Holland or Princess with Kids

[lulucruiser]

Which line would you suggest to book if you are bringing kids, ages 6 to 10, Holland or Princess?

[pam512]

I'm sure I won't be the last person saying this - stay away from Holland America if you have kids. I don't think they are very welcome on their ships.

[Host Caroline]

Holland America has a park ranger come on board in Glacier Bay for the children's program and also has Club HAL shore for kids in Alaska.. Children are very welcome on Holland America and esp. during school vacations and holiday periods when more are onboard they have a lot of activities planned.

Princess and HAL both do a great job in Alaska. I'm not really sure why the other poster thought HAL didn't welcome children. I would look at your itineraries and see what one suits you best too.

 

Host Caroline

<font SIZE="1">One can never have too many days at sea...</font>

 

Sept 04-Royal Hounds Mariner of the Seas

Feb 05-Partae Pirates Carnival Miracle

[kelmac]

If I had kids, which I don't, I would look into Royal Caribbean. Seems to be one of the most "kid friendly" cruise lines.

[cydspal]

I have two young girs and we have cruised Disney, Carnival and RCL, that is how I would rank them with kid programs...sorry...we do Princess this year and I will give a full review around mid-June when we return on them..

[Travalot]

We've taken our children on five Princess cruises and their program is great. Our only experience with HAL (until next month) was on the Prinsendam and there were very few children.

 

Princess has a little more parent friendly hours. Their program goes until 10 pm, with the option of paying for "babysitting" until 1 am. HAL's program ends at 9:30 pm, so we are not sure how that will work out with the entertainment in the evening (although my son can check himself in and out which makes it easier. That will not be an option with the six year old.)

 

Another thing to check is whether the ships you are looking at have dedicated kid program space. As far as I know, all the Princess ships do, but the Ryndam (and I guess her sister ships) don't. That means that the meeting room will change somewhat, based on other demands for the space.

 

We never pick our cruise based on the kid's programs because we have had children at every age possible (from under two through teens) and they always manage to enjoy themselves with whatever program is provided.

 

We have never found a ship or line that seems unfriendly to children, or passengers that seem to resent them. (I've read descriptions of nightmare cruises with hundreds of kids screaming through the ship, but haven't come even close.) Princess limits very strictly the number of children at each age group. The staff on every ship have always been wonderful - they usually miss kids, either their own or siblings, and are kind beyond belief.

 

HAL's Ryndam - Northbound Alaska - May 28, 2004

 

[lulucruiser]

Thanks for everyones reply. We're not sure what to do. We don't have experience with either line and we've only taken the kids on a 7 day Disney (which they loved). My mother-in-law is somewhat leaning toward Holland only because she was hounded by Princess for calling her to push excursions on previous cruises.

[Coral]

I have never heard of Princess calling to push excursions before. I have cruised with them 8 times or so. I wouldn't worry about this.

[pam512]

My response about HAL came from having two friends who have taken their grandchildren on cruises on HAL ships. I think that HAL is trying to make their newer ships kid-friendly, but the two ships they went on (can't remember which ones) didn't have a lot of activities for children. Bored kids sometimes lead to trouble, and my friends were told by several passengers that they should have taken their grandchildren on Disney. As a single adult, I choose not to go on Disney because I know there will be a lot of kids. I suggest you scoot over to the HAL info board and scope it out.

[ajdegumbia]

We are a group of about 45-50 people on the Voldendam 6/23. In that group is make up of kids from about 8-18 in age. (I think we have about 8 kids going in this group) One thing that it seems that they are ALL interested in is the HAL "Kids" tours in Juneau & Skagway. These are tours designed strictly for kids by age bracket. The older ones get to do rafting (wish I was about 40 years younger!!) and the younger ones have a different program.

 

We previously sailed RCI before with the kids (Monarch of the Seas) and they didn't have a dedicated kids room on that ship. I'm sure many of the newer ships regardless of lines are putting in separte rooms for the kids to meet in.

 

With all that said, candidly the way I look at it, alot will be the luck of the draw based upon the counselors. Having sailed numerous times on Princess we saw/heard kids on some cruises loving the Camp while others said the counselors weren't that interested and thus, they were bored.

 

I can tell you that when we sailed Alaska 10 years ago on RCI, we only had 4 kids on the entire ship. I can assure you with cruising today and how popular Alaska has become you won't see that low of number!!

 

I hope this helps. You go to Alaska for the scenery so no one can be bored when you are seeing whales, dolphins, eagles, etc.