Cruises with tweens/teens

[Nerdle]

Anyone done a cruise with kids aged 10 and 13 - do you recommend? DSs really want to but I am not so sure. Where did you go that worked for you?

We did a cruise last year with DS13 and DS 11 (at the time). Went from (and back to) Ravenna in Italy and stopped at Santorini, Mykynos, Delos and Split. Flew to Rome and spent a couple of nights there first (visited colloseum and open air bus tour around main sights), and did Venice for a couple of nights at the end. We did an organised trip each port day (paid for) apart from Split as we had been there before and it was just a short walk into town. We went with Explorer of the Seas which was a medium sized cruise ship and quite relaxed with dress codes etc. Was enough to do on the ship (also had switches and books/small ganes with us), they quite liked some of the family quizzes, there was a cinema screen on night, and we saw a guy doing balancing tricks a different night. They didn't go to kuds club/teen area as would have been split up due to ages. Think they enjoyed buffet and also being properly waited on in main dining room. And if you ask the youngest, the best thing would have been doing table tennis!

My DD was a little younger than yours but we did Disney. Not huge Disney fans but the service is amazing and food quality high. They also have an avengers themed ship. The clubs for over 10’s are split but on some ships share a space. When glancing down from the adult only deck I thought the vibe outside zone was brilliantly done for that age group

RCI have some of the bigger activities such as the big slides, zip wires and surf machines etc. There is a cruise company for every budget and style before you even start looking at locations - this is also budget and time of year dependent

Would you do the Explorer of the seas again? I’ve recently been looking at this itinerary for October time. It seems to be one of the older ships, did it feel dated at all?

We are going on RCLs newest ship in Europe this summer, DS will be 9. He’s bored of generic holiday clubs but likes the ones on cruise ships and they are age specific (so he would be in 8-11). He also likes the variety of activities on offer and the shows.

I’m a lazy soul who wants to spend their holiday sat with a book and a cocktail gazing at the sea, so cruises work quite well for us as DH and DS have a lot to amuse themselves with.

DS is old enough to enjoy the excursions- he’s looking forward to seeing Pompeii and sightseeing in Barcelona.

The main downside of cruises for us is we prefer to have a suite/apartment so DS is in a separate room to us but we have to sacrifice this on a cruise as it’s just not in our budget.

We did a couple of cruises with the kids when they were tweens/teens - they loved them. Our favourite line is Norwegian, due to the relaxed atmosphere, no set dining times etc, but I think that any large ship that has some activities and a decent kids club would be great for tweens/teens. IMO Norwegian, Royal, Disney and MSC are particularly good for kids.

Our kids went on the slides, played mini golf, spent hours on the basketball court, played giant chess, table tennis, Wii on a giant screen, did a climbing wall, and they all loved shuffleboard! On top of stops at ports, movies, trivia quizzes, scavenger hunts, they were occupied pretty much the whole time. They never even made it to the kids club.

I'd choose the cruise by a combination of price (make sure you include everything, including drinks packages/wi-fi if wanted, and gratuities/service charges which might be added on), itinerary, and ship - for kids, it's generally the larger the better. It's also worth looking at what cabins are available - we had three kids, and NCL offered outside cabins to sleep 5, it was a bit cramped, but really not problem, and it saved quite a bit over getting two cabins. And we were hardly ever in the cabin anyway except for sleeping.

Brilliant for this age group IME. A level of freedom but not too much! We had dinner together and spent port days together but most of the rest of the time on ship was spent separately.

Agree the downside is being cramped together in rooms unless you have a v large budget but we spent very little time in them so it was tolerable.

The ship is probably more important than itinerary for this type of holiday. Agree with Budgie's ship choices. We also did Celebrity and Princess with teens, both much less child focused but they still enjoyed and made plenty of friends.

We’ve been on 3 cruises as a family - all Royal Caribbean and we also have another one booked for 2027.

Our kids enjoy it as there’s so much to do all the time and they like getting to explore the different ports each day.

our 2027 one we’ve booked an ultra spacious cabin which has a king size bed, a sitting area and then a little mini bedroom with bunk beds in. The regular cabins are a little small for my liking and DS needs more space to move about due to his adhd and autism. The bigger cabins are great though (they go quickly!).

We did Princess in Alaska when dc were that age, and we found the ship
perfectly ok for teens. Excursions are very expensive in my view. Going to more ports where you can diy saves money.

@FriedFalafels - yes, would go on the same ship again. It is one of the older ships, but was clean and looked like it has been looked after. Doesn't have dome of the features of the newer ships. Had a flowrider (than one rone used, once), snd never used tbe small pool or sat there to sunbathe. And as our first and only cruise, we have nothing to compare it too! All staff were friendly and helpful. When we booked our cabin we looked at the floor plans and found a youtube of the cabin we were looking at. We picked (I think) cabin 9200 - at the front with a view of the helipad - not a standard shaped cabin. It was good as had a separate room with 2 bunk beds for the boys, an area in the middle with sofa/seats and coffee table, and then our bedroom. So didn't feel cramped. Wasn't a suite, so wasn't much more expensive than the standard cabin.

The only thing that was annoying was the lack of standard pricing for drinks packages and other add on. They would be a different price every day
You could buy, then if saw same package cheaper 2 days later cancel the first and buy at new price, then wait for a refund but that was a pain. We kept our eye on them and bought when we thought was at a reasonable price that we didn't mind paying and then stuck at them. The excursions are expensive (but we were doing it as a joint 50th to ourselves so splurged). We joined a couple of Facebook groups - one for royal carribean generally, and the other was called something like first time cruise..or similar. Lots of hints and tips on those.

We went on the Explorer of the Seas back in 2019 with our teens. I know it was a while ago but we all loved the ship. It is a bit more traditional than the newer RCL ships but we prefer it being slightly smaller.

Just checked - we were in cabin 8200. And also glad it was a smaller sized ship (though still huge!). And an advantage when we did booked excursions was that we had a booked slot on the tender boats (when ship doesn't dock in a port, so didn't have to queue to get tickets to get a slot on a tender boat

Tried a few out, dd2 was very keen. P&o worked out the cheapest overall I think, less flashy, Disney they loved but was pricey. Once older we went with Marella as its ai, nobody monitored the rose wine on tap so dc loved it as older teens

We’ve done a couple, ours loved them. It’s a great mix of family, food, being able to go off on their own, and port days. We’ve booked Icon of the Seas this year, can’t wait!

@Topbird29 thank you! I know my DD won’t use the facilities of the bigger ships (such as the big slides, zip lines etc) so the smaller ship with less passengers is more tempting