Advice please on which cruise next with kids.

[cruzlovr75]

Now that the Breeze schedule is out beyond April 2013, I was looking at 2 cruise options. I am looking at our next cruise as a family one, we have 2 boys who will be 10 and 7.

I really want to see HMC and Grand Turk, I was looking at the Liberty for that cruise option. I thought HMC would be good for our kids at this age. Or we would really like the Breeze because the waterworks and all the new features it offers and I was looking at the St. Thomas, St. Marten itinerary for that one.

Can you please give me your thoughts on which one would be better as a family cruise? Thank you.

[Love PalmTrees]

Have never taken our kids to GT (they are now 24 and 21), but I bet they would just love the beach there. Also, a great exhibit of the Mercury splashdown. It is to the right and set back a bit off the shops. Easy to miss altogether. The beach is right off the pier and very close. DH and I just loved to relax under the palms. (note my name :D)

[A2Mich]

Now that the Breeze schedule is out beyond April 2013, I was looking at 2 cruise options. I am looking at our next cruise as a family one, we have 2 boys who will be 10 and 7.

 

I really want to see HMC and Grand Turk, I was looking at the Liberty for that cruise option. I thought HMC would be good for our kids at this age. Or we would really like the Breeze because the waterworks and all the new features it offers and I was looking at the St. Thomas, St. Marten itinerary for that one.

 

Can you please give me your thoughts on which one would be better as a family cruise? Thank you.

 

Have you considered some of the other cruise lines as well (RCI. NCL. Disney)? They have some great itineraries and would also be very kid-friendly, with their own private islands, as well. If you're wanting to stay with Carnival, I can completely understand that. We've only cruised Carnival and Princess, and are booking Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas for our next one. We simply won't pay Disney's prices, though their cruises look like a lot of fun, but I could take at least 2 Carnival or RCI cruises for the price of one Disney cruise. Carnival has always been a lot of fun for us, and that's fine - just trying to make other suggestions also. The Carnival Dream and the upcoming Breeze look really nice, also.

[cruzlovr75]

We have only sailed with Carnival so far, we like it. I would love to be able to afford to sail a Disney cruise ship, maybe if we won the lottery! ;) You are right about affordability also, I was looking at NCL and it's more than a Carnival cruise would be as a family. Thanks for the ideas though.

[Sunnyshine64]

We had the same decision to make. Our kids will be 6 and 8 at time of cruise. We were torn between the new Breeze and HMC.....I saw videos on youtube of cool fish at HMC right in the kids play area, and that sold it for my kids :)

 

Seriously, we really struggled with the decision. The Breeze looks pretty cool and we liked the new room format for families. However, the cruise is much more costly. We went on the Liberty last November (first cruise) and will be on Liberty this Nov, doing the Eastern itinerary. HMC really was the place we wanted to go. I'm looking at what options there are for excursions with children (inexpensive!) We opted for Liberty again because it seemed as if it took us a few days on a boat to get our bearings, where we were. We carried those pocket boat maps around the entire week. Doing something a little familiar with our two little ones is essential - taking them will be stressful enough (they have some special needs). We looked at other ships (Destiny) that had more of a waterpark feel.....but this itinerary just kept drawing us there. We plan on using Camp Carnival some as well :)

 

Some people say just being on the boat is enough vacation for them, it doesn't matter where they go. I understand their logic, yet also when kids are involved, you want to make sure there are things for kids to do. I think your kiddos will really love HMC :) Mine don't know they are going yet, but sure love it from the videos on youtube. We took an OV room this time, didn't want to be the ones retrieving small children from over the balcony side (mine would be the daredevil to climb over!) The rooms with top bunk/couch setup actually are a little bigger than the balcony rooms. Whatever cabin you choose, make sure it will fit your family and I really am about spending more $ on fun things vs to sleep in a room.

 

One final thought.......depending on your schedule, I would really try to avoid certain months if you have your heart set on HMC and Grand Turk - we wanted to do an Oct cruise (anniversary and son's bday) but thought there might be too high of a risk of missing the island.

 

Not sure if I helped any.....but good luck with your decision making!!

[cruzlovr75]

Thank you for your reply, you had very good thoughts.

[cruzlovr75]

Have never taken our kids to GT (they are now 24 and 21), but I bet they would just love the beach there. Also, a great exhibit of the Mercury splashdown. It is to the right and set back a bit off the shops. Easy to miss altogether. The beach is right off the pier and very close. DH and I just loved to relax under the palms. (note my name :D)

 

 

I have never heard of that at GT, I shall look that up. Thanks.

We love to lay in under the palms and splash in the sea too!

[A2Mich]

We have only sailed with Carnival so far, we like it. I would love to be able to afford to sail a Disney cruise ship, maybe if we won the lottery! ;) You are right about affordability also, I was looking at NCL and it's more than a Carnival cruise would be as a family. Thanks for the ideas though.

Believe me, I completely understand. We always sailed Carnival because of price, too. We still enjoy Carnival and would have no problem sailing with them again. Our travel agent has been wanting us to try RCI, and we've been looking for something that may be a bit "nicer", so to speak, so we'll give them a try. If we don't like RCI, we can always book Carnival again. We're not too sure about NCL, though. I've seen some Carnival-like pricing for NCL, but once you start to add on the extra fees for the various dining options, the doorbuster price begins to escalate quickly.

 

I too, would love to sail Disney, but like you, need the winning Powerball ticket or the Prize Patrol van to show up! Good luck on your cruise search - if you are in such a position that Carnival may be the only option, SO WHAT? I'm sure you'll have a great time on them again. We decided to splurge on our next cruise, as it's costing so much to fly, along with the trip to Disney, that we decided that if we're already spending $2000 to fly, plus Disney, etc, we may as well spend a bit more and go on a cruise that we want to go on. We're not fortunate enough to be able to cruise frequently, so we may as well make the best of it! Let us know what you decide to book!

[imluvncruzn]

Me and my sister usually cruise together a few times a year. The kids in the family are around the same age as yours are. Truthfully, my kids love to cruise regardless of where we are going. My youngest is 10 (today's his birthday!) and he's been on 6 cruises. There is so much to do on the ship! Some of his faves are the pools, the slide, playing mini golf, the arcade, the bean bag toss tournaments, dancing on the lido, watching movies under the stars on the lido, and ping pong. We took him to Grand Turk for the first time in January and he loved everything about it. We spent the first half of the day at the beach and the second half in the pool at Margaritaville. We also paid to let him ride the flow rider and it turned out to be his favorite thing the whole trip. Well worth the $39! If they are into the beach and swimming then this itinerary will be perfect for them because HMC is a beach day also. As far as the waterworks on the ship...while I haven't looked at the Breeze's specific waterworks I can tell you that we went on the Inspiration a few years back and thought the kids would be thrilled with the waterworks but they really liked it the first day and then novelty wore off and they wanted to swim. The problem with that ship was that although it had the waterworks it only had 1 small pool for thousands of guests. That was my biggest complaint about that particular ship. We prefer the Conquest Class ships because they have 3 pools. The Liberty has also had the 2.0 upgrades so that's a plus and I'm guessing here that the Liberty itinerary will probably be cheaper simply because the Breeze is newer. Sounds like you can't really go wrong...so enjoy either way!

[Love PalmTrees]

We ended up in Grad Turk after being re-routed away from Panama and Costa Rica. DH, an engineer, was very bummed out about missing Panama Canal. However, we just LOVED GT and it turned our disappointment into our favorite cruise!! Also, just my opinion about Eastern Carib. EC is beautiful and we went there when our kids were older, 18 and 15. IMHO better beaches and warmer waters in WC. We are beach and palm tree folks, if you can't tell. I always research ports ahead of time, but when we were re-routed, with no research, I was in a near panic, not really. Turns out that GT was a great place to relax and have lots of beach fun! There is also an awesome pool there, too!