 out of 3200 passengers... that is not too bad, considering how contagious it can be. Not that we want anyone to get sick on vacation. I was impressed with the actions taken by the crew of the Crown.

Very quickly, the crew went into a "code red", lock down mode which was good to see and I do believe helped greatly to contain the virus. The first we noticed (I thought it was the 4th or 5th day) was at the buffet they had servers working the lines to serve you food and handout plates and utensils. Then as we walked around that morning, all crew that weren't busy with another duty, seemed to be out and about sanitizing all public surfaces. We noticed this before hearing any announcements from the Captain, but that could be because we were off ship when they first announced it. After that we saw housekeeping crew with a buckets of sanitizer, wiping down rails, elevator buttons, chairs, etc, multiple times a day. In the dining room, which we ate quite a few meals after the first announcement of the virus on board, they stopped putting roll baskets, butter, and other condiments on the table. On our last Port day, Puerto Vallarta, they announced they would be changing over ALL the linen in the cabin and to take all our items off the counter tops so they could sanitize properly. In the halls, you did sometimes see bio-hazard bags that you had to walk around, which smelled strongly of BLEACH. The crew was working HARD to get rid of this virus.

Other than those changes, our cruise activities went on as normal as you could imagine. We had a great time on the Crown and wouldn't hesitate to sail her again.

In general, keep yourself clean and odds are you will stay healthy on a cruise ship. My hands got dried out from all the sanitizer and hand washing I did, but I think that was well worth it! Outbreak or not, cruise or not, wash your hands often.

We've done it both ways. We will get a balcony if the price difference isn't too much. Over $1000 more is way too much more for us. If you are comfortable in an interior, you will be fine.

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I do have a "Hold" on the Princess $139 Alcatraz excursion which I won't release until I get my reservation through http://www.alcatrazcruises.com/

 

for about $30.

 

 

 

Since this is a National Park I tried to research if they take the "Senior Pass" but it's certainly not a deal breaker whether they do or not.

We did the Alcatraz tour 'on our own' thru that website. It worked out well. We walked off the ship and down a few Berths to the Alcatraz pier. We were in the first tour groups of the day which is nice because it gets pretty busy on the little island as the morning progresses.

What I could gather is Alcatraz is a NP, but there is no fee to enter. We had the America the Beautiful NP annual pass that year and we were hoping for a break on price, too. However, it requires a ferry to get to it, which is where the $30 'Alcatraz cruise' prices comes in. There is an audio self guided tour included in the price.

It was an interesting historical start to our long day in SF. We were off the ship for over 12 hours. It was my favorite port of that cruise, I wish we had 2 days!

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Our daughters first cruise was at 15 months, second at 24 months, third at 3.5. When we were in Cozumel, on her 2nd, we took a taxi to a beach club and hung out there for morning-mid afternoon. It was all-inclusive, she had fun in the pool and enjoyed the food. We did Mr Sanchos, it was a quiet day, not too busy. We brought a puddle jumper to help keep her afloat. If I recall correctly we didn't use a stroller that day, as we really only needed to walk from the pier to the taxi stand. With two, a stroller may be more necessary. Depends on how good of a walker the older one is. We did bring an umbrella stroller on each of those cruises, at the least to help with embark/debark.

Best tips for enjoying the cruise is to be ready to go with the flow and possibly miss out on activities that you want to do. Bring something to do in the cabin while kids nap. Be ok with the older one either loving the kids club so much he never wants to leave, or perhaps the opposite, you never know until they try it out for the first time. If you plan on having kids go to the MDR, bring something to entertain them... They try to get kids food out quicker, but sometimes you still have to wait and kids just don't seem to like waiting. ;)

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When my daughter was 2 and under, we did Cozumel (beach club), Grand Cayman (full access turtle farm), and Disney's private island. All were great ports of call and she had fun too. Almost forgot we also did Nassau, we went to Atlantis and did the Aquarium. Good but expensive. Both cruises were with Disney, since they were one of few that had a drop off nursery at the time. Royal has since added a nursery to more ships.

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I was wondering the same thing. Good to know. [emoji1] my husband loves crab, me... Not so much.

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I always request the topper for the mattress. Helps to mask bed issues.

But, I'm wondering how you would expect a TA, or anyone you call, to know what the status of each bed, in every cruise ship, on any given cruise ship to be?!

We'll be on the Crown in 22 days. I'm interested to find out first hand about the bed quality.

I think there are a lot more people that wait and book onboard than we imagine. Not everyone is a researcher and planner like us CC users.

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The kids menu at dinner is the same every night and has the normal kids dinner options you find most places. Another option is the buffet and other lido deck foods are good for a quick kid dinner before you drop him off at the club, then you could have dinner elsewhere. We are doing Anytime dining with our 4 year old in January so we can have that flexibility.

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We aren't ones to frequent specialty dining. We are willing to do so for $20-25 per person, occasionally. At $49 per person I better have a lot of OBC to burn or I probably will never eat there.

We sail Princess because the complementary food options are much better than most other cruise lines we've sailed.

SHARE's description and price point definitely sound like a way for them to compete with the Celebrity restaurants. Many of theirs are priced $40+.