There are important things to consider and research to determine if a cruise is a good vacation option for your family. Before you begin the research, take a moment to think about past vacations. What did your family like to do individually and together? Do you spend much of your time at pools? Are they into site-seeing or shopping?
Family-oriented cruise lines include Carnival, Disney, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian. These cruise lines offer multiple ships of various sizes with a variety of onboard activities. When you review each cruise lines’ onboard activities you will find activities such as rock climbing walls, golf simulators, sport courts, in-line skate tracks. There are also themed lounges with live bands, variety and ice shows, night clubs and of course “kids clubs” full of kid activities for any age group. There is something for everyone onboard and these activities are included at no extra cost. Use the cruise line websites to familiarize yourself with the onboard activities and see how these activities match up with your family's interests.
Each cruise line has a daily guide of the activities onboard the ship. Unfortunately, the cruise lines do not provide samples on their websites. However, there are numerous blogs, message boards, cruise review sites that do! There are too many to list so an online search for the ship name and the name of the cruise line's daily guide should provide you with plenty to review.
The following are the names of the guides for the major family-oriented cruise lines:
- Carnival Fun Times (formerly Capers)
- Disney Personal Navigator
- Royal Caribbean Cruise Compass
- Norwegian Freestyle Daily
As you browse through the ship's activities on the website, also take a look at the cruise line's ports of call. Many cruise line websites have short descriptions of the ports of call and some include literature with maps and listings of excursions. Make note of the activities of interest to your family. You can also book activities ashore that are not affiliated with the cruise line by searching the destination separately online. Using taxis or public transportation to get around is an option and costs less. However, there is no requirement to get off the ship.
Reviewing the information on the cruise line websites and tracking down activity guides of the ships that interest you is a great start to determine if a cruise vacation is a good option for your family. Remember to make note of onboard ship and excursion activities that are of particular interest so when it comes down to pricing, you can do so on an apples to apples basis.
Follow along as upcoming family cruise articles will address cabin and category selection, how to book with or without a travel agent, packing tips and more! Any comments and questions will be addressed in regular Q&A articles.
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