Cruising with Your Children
It may not be your preferred way to vacation, but you may find yourself needing to cruise with your children. While we truly enjoy cruising by ourselves or with friends our age, we also have found ways to make a cruise with our kiddos a very enjoyable experience.
Many cruise lines work hard to ensure that no matter how you cruise with them that you will have a good time. That's why on Royal Caribbean you will find an adults-only area, the Solarium. You will find a kids' club with a highly qualified staff to address any and all needs that your child might have. You will find areas especially designed for kids and areas especially designed for adults, so that if you are without your kids you can still have a great time. In my opinion, Royal Caribbean does an especially good job at catering to all groups and ages. Here are some considerations that you might want to consider while planning a cruise with your children:
1)Planning Your Cruise- When you are planning a cruise for your family, there are some factors that you need to think about when choosing your cruise. Do you have a budget in mind? Is there a specific time of year that you would like to travel? Do you have a destination in mind? Is there a specific ship or activity that you are most interested in doing while cruising? Your travel agent will help you think up and think through many of these questions. Obviously, cruising with kids during school breaks is more expensive, but there are ways to find cheaper cruises for your family. Going on excursions with your family is more expensive because simply there are more of you, but many excursions have reduced rates for children. The newer, fancier ships, especially on Royal Caribbean, are generally more expensive but they have so many activities available so that you may never want to leave the ship to go on an excursion. As already stated, there are a lot of moving parts to consider when cruising with your family and your travel agent should be able to help you figure out what works best for your family.
2)Managing Your Expectations- A trip with your kids, no matter the age, always requires that you are willing to welcome certain ideas while letting other notions go. For example, you have young kids and you want to cruise with them but you also want to attend the late night comedy show. This may require that you either pay for the kids' club to watch your child past 10pm or for one of you to stay in the stateroom with them while the other goes out. Or, you may want to go on a fabulous excursion but your family would rather hang out on board. Your kids want to go and play at the arcade, but you know that your money would be better used in the casino (either way, it's a gamble). Or, you would like to try out the steak house but your family only eats pasta and chicken fingers. This is just parenting 101 and something that I still struggle with, even as a parent of kids aged 10 and 12. If you need some helping figuring out how to make your family cruise spectacular, your travel agent should be able to help you figure out some ways to make it work best for you.
3)Figuring Out Your Priorities- It's always a good idea to think about what is most important for you and your family during your cruise. Regardless of the age of the party that you are traveling with, you may want to try think ahead about what your family will want to do while cruising with you. We have our kids watch YouTube videos of the ship that we are going on and then ask them what they think looks the most fun. This gives us an idea of what activities to prioritize while cruising. And, once again, your travel agent should be able to give you some insight as to how you can best approach meeting these priorities.
4)Cruise with your kids and cruise without them- You may find yourself in the situation where cruising without your kiddos is difficult (i.e. you don't have/can't afford the help you need at home so that you can cruise without them. If this is the case, then you may have to work hard to make sure that your cruising experience is worthwhile for everyone involved (which probably means a more expensive vacation but totally doable). If you are fortunate enough to have reliable and affordable childcare, then I recommend you planning a cruise with your kids so that they can join in on the fun and plan a cruise without your kids so that you can take the time to fully relax and rejuvenate. As your travel agent, I could help you to make sure that either scenario works for you and your family.
Have any more questions about cruising with children? Please fill out my contact form and I will get back to you ASAP.
