a cruise with 4 children?

[vintageshopshopping]

Am I mad?

Some travelling the easy way, plus pools and clubs for the kids? Has anyone done it? any tips?

TIA :)

Also, sorry for extra question, are activities (climbing, ropes, golf etc) included or extra to pay for?
They are included.
The big thing to think about is alcohol, if you cruise with Royal Caribbean the drinks packages are very expensive. If you don’t drink much it’s probably cheaper to pay as you go. They do packages called refreshments packages which I particularly enjoy. They include fancy non alcoholic drinks in this package. You can have a perfectly nice holiday without any package.
I have been on 22 cruises and done every combination of drink packages. NCL either include them or offer them at a really low price.
Water, tea and coffee are free all day long.

Yes very rarely we book with the company as they just charge the maximum they can get away with, I have also had them tell me it wasn't safe to go ashore unless on a proper trip!
Cruise critic forum is a great help.
Look at the destinations and Cruise critic should show you how to do it on the cheap. For Example one trip to Florence was £600 for 6 people, we did it on the local bus and train and including lunch we spent £100 for all of us.
The Trip to Rome we booked the ship trip as it was not too bad and a more difficult journey.
Some ports are just not worth getting off at but we always do, we were once told there is nothing at Cadiz! It a fantastic little proper Spanish place, great food, beaches etc and you just step right off the ship in to town. The Cruise is a great way to see different places

you arrange the excursions yourself

We mostly do the ships organised excursion, about one third of the time we do our own thing. You could probably do your own thing in every port if you wanted to. Your DC would probably like visits to local aquariums, beaches, water parks, child friendly museums etc. Hop on hop off buses are good.

Have a root around here
https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/

Amazing thank you!

I’m itching to book something now :)

Once you have booked post your itinerary and I can let you know what we did , if its Med or Norway.

oh and flights book separately?

Unless P&O has gone downhill in the last few years, I disagree. Quality of everything was way better for us on P&O than Royal Caribbean

If you want to have childcare for the two year old you need to choose your cruiseline carefully. P&O do kids club from 2 and a night nursery, Royal Caribbean do childcare for two year olds but you need to pay for it, MSC also does free childcare but very limited hours and i found they weren't that great (called me within 5 mins as they couldn't calm her down).

You also won't be able to take the 2 year old in the main pools until they're toilet trained though most Royal and P&O ships have separate splash pools for toddlers.

Going out of Southampton is obv quite convenient with a bigger family than flights but generally less good deals and weather not as warm.

Think you'd be best off in two intercommunicating or a large suite if you can afford it but both of them generally go fast so may need to search round for them

It does depend on the ship, we did two with P&O about 3 years ago, the ships where not as clean, food was ok but not a patch on RC, Holland America, Celebrity etc
We had a cabin flood with sewage and they just didn't care. After several meetings they moved us to a different cabin with dirty bedding.
Cruises are all about quality and attention to detail so they are relaxing and hassle free, P&O was just like Butlin's, no sorry Butlin's was better as I knew what to expect, didn't pay as much and to be honest we had a better time at Butlin's, as it didn't stink and didn't flood from memory you can Google one of the P&O ships and historically the sewage system has been an issue for several years

For your first one book the lot as a package then you can see how it all operates and next time it will help you shop around. We often book the flights transfers and cruse separately but you do risk missing it if the flight is delayed, but if booked a s a package its the company responsibility