Best non peak season to bring kids

[MTSHQMP]

Hey everyone,

 

My question is what time of the year besides the peak times such as summer, holiday's, spring break have you seen a larger number of kids on board, particularly the 4-5 year old age.

 

I know that not everyone travels with children but if you noticed that there was a time that seemed to have more I would appreciate hearing about it. My daughter really enjoys making new friends and we are unable to travel in the summer and around the holidays due to our business.

 

I know some of you are thinking I am nuts right now thinking about cruises with more kids but we usually sail when there are just so few kids it makes it tough for my daughter to meet anyone to pal around with. So hopefully you don't think I am to crazy.

 

Thanks

 

MTSHQ

[firefly333]

Even a small ship has at least 300 kids ... book a larger ship and the odds that there will be plenty your child's age go up dramatically.

[Naomi John]

We have done Mardi Gras, well two days after, (we are in South Louisiana) good group of children, but not too crowded. Hurricane Season and Mid April is also nice. Again, not a lot of children, but enough to make friends.

 

Only once during Easter Vacation did we not take our child out of school. Other times, we wrote a note and received her school work for the week. Of course, she is in a spainish immersion program, so traveling to countries for her to use her skills is a plus for pulling her out of school.

[lillian marie]

Oct. or jan. are great times to travel with kids.

[truchattycathy]

Oct. we have seen plenty of kids at Halloween.

[MTSHQMP]

Thanks everyone for your opinion, we were thinking about late October early November when we finally slow down and need a break. We sailed on Oasis in mid December last year and there was about 250 kids on board and at least half were not from the US. Although it doesn't matter to me where people were from a lot of the children did not speak English so it was a bit difficult for her to find a friend. But they did say that the next cruise had 1800 kids but that was the Christmas cruises. 1800 would be way to many for my taste.

 

This year my daughter is off to Kindergarten so it will make a shorter vacation, we usually take 2 weeks and visit Grandma for a few days and then stay a few days where we sail from. It will be interesting this year trying to cram as much into 10 days.

 

Thanks again everyone

 

MTSHQ

[vacruizer]

The most I've seen off-season is Halloween. I think there were something like 400 kids on that sailing? January, September, and May had almost none. A few pre-school aged or infants and January/May had some college age kids who weren't in school or had just graduated, but very few younger kids.

[cruisinitaliano]

We can tell you our experience... the week after Thanksgiving and the first week of December have always had plenty of fellow little ones for our DD, now 10.

 

The other good thing about those dates:

 

1: Not hurricane season in Carribbean or Mexico

 

2: CHEAPER!!! Yah baby!! And we are all in favor of saving dollars.

 

As our DD gets older, we are siding with the idea of no longer pulling her out of school to vacation. If you are able to do either of these weeks, feel confident that your wee one will have lots of companions, so long as it is not a NCL cruise.

[trvlqueen]

October and May are fantastic times to cruise. There are plenty of kids onboard, but it's not overwhelming. We do this often ... at least once a year and last year we got in one in May and one in October. This year, just October.

 

Don't expect a lot of kids to show up in the roll call, but they'll be onboard.

[MamaParrotHead]

We sailed the week AFTER Thanksgiving this past year and there was a good amount of kids in Camp...I'd say around a dozen or so, in that age group (my nephew was 4).

[bike1964]

Pick the newer ships with all the bells and whistles (flow rider...) and the kids will come!!!;)

[MTSHQMP]

Pick the newer ships with all the bells and whistles (flow rider...) and the kids will come!!!;)

 

 

Thats pretty funny, thanks again everyone for your help! We are probably going to have to pull my daughter out of school (she is way ahead of the curve anyways :rolleyes: so I think she can miss a few days) so we might as well go when it's cheaper and a bit warmer in the Caribbean.

 

MTSHQ