Cruising with Kids in Feb - Fun for them?

[bwlr1985]

We are booked on the Mariner Feb 27, 2005. I have 2 girls age 10 and 13. Will there be kids for them to hang out with on the cruise or will the kids programs be all but non-existent because most kids are in school? We were hoping for some kids, but not a ship overrun with them (like Spring break).

[Natmar]

We took our kids (7 & 10) with us on a Carnival cruise on March 8th of this year and to be honest our oldest was in his age group of the kids program with only one other child. I think there were maybe a dozen kids max on the ship and most of them were younger than our two. I hope for you that you don't have any spring breakers on board - we thought we would beat them by sailing the first week of March and boy were we wrong. There were a bunch of college age drunks on board ship - to the point our oldest asked us during the life boat drill (before sailing) why this bunch of guys were obnoxiously loud and doing weird stuff. Hopefully, your cruise will be better than ours and you beat the college kids!! We would never cruise that time of year again because of this. GOOD LUCK!!

[kfgarrow]

We took our kids (8 and 11 at the time) on the Mariner in November of '03. We sailed the week after Thanksgiving and there were about 20-30 kids in each of the age groups at Adventure Ocean, less than 100 total. The week before (Thanksgiving Holiday) there were more than 300 kids participating in the program. The Mariner is so family friendly that there will always be kids aboard, just not a hoard of them during weeks that school is in session. BTW, the kids had an awesome time.

 

Kelly

[Maria65]

Some states have school breaks when you might not expect and there are enough people home-schooling nowadays that I think there will always be at least a few kids traveling at unexpected times. We're fortunate in NJ to have a week off in early November when most everyone else has school. The kids club had plenty of kids to make things fun but walking around the ship, it didn't seem like there were very many on board. I think the Voyager class ships are so popular with families that there will be enough kids.

[lorimay]

We were on the Rhapsody a couple of years ago over Valentine's day. There were about 100 kids in total in the kids program. Mostly small children. My kids had a wonderful experience because there were enough kids to make friends with but not too many. They got lots of personal attention. The counselors follow the same schedule every week so the structure is there - the only variable is how many kids.

 

Last year we were on the Celebrity Summit in Alaska for the third week in August. There were only about 30 kids total on the ship and my kids really didn't enjoy it much. Sometimes my younger son would be the only one in the children's program. They didn't even have enough kids to play all the parts in the big production they put on. It was the end of the season and the counselors seemed really tired. They didn't try too hard.

 

I think it's all the luck of the draw - if it's a small group but they all participate then its fine. I found the Adventure Ocean program was so good that we're going on another RCCL cruise in January.