Booking a cruise for 3 adults and a teen

[Baconking]

Have looked at cruises on and off but they seem so complicated to book.
Especially to include adult DS and teen DD. How do you work out the rooms?

Is it best to book through an agent who would have experience in booking cruises for our first time?

A few questions:

• Will your DC share a room in twin beds?
• Are you planning on sharing a cabin for 4?

Whilst many cruise lines have similar cabin layouts others do have family cabins.

I would suggest you talk to a cruise travel agent who can narrow down which cruise lines/ships might suit you.

You get 2 rooms and teen shares with an adult! You can sometimes get family rooms but the one we had was at the stern and it’s the worst place to be! Surely teen can share?

Booking is easy! You need to decide cruise line, ship and destinations. You then have the ludicrous price of shore excursions! I did diy for these but that can be difficult to arrange - depends where you are.

Depending on the age of the third adult and where you are sailing (are they over 21 or over 18), you could book 2 double cabins or a cabin for 4. A cabin for 4 could involve double or twin beds @ drop down bunk or two from the ceiling or one bunk and a sofa bed. You could book 2 cabins with a connecting door, or have one balcony cabin and an inside cabin opposite. It really depends on your budget.

Also are you looking party central or lots of interesting ports or both? I'd suggest checking out some YT channels to see some shop tours/cabin tours to narrow it down a bit.

We have three teen DS. We do 2 cabins next door. One for us one for them.

It will depend on which cruise line you are using, but it's simple enough to do.
Surely it's just a case of booking two cabins with 2 people in each, or one cabin for 4?

Some cruise lines will require a person over 21 to be booked in each cabin, so if your adult DS is under this age, then you will need to book with one of you and DH in each cabin with one sibling in each. But once on the ship, you can ask for extra keycards for the cabins, and swap where you sleep so adults are in one, and siblings are in the other. You can also request the beds to be made up as twins instead of a double bed.

2 cabins with connecting doors.

Interesting that the responses are 'duh! Just get 2 cabins next to eachother' but when I look online that doesn't come up as an auto option.
I can't even see how to book 2 rooms, never mind next to eachother.

Probably best to go through an agent for the first time if we decide it's what we want but I don't want to get any balls rolling until I have a vague price

We cruised as a family of 4, we had 2 cabins next to each other, you couldn’t book online (P&O) so always had to phone to book, Our DS’s shared, but I know families where the Mum has a cabin with DD and the Dad has cabin with DS. We never had interconnecting cabins, but the divider balcony doors could be unlocked so we could go into each others cabins via the balcony.

Thank you. That's good to know.

Previously, in hotels I have shared a interconnected room with DD and DH with DS, but couldn't see how to book this option online with a cruise company.
I think 1 room would be too small for all 4 of us

We book two balcony cabins next door to each other. About half the time we can the balcony divider opened to create one large space.
We’ve also booked two cabins next door to each other with an interconnecting door.

So regarding price it will be 4 x adult prices if you want two cabins.

Or a cheaper option is to book one balcony cabin and an inside cabin on the opposite side of the corridor.

We've only ever booked Royal Caribbean but you can choose exactly which cabins you want from deck plans as part of the booking process. We've had interconnecting and opposite (one balcony and one interior as teens didn't want a balcony). For the latter we asked for a card each for each room as it was useful to be able to borrow things from each other's rooms, get DC up when they had overslept etc.

@BaconkingThe ships don’t have many interconnecting rooms though and position on ship might be lousy. I’d look carefully at deck plans.

Do they need to be interconnecting? Just book 2 cabins next to each other or at least close. 2 adults in one. One adult and teen in the other. I went cruising with my 2 children in 2013 so kids were 20 and 17. I had a cabin to myself and my son and daughter shared a cabin next door. 3 years later we got a suite which worked well for the 3 of us.

I forgot, I’ve done that a few times too, before my DC’s balcony boujeeness kicked in.

Ships have interconnected rooms and also side by side plus larger family rooms sleeping up to 4 adults (cheapest option). Go onto a cruise consolidation adult like Iglu (plenty of others) and put in your rough dates, number of people and number of cabins. I’ve booked 2 cabins several times for travel with my parents. Do shop around because sometimes it’s cheaper via agent and sometimes direct (or get extra credit often). Do think about what you want from the ship, where you want to visit and your budget as you can spend as much as you are willing (my dream cruise is £12.5k needless to say it remains a dream)

We had connecting rooms , with a balcony that had a partition that was removed so we could all go on it together ( though DD who was 13 refused to go on it )
We went Celebrity , fantastic holiday , we’ve been on a few cruises since the first one in 2010 , the DC enjoyed it so much that DS and his Fiancé went on a Virgin voyage for her 30th
On the Celebrity website you can choose your own cabin , or phone ROL which is a cruise travel agent that we’ve used in the past

If you book direct you choose your exact cabins. We book near to, but not next to, a stairwell.
Whenyou arrive they will make up the cabin as you wish- double or twin. If you have balconies next door to each other they can open the balcony partition so you can all sit out together.

Most cruise lines have rims that sleep 4. Interior rooms tend to be two singles and two bunks above and are small. You need to go for a higher grade of cabin. Deluxe/higher grade cabins tend to be larger. So do suites.

ROL, bolsover are cruise experts and certain hays travel agents tend to have a cruise expert.

basically do you want to choose your own room or accept any within a certain type? If you want any room with a deluxe balcony for size and stage, go guaranteed. If you want to choose your own location then it’s the next one up. All cruise lines do a deck plan so you can see the cabins and have a key that explains which cabins have which features.

is hard the first time but with a boot of practice and research its very easy.

what cruise line are you looking at?

For info, p and o allow 4 adults/teens/kids to share. Saver is a guaranteed cabin and select is to choose your own room. Then you can add on drinks and internet if needed.

Sometimes for two rooms, you do need to phone rather than book online.

We use Vivavoyage, you can do a mock booking to see what cabins are available, check the deck plan to see where the cabins are located, if they are connected etc. Then phone to do the actual booking, and request which cabins you want (depending on the category of cabin that you pay for - sometimes you can get a cabin cheaper, but they choose it for you - probably not a good idea of you want two cabins near or next to each other)

We have done two cruises with our family of 5 with all of us in one cabin - the kids were teens at the time, with two of the three of them over 6ft, and it was fine - this was in a family oceanview cabin on Norwegian Getaway. It wasn't tons of room, but we managed fine, and it was much cheaper than two rooms, so it may be an option for you? On a busy cruise ship, we found we were really only in the cabin for sleeping and changing anyway.

P&O sometimes have an offer where guest 3&4 go free if you all share a cabin.

The benefits of interconnected are things like you can all use both bathrooms, can borrow/share things (chargers or whatever), easily know what time the others are getting up in the morning and make sure everyone's ready etc. But a bit less privacy.