Cruises - never been on one before and I am interested! Advice / experiences welcome!

[Afterfire]

There would be 4 of us. Me, dh, dd aged 19 and Ds aged 11.

I think initially we’d like to try a short one from Southampton. Been looking at Royal Caribbean ones, msc, and P and O… it’s quite overwhelming all the different options and “brands” - is one better than another?

How does it work if you do a longer one and fly to a different country - are transfers included?

Not a clue what I’m doing…!

When you look at cruises it should tell you if it includes flights or there will be a check box to tick to confirm you want to include flights.

The best piece of advice I can give you is where do you want to see? You say going to Southampton but if you want to cruise Greece then you’ll need to likely fly.

We usually go Royal Caribbean. Excellent for kids which is a big bonus but, again it depends on where you want to go. Have you considered that? Ports of call is a good place to start, then see who sails there and use forums like Cruise Critic to see if the cruise line meets your needs as a family.

Our last cruise was chosen because it went to Portofino. This was a bucket shop visit for me. It also went to Corsica and out of the 7 days, only 2 were at sea. I like to be off the ship most days rather than having lots of sea days. I also don’t like the huge mega ships. Our last cruise wasn’t in an all singing, all dancing ship. It was small, easy for our kids to get around, good entertainment for them, an outdoor cinema etc.

if you can give an indication on where you’d like to go, that’s a good place to start.

See on this screen shot, it gives you the option to include flights etc. on the left side.

I can highly recommend p and o, but as above it depends where you want to visit. Some people have the cruise as the holiday and never leave the ship, others are out all day on a port day. P and o includes tips, and there is plenty to do on board.

Flights and transfers vary. Some cruises will provide them (usually at a cost of course), others won't. It's not particularly done "per company" either. We tend to use MSC and sometimes the flight and cruise is actually a very cheap add-on (I've seen them free but not been that lucky). Other times, they don't offer anything at all (not even at normal prices) so it's up to you to get yourself to the port.

love them. been on two so far. one in the Mediterranean and another the carribean. going on my third one in Sept. one ncl and one msc. wouldn't rate msc. customer service on boat not great. I always book through a travel agent so they arrange flights etc as the package. if you can fly in the day before to your port destination. save you rushing to get to the ship next day. leaving ship you leave mega early so arrange flight in afternoon if you can. normally agent will have a hotel that does a bus transfer. not usually fancy but does the job.
now been on a few I look at routes that offer two days at see instead of stopping evey day. that means you get to enjoy the ship aswell. i.dont mind the big ships. there is loads to do. shows evey night and they are amazing. Good choice of food.
i make sure my package includes drinks and all saves hassle as yoi can have what you want.
I book my excursions through the ship. its a little bit nore expensive but to me saves the stress of having to find my way back etc. if you are late back and it's not with one of the ships tours they will sail without you and its up to you make your way to the next destination. we had a close call on our 1st one and I said never again. nearly divorced.
try and get your gratuitys included in your price. keep an eye on your account (you don't pay at all on-board all charged to yoru account ) usually can see it on the TV in your room
you don't have to tip the staff but I do. they work bloody hard on the ship. enjoy it now

I enjoy sailing from Southampton, partly because I hate flying but also because it's just less faff.

Obviously for some cruises you need to fly though as either the line doesn't sail from Southampton, or you'd need a month of annual leave in one go, which sadly I don't have!

P&O are generally good but drinks aren't included and their drinks package is crap. Drinks are relatively reasonable if you don't have the package. Good range of ships and a lot of sailings from Southampton all year round. Any fly cruises have flights included. Pretty much all British clientele.

Marella are a good all rounder, older and smaller ships that are fully all inclusive, some good itineraries with very few sea days, a bit more casual but they don't sail from Southampton. Any fly cruises have the flights included. British clientele.

Princess are my favourite, similar to P&O but better and with a very good 'Princess Plus' package. They only sail from Southampton for part of the year before they go back to America. Flights not included on fly cruises. Standard kids clubs but none of the extra stuff for kids. An American line but on Southampton sailings you will have a mix of Americans, British and some other nationalities.

MSC far more international and a different cruising experience. Passengers embark and disembark at each port so a huge mix of nationalities (which some people don't seem to like ) and food is Mediterranean. Often deals to be had in with booking for drinks package. Some sailings from Southampton but I'm not sure how it works with fly cruises. A lot of the ships have slides and/or water parks.

I've never been with RC but some of their ships are MASSIVE and have all sorts on board, eg go karts etc! Think the drinks packages (and drinks, if you buy outside of drinks package) are quite expensive unless you can get a good deal on package at time of booking.

Love them! Done it with my som who has cruised as a child and a teenager and going again next year!

Marella cruises (TUI) are good as all inclusive so no extra costs really once on the ship, i like P&O as aimed at brits and good kids clubs, drinks are extra on top of price , they have been my last 2 cruises. Both marella and P&o will include your flights if doing a fly cruise. If leaving from Southampton then P&O will often include a coach transfer from your location to the port.

Royal Caribbean are great for kids, flights are normally an extra cost, as are drinks, but there are cruise specific travel agents that will put it together in to a package for you.

Ive been all over the med and its a great way for teens to see different places without getting bored

Just out of curiosity what didnt you like about the p and o drinks package? We had it on our last one, and worked out if we had more than 6 drinks a day, it financially worth it. Granted there wasn't the full choice, but plenty was included for us to get our moneys worth. We found out half way through the week that the 15 drinks a day limit wasn't enforced, so we went over that a couple of days.

Have a look at the website/forum 'cruise critic' for some inspiration and useful into.

Drinks packages are often a heated debate on cruise critic! To give an indication, on Royal Caribbean our last drinks package was about £35 pp per day. That sounds horrendous, particularly when you add on tips but it included all soft and alcoholic drinks. It also included coffee from the speciality coffee shop (you can get free filter coffee at meal times in the restaurants), bottled water and freshly squeezed orange juice. We more than used the value everyday just by having 2 coffees, several bottles of water, an OJ with breakfast and then a beer at lunch, couple of cocktails by the pool, wine for dinner and then a drink watching a movie at the outdoor cinema.

Use a cruise agent who deals with all the companies for your first time to see your options. I've used online ones like planet cruise but I've heard great things about bolsover cruise club for instance.

Work out your budget, when you can sail, put it into the search and see your options. If it's a fly cruise it should say if flights are bundled with it.

As a general rule the American orientated vessels plus Norwegian are bigger, brasher and fun, the European ones are a bit more refined and don't have water slides (my dp had water slide envy as we boarded Queen Mary 2, next to the ncl ship!)

It's so dependant on your taste. We mostly travel Cunard but I think marella offers excellent value for money especially traveling with a 19 year old (it's ai) oh and check alcohol rules for your 19 year old USA has different rules

I‘m a huge fan of cruises, been on a at least one a year every year since I was young.

It depends what you’re looking for. They will all have some form of bars, restaurants, entertainment, pools and kids clubs (unless adults only).

Princess is fab but can be quite pricy. P&O is quite British and has some really great facilities like the night nursery if you have small children. Celebrity is incredibly sparkly and modern and can feel quite a bit calmer then, for example, Royal Caribbean which is very fun and geared towards older kids with lots of activities etc. Norwegian was great as a bit of a party ship. I’m just about to go on my first MSC- I’ve heard it’s a bit more international, unless you go out of Southampton which they’ve geared towards British guests. Not that I’m sure what that means- I think there are kettles in the cabins!?

I would start figuring out where you want to go. As someone above mentioned P&O can be good for fly cruises as the flights are chartered and it’s such a straightforward process from check in to boarding. Other times the flights are separate and I would usually plan to land the day before the ship leaves, just in case.

One consideration for your 19 year old- if you’re on an American ship, in international waters, he very likely won’t be allowed to drink. This is as opposed to P&O where the drinking age is 18 as it’s a British ship. Just something to consider- we stuck fairly rigidly to P&O in the carribean when I was 18-21!

Drinks package on P&O is quite worth it, unless you like expensive cocktails and then you’re priced out quite quickly!

Personally I’m a fan of the new ships with the more modern design. Some of the old ships can be a lot of dark wood and carpet! You can usually Google any ship, and find out when it was either launched or refurbed. The cruise lines are also starting to come up with great tech, like the medallion class Princess ships which makes it easy to communicate and find each other.

@DeltaAlphaDelta79 mainly the fact that barely any of the cocktails were included. On Princess for example, 90% of the drinks are included in Princess Plus (which is the same price as P&O's drinks package but also includes wifi). Also if you want a drink over the $12 limit on Princess you just pay the difference which I think is absolutely fair. On P&O you pay the whole amount on top of what you've already paid for the drinks package, minus 20%. That seemed mean in the extreme.

When they first brought out the 'ultimate' drinks package almost everything was included. They then upped the prices of the drinks but not the maximum threshold in the drinks package. Calling a drinks package 'ultimate' when it doesn't include most of the cocktails is a bit of a stretch- in most bars only 2 cocktails from the whole menu were included!

I'll get off my soapbox now

@WildImaginings i agree about the drinks package- a while ago it was a really good deal, but the cocktail prices have gone up but the limit has stayed the same!
Having said that, having just got off Britannia, right now every bar has the same basic cocktail menu and no variety from there. And there are maybe about 6 outside of the package. So at the moment it’s the lack of variety which feels like more of an issue, rather than the package! Hopefully will be fixed as they get their staffing levels back!

I get your point and do agree with you, we did have to avoid a couple of bars as there were not many cocktails we wanted. I also agree about paying the difference vs 20% off the full price. I like the idea of wifi being included. I was never gonna pay £15 a day or whatever it was for it.

We went with our two when they were similar age. We did P&O and it was a great holiday. Worth paying for meal at a guaranteed time we thought. Also worth paying extra for a balcony cabin. The food suited everyone well and staff were happy to get plain burger and chips for my littlest when everyone else was enjoying more adventurous fare!

Wow so many replies!!! 🤩

Thank you all so much. Lots to think about!

I have to be honest I haven’t thought about where we’d like to go 🙈 at this stage I’m just thinking “oooooh a cruise, we haven’t done that before” and looking at all the huge shiny ships (I’ll admit I’ve been eyeing up the Royal Caribbean ones and they look amazing)! I think ideally we’d like a mix of a few sea days and some trips / stops. So that’s given me something to think about.

The whole drinks package thing is interesting.. dh and I are actually teetotal (no particular reason, we just don’t like drinking so stopped ages ago and haven’t bothered since) and dd 19 probably would only want the occasional drink pre dinner (although when she’s at university with her friends she drinks her own bodyweight in gin I’m sure)! So that’s something for us to think about really… If we aren’t going to want any alcoholic drinks it’s probably not worth it. But we do like a LOT of coffee! 🤔😆

I have been watching a lot of you tube videos and faffing about on the various webpages.

Possibly a stupid question…. Anyone been really seasick? Kids have never actually been on a boat and I’m assuming being a big ship it’s less likely they’d be sea sick as opposed to a small boat (??) but maybe I’m wrong… That’s partly the reason I was thinking about a smaller trip to try it first. Wonder if it might be hell if the dc - or us - can’t cope for some reason!

Considering a Fred Olsen cruise to Norway next year. DH and I are not drinkers as such so we weren’t going to bother with the drinks package. Would it be worth getting for a couple of soft drinks per day and maybe a glass of wine or beer with dinner? It does say tea/coffee is free and unlimited. An extra £500 for drinks seems like an awful lot!

Just on the drinking side first! We have decided to take our own wine and pay corkage on Regal Princess in September as wine too expensive. Do choose a cruise that goes to ports you are interested in or at least where you can do activities you like. We don't like the days on board that much but are seeing Herculaneum, Ephesus, Delos and Istanbul which we are thrilled about. What about river cruises, usually very good but not much entertainment if that is what you like.

I was about to start a thread for a new cruiser!! I'm wondering about doing a Mediterranean one for maybe 5 nights to try it out? My theory is that rather than sailing from the south coast, flying to somewhere like Barcelona first means that you'll explore further on the same time scale.
Would a cruise around the med in October be a good first one to try?

The more I read, the more they appeal!

It's definitely worth trying once!

Just been on Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas- wouldn’t do it again. Impressive ship but frantic. Next time would go a bit more upmarket and try celebrity or a small ship.

I have been on three trips with Royal Caribbean and really enjoyed them. Fab ships. Felt queasy in the Atlantic sailing from NY to the Caribbean but was able to get on with it. I have only been on large ships though; don't know if this makes a difference. Have two booked with Celebrity in the next two months.

I have always fancied a cruise but suffer with sea sickness. A friend of mine who does a lot of cruises says I won't get seasick on the big cruise liners as they are so stable. I still get sick on the big ferries so not sure if that is comparable.

Would hate to spend a fortune on a cruise and be ill for most of it.

Sorry for hijacking the thread!