Cruise virgins..October Cruise?

[noideaoffuturenow]

Family of 6.... 2 older teens, 1 tween, 1 ASD/ADHD 9yo. After 2 difficult years we want to go on a holiday at halloween. Have't had summer holidays so we would love some sun. We def want heat and would like to suit everyone's fairly diverse needs. We have never cruised, but the idea of lots of potential entertainment & no driving/organising day trips sounds great. Tell me your positive stories. What line would be use? Where would we go? What sort of accomodation? Prob a room for the older teens & a room for the four of us? Would that work? What should we look for/avoid?

October is a good time for the Mediterranean.

I have only been on Royal Caribbean but would recommend it. Everyone can find something they enjoy, great kids and teens clubs, fun activities.

You can get a room for four (or even 6 but that would be a bit much with one bathroom) - Ultra Spacious gives you a bit more room and isn’t massively more expensive. You can get connecting rooms. You would have more options and it would be better value if you book for 2025.

I think cruising is great for diverse needs- we use it for multi generational family holidays. Your room configuration sounds right for the group you have.

I reckon for a group with teens/tweens you should look at Royal Caribbean as the ships are super exciting with things like bumper cars, climbing wall, zip line. Your older ones will be able to go off and entertain themselves on sea days.

Then decide whether you want to cruise from UK or fly out- Southampton is SUPER easy to embark and your holiday starts there and then but if you want to head south for some sun at that time of year, you're going to have a few sea days getting there and the Bay of Biscay can be choppy. Southampton is a brilliant base for Norway/Northern European ports however, but obviously no guarantees on weather at that time of year. If you fly out to somewhere like Barcelona or Athens you can access Greek Islands or Med ports so it's up to you what you want to see. Usually the more sea days a cruise has, the cheaper it is, so decide how important port days are to you.