Favorite Family Cruise Itinerary

[BalancingWanderlust]

We are thinking of starting to cruise with our young children (2 and 4 years olds) and was wondering what everyone's favorite itineraries have been with their kids?

 

My husband and I have cruised before and are well traveled beyond cruising but we haven't done any international traveling with our kids yet. For us we think cruising may be a great fit for traveling with young kids 😀 

[kitkat343]

Cruising is an absolutely is a wonderful way to cruise with kids!

 

Here are our favorite cruises for families:

 

If you live on the east coast of canada, you might consider a 10 day roundtrip panama canal cruise on Princess.  Cartagena is amazing, you can see a rainforest in Costa Rica (not the nicest rainforest in costa rica but nice nonetheless) plus you can swim with stingrays in Grand Cayman and visit the turtle farm and you stop at Falmouth Jamaica (1 hour from dunns river falls and dolphin cove, which would let your kids pet a dolphin and visit animals).

 

I also loved the Baltic cruise I took with my oldest son, but that included St. Petersburg so it was truly magical.  Other amazing stops on that cruise were Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Tallinn.  Some people recommend waiting until St. Petersburg reopens but that really could be quite awhile.

 

If you are on the west coast of Alaska, please note that an Alaskan cruise is amazing for families (though the excursions get expensive fast, so price that out before you purchase your cruise.)  We went to alaska as a last minute trip because the fares were so cheap when I was pregnant with my oldest.  Then the price kept climbing when we added on excursions, but it was amazing and we were really glad to have done it.

 

Norway is also really special, and next year might be the last year to visit my favorite ports (they are banning cruises that are not zero emissions from sailing to Flam and Geiranger).  My three favorite ports were Flam, Geiranger and Olden.  

 

We also liked a western caribbean cruise we took on Carnival, which took us to Roatan (Bodden's adventures can take you to feed/play with monkeys and iguanas), you can swim with stingrays in Grand Cayman Islands, we went cave tubing and visited the zoo in Belize and we swam with dolphins in cozumel.  Those cruises usually leave out of Tampa but have a few other cities as their departing port.

 

If you choose any of these cruises, my signature line has more information about the trips my family has taken.

 

Please note that your 2 year old can go to drop off daycare on carnival and cunard, and precovid would be able to go to the kids club on princess with parental supervision (not drop off).  you'd need to check with princess if this is still available.  The princess staff was great with my 2 year old.  Fee based care is available for 2 year olds in the nursery on all disney and newer/refurbished RC ships.  

 

We really liked princess and RC for young kids (older kids might be disappointed by princesses lack of water slides, but their kids club was great pre-covid).  Most kids on our January sailing liked NCL kids clubs, but my kids were bored and said they did a lot more playing of video games than on our August RC sailing.

 

If itinerary matters to your family, please exercise caution in booking with NCL since they keep changing their itineraries and not notifying passengers.  Last spring, they ran a ship aground in the Dominican Republic.  For nearly a year their dock, Taino Bay, was unusable.  Carnival owned a nearby dock in Amber Cove but only 2 ships can fit there.   On our sail date in January, it looked like Amber Cove already had two Carnival owned ships scheduled to visit and our NCL stop in the DR would either be cancelled or rescheduled.  NCL was rescheduling some DR stops  to Nassau; others to Great Stirrup Kay, their private island and others were just given an extra sea day.  Because NCL didn't tell us what was happening I had to plan excursions for both Nassau and GSK just in case they were on our cruise since NCL sometimes didn't announce that until you were onboard.  In December, NCL finally announced our day in the Dominican Republic was cancelled, and they then also cancelled the morning of Antigua to help the environment.  For the following month, NCL continued to list the the original itinerary for our cruise on their website which promised our ship would visit the DR, and wouldn't let anyone cancel or reschedule, including people who bought the cruise after the port was cancelled directly through NCL and they weren't warned of the itinerary changes at the time of booking.  I had pulled 3 kids out of school for this itinerary (one child really wanted to visit the monkeys at a reserve in the DR; another wanted to visit the giant toirteses in Antigua, which is only open in the morning so we couldn't do that) but NCL wouldn't let us reschedule the trip.

 

Just last week, the port of Valdez in Alaska was cancelled by NCL for the rest of the season, and people found out from a press release issued by the town.  They also cancelled port stops in Costa Rica and Nicaragua on a panama canal cruise and replaced them with Acapulco and Jamaica for safety reasons.  Cancelling Nicaragua for safety reasons might be reasonable, but Costa Rica was experiencing its normal level of safety, which is quite high.

 

This forum goes over some of the rescheduling issues NCL has experienced.

 

 

 

 

 

[Essiesmom]

If you are looking at summer and fall cruising, you might consider Bermuda.  Cruises leave from NYC, Boston and Baltimore.  You also need to consider sleeping arrangements for small children.  For some, 3/4 guests have an upper bunk, not suitable for a toddler, maybe not even the 4yo.  Type of cabin makes a difference, too, with bed arrangement.  MSC has uppers in inside and OV cabins, but balconies can have a foldout sofa that is queen size and could handle both kids, and a bunk sofa arrangement, where the seat of the sofa raises up to make an upper bunk, and a lower bed is below.  You have lots of research to do!  EM

[Dani24]

We've only done two cruises with our daughter. A San Diego to Vancouver on Disney when she was 4. And a San Francisco to Alaska when she was 7 on Princess. The Disney cruise was fine. But the Alaska cruise was amazing -- especially with a kid! VERY family-friendly and they had a TON of activities on board for the kids, and people of all generations. My daughter had an absolute blast on that cruise, from the kids club to the shore excursions to the other experiences on board like the sled dogs, shows, movies under the stars, piazza activities, etc. If you do Glacier Bay they bring a National Park ranger onboard and the kids can earn their Junior Ranger badge. IMO, an Alaska cruise is perfect for families/multi-gen cruises.

[Kerry's Girls]

On 6/18/2023 at 3:00 PM, BalancingWanderlust said:

We are thinking of starting to cruise with our young children (2 and 4 years olds) and was wondering what everyone's favorite itineraries have been with their kids?

 

My husband and I have cruised before and are well traveled beyond cruising but we haven't done any international traveling with our kids yet. For us we think cruising may be a great fit for traveling with young kids 😀 

Cruising is a great way to travel internationally with kids since the ship becomes your hotel that moves while you sleep to a new place to explore, removing the packing/unpacking, stress of transit, changing beds, etc.   In the summer, Northern Europe can be best since the ship docks at or closer to the sites and doesn't have the heat/crowds of Mediterranean cities.  But if you can go early summer, the Med can be wonderful too - esp with private tours.