Families - Caribbean - Thomson or p&o

[Mandsjh]

Anybody any views in which would be best?

 

We like good food, kids activities will be important, as will pools.

 

We will ne in lowest category cabin - Cabins loom better on Thomson dream but Ventura looks a better ship overall.

 

Thomson is about £500 cheaper.

 

Which would suit us best?

[athurstance]

I've not been on Thomson but my kids have been cruising since they were 8 and 10 (they're 19 and 16 now) - we've been on Princess, P&O and Disney and they enjoyed all of them. I think P&O's kids clubs are really excellent.

 

Their favourite ship so far is Ventura - we all prefer the larger ships as there is more choice. We're trying Azura this year.

[mrspjotter]

We have never sailed Thomson but went on Azura this Feb with our kids aged 10,7,7 - we have also sailed RCI - my only problem with P&O was that my girls are not confident swimmers and apart from a toddler pool which they were too big for the main pools had a shallow end of 1.8m so they never went in the pools at all.

 

I'm not sure how old your kids are but we have sailed RCI twice and for us the pools are much better for kids.

[Rachie B]

we went on Thomson ( Destiny ) in Feb 09 ( kids were then 6 and 12 )

 

the cabin was dark and very small! 2 pools ( 1 adult 1 family) were also small and freezing!

 

Kids clubs were pretty good,they enjoyed going and the food was fabulous!

 

booked with P&O ( Ventura) for our december cruise,as the kids clubs are much better and more for kids to do in general

[Mandsjh]

Thanks for the replies folk

 

Mrspjotter - I like the sound if rci but they don't seem to do 14 night cruises. We are looking at feb so needs to be somewhere like the Caribbean and I had my heart set on 14 nights. 12 minimum. Have the brochure but can't find anything that suits.

 

Don't fancy a cruise and stay!

[mrspjotter]

I know that's what drew us to P&O - we always cruise early Feb and we did 12 nights on our first RCI cruise from New York, was lovely cruising out of Cape Liberty but takes so long to get anywhere, then we did 3 nights in universal and then a 7 night western caribbean. I would love to do the eastern and western back to back route on RCI but it does work out expensive and despite the problem with the pools on P&O flying straight to Barbados and getting straight on the ship rather than spending a night in a hotel in the US before the cruise and then wasting the next day boarding as you would with RCI does make a difference.

 

My son used the P&O kids club this year but he didn't like it as much as RCI - I couldn't get my girls out of the RCI kids club on previous cruises but they would go in the P&O ones at all!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I did a lengthy review of the cruise on cruise critic if you want to take a look.