Alaska w/ 3YO - Disney v RCCL??

[mgscruiser]

DH and I are experienced cruisers (all RCCL) but have never taken our daughter.

 

We're debating on taking a 7-nt cruise next year (2011) with the grandparents and our daughter (who'll be about 3.5)...but deciding between RCCL and Disney.

 

We were all set to do Disney - but with the recent change of Disney's childcare policies, we're now going back and forth between the two, as we would have more "points" with doing RCCL b/c of our status...but we don't know much about the AO program on RCCL, and we obviously want to make sure DD is well taken care of! RCCL is also much less expensive for the time of year...

 

Thoughts? Any help is greatly appreciated!

[boulders]

I've done RCCL twice with my ds who is now 4. He had just turned 4 on our Alaskan cruise on Radiance of the Seas this past summer. He had a fabulous time and told me that he wants to "live" on a cruise ship. :p AO is open basically from 9 a.m. to ???. I never really got to AO closing -we always turned in before then. I have no concerns with regards to AO.

 

I found Alaska very good to do with kids. We also went with his db13 and ds11. There are lots of active excursions and excursions with wildlife, and hands - on excursions. We certainly only scratched the surface of things to do. We went on a 4 hour sea kayaking excursion and ds4 did extremely well.

 

I'm planning a cruise on DCL this spring. Final payment has been made! Woohoo! I'll report back on how the kids clubs handle the larger age ranges. DS4 is used to being around bigger kids though. I'll be going to the Med on a fabulous cheap deal. The shore excursions that DCL has in the Med swayed me too. Otherwise, we would be going on a different cruise line. RCCL's Alaskan excursions and the ones available independently certainly were plenty child-friendly enough.

 

A few things that would sway me away from Disney in Alaska. The ship departs on a Tuesday, which means that at least 7 days away from work are necessary. The itinerary is pretty mediocre. It doesn't include either Hubbard Glacier or Glacier Bay. They don't have an indoor pool. And, of course, the prices are insane compared to other cruise lines.

 

Happy planning!