Are there adult only Carnival cruises

[texasnewcruiser]

My husband and I just returned from our first cruise over Christmas on the Navigator of the Seas which was a great cruise but my husband did not enjoy it because of all the kids running around and lack of late night activities. So my question is does Carnival have any cruises that are more adult oriented with fewer kids or even better no kids? I have read on these forums that Carnival has more late night activities so maybe Carnival is more in line with his cruise expectations. Right now he refuses to go on any more cruises unless I can find a more adult oriented cruise.

 

Thank you for any recommendations or suggestions.

[ready2cruzagain]

Well Christmas is one of the worst times to go on a cruise if you don't want a lot of kids.

 

We usually sail the week after Thanksgiving and there are fewer kids at that time.

 

Also, few kids on a longer cruise. I figure there will not be a lot on our next 11 and 10 day cruises because the kids will be in school.

[Schoifmom]

Really, it's all about timing. If you cruise when kids are not in school, you will cruise with a lot of kids. We normally time our cruises when school is in session. Not only are there fewer kids, but the prices are generally lower then as well.

 

Understand, I said FEWER kids. There will always be kids on cruises. Carnival does not have "adults only" cruises.

[riffatsea]

Our Conquest cruise this past October(ending right at Halloween) had lots of late night activities! In fact for us it was too much and so you'd probably enjoy it.

There were certainly kids on the cruise but they did not interfere with anything we wanted to do at all!

We generally cruise in March/April to Mexico which always has families with children but again we have not found them to be a bother as they seem to keep very busy and were not just running around loose on the ship!!

We only go for 7day or longer cruises(well Conquest was 6 days this time) and so that might also affect your experience. Shorter cruises seem to attract a different crowd.

[Lerin]

You just cruised at the most popular time for families, I'm sorry you did not know that before you booked.

 

If you want to avoid kids you can try a more upscale line. Windstar strongly discourages kids under about 10. On our cruise we saw maybe 3 teens and everyone else was an adult.

 

If you are only wanting a big ship and Carnival is your choice then pick a non-school holiday time. 2nd week of january, 2nd week of May, and right after Labor Day will be your best bets. The catch is, these cruises will have more elderly people. We usually cruise away from school breaks and on a few of those cruises had under 50 kids total.

 

Location and length are also factors. There are generally less kids in Alaska and on cruises longer than 8 days.

Edited December 31, 2015 by Lerin

[cruizinisthebest]

Carnival does not offer any adults-only cruises. I think MSC does. Certan time of the year, as others have said, will yield more kids. Holidays and the Summers are the worst. That's when we bring ours.

 

If I wanted less kids, I would shoot for September or January. But no Carnival ship will be totally kid free.

[pmoniz]

I wish!

[ladygal4.4]

Timing is critical. Holidays, spring vacation, and summer break you can guarantee there will be extra kids.

 

But even during the off times, there will be kids.

 

Maybe look into an all-inclusive vacation like Sandals? It would be kid free

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Karter]

We have cruised both RCCL and Carnival and in general find Carnival to have a more party atmosphere but they also have kids on board even when school is in session. Of course holidays are the worst time to go to avoid kids because of all families traveling with kids.

 

There is one other option that we enjoy is a couplescruise which is a no kids lifestyle cruise. Here is a link to a post I did a couple years back: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2040273

 

It may not be what you are looking for but it does have very late night partying and no kids.

 

Good luck and hope you find what you are looking for.

[Elaine5715]

Actually, Carnival does offer some Adult Only cruises..but they are chartered and Clothing Optional..:eek:

[Sweet Dutch Girl]

Cruise to Hawaii...the average age of passengers is 65+ and very few children.

 

The longer the cruise the less kids. Also, don't book the newer ships which have more "cater to kids" activities.

[It's a Ship!!!]

My husband and I just returned from our first cruise over Christmas on the Navigator of the Seas which was a great cruise but my husband did not enjoy it because of all the kids running around and lack of late night activities. So my question is does Carnival have any cruises that are more adult oriented with fewer kids or even better no kids? I have read on these forums that Carnival has more late night activities so maybe Carnival is more in line with his cruise expectations. Right now he refuses to go on any more cruises unless I can find a more adult oriented cruise.

 

Thank you for any recommendations or suggestions.

Unfortunately it is really hard to get the best of both worlds. Carnival tends to have more nightlife options like the piano bar, night club, and comedy club. However they also tend to have more kids. Like some other posters suggested, taking 7 day or longer cruises in the off peak times will drastically reduce the number of kids on board.

 

On the other hand, you could sail a cruise line like Princess or Holland America since they typically don't have many kids, but they don't have anywhere near the nightlife options. On my last Princess cruise, I think I saw 1 child and a few teenagers the entire time, but there was really nothing to do after about 11:00 PM. The nightclub was open, but there were usually only like 10 or so people there.

[SadieN]

Our January cruises have very few kids on board. We'll be on a 2-week cruise soon and I expect just a handful of kids. We don't cruise over holidays or in the summer/spring break so we avoid the kids for the most part.

 

Completely agree!

We've had several cruises where there haven't been many kids.

- HI in October 2014 onthe Miracle About 20 kids onboard.

-CA Coastal on Princess in March, maybe 10 kids total, none older than Jr hi, most 4 and under

-HAL CA to Vancouver April repo cruises have had few kids.

 

Need to sail when traditional calendared schools are in session.

Edited December 31, 2015 by SadieN

[bakersdozen12]

Longer cruises during the school year will also have less kids, simply because most parents won't take their kids out of school for more than a week.

 

I went on a Halloween cruise this year on the Dream and there were hardly any kids at all. It was lovely. [emoji4]

[martinchem]

Carnival has offered clothing optional cruises for groups, I'm sure these would be adult only.

[cruiseonthebrain]

Carnival has offered clothing optional cruises for groups, I'm sure these would be adult only.

 

Funny- I was just wondering about this :-)

[N2Mischief]

On our Hawaii cruise we had 7 people on board under the age of 18. On the flip side of that was a huge majority of the people were over 60. For us this was perfect even though we were in our 40's, we enjoy a relaxed atmosphere, but after 9pm the ship was a ghost town and breakfast early was swamped.

[Cruisin 4 Ever]

On our last 2 January cruises on ships with capacity around 3000 people there were less than 100 kids on each. On one of them we were told there were only 28 kids on board.

[SadieN]

Carnival has offered clothing optional cruises for groups, I'm sure these would be adult only.

 

 

Those are full ship charters.

[wampuscat7]

I've only cruised 4 times. Three on Carnival and once on Royal Caribbean. I've cruised once in May, once in October, once in November, and once in early December. I've never seen hoards of crazed children on any of these cruises, but we travel specifically during times when most kids are in school.

 

In my very limited experience, I found that the nightlife depends on the crowd on board. We love the piano bars on Carnival, but on two cruises that bar was packed with fun people and on the other it was dead. I've not been on a cruise where the club was packed. I'm sure other cruises differ.

[Athankfulheart]

We have sailed with RC and Carnival multiple times. Once we started with Carnival we haven't gone back to RC. Second to prices is that Carnival is simply more fun and offers more to do. We have 8 kids aged 9-23 but we do not always sail with them. We sailed with 5 of them on the Magic (definitely a "kid" type of ship) the week of December 6th. Besides my own kids and a some preschoolers, the "kids" were hardly noticeable. Examples: I don't remember any kids singing at Karaoke besides my own. I don't remember any kids at the digital scavenger hunt. I only remember seeing kids in the aft pool once. This was a marked difference from sailing the first week of January ( done that once with kids and once without).

 

Long story short, choose Carnival for fun stuff to do and choose 7+ days on weeks that kids aren't out of school. I prefer this even when I sail WITH my kids, and maybe ESPECIALLY when I sail with my kids, who don't actually enjoy when there are 1500 other kids on a sailing.

Edited December 31, 2015 by Athankfulheart

[vamartha]

We like the week after Labor Day, over Halloween or the week after Thanksgiving. Our last few cruises have had very few kids!

[cruiseonthebrain]

On our Hawaii cruise we had 7 people on board under the age of 18. On the flip side of that was a huge majority of the people were over 60. For us this was perfect even though we were in our 40's, we enjoy a relaxed atmosphere, but after 9pm the ship was a ghost town and breakfast early was swamped.

 

Why do you think so few kids? The timing and length of the cruise or something else? I wonder if this is the same on Carnival for Alaskan cruises?

 

Funny observation about the quiet nights and busy breakfasts:-)

[kingoftheicedragons]

We have yet to have an issue with lots of kids around on our cruises. There have never been no kids, either.

 

As others have said, it's about timing. We cruise typically in January/February when school is in session. There are still kids, some of the kids may be home schooled, or one father was saying that he figured his kids would learn more actually going and seeing Costa Rica and Panama than they probably would in school, and I tend to agree.

 

Also, some itineraries tend to attract older people--and in our late 30s and early 40s, there have been times we've seemed to be the youngest people on board the ship. Europe, Alaska, New England/Canada, and the Costa Rica/Panama cruises tended to be more of an older crowd. Even our cruise out of Jacksonville to Key West and Nassau seemed to have a lot of older cruisers on the ship, but I wouldn't count on that always being the case.

[golfb4cruzing]

Try Princess. Different atmosphere and less kids. Haven't see any think the elevators button are a playground. They don't run around unsupervised either. Not 100% but a high percentage. Very relaxing.