Greenboys

I placed a refundable deposit on a 4-day cruise on the Carnival Sensation leaving March 28 from Port Canaveral. My wife and I will be with our two boys, 14 and 11. Somebody suggested that the ship may be overrun with college students partying on their spring break. Does anyone with prior experience have any thoughts on this, or cruising Carnival, or on the Sensation? This will be our first cruise. Thanks! PS-cruise is to Bahamas. We do not have flexibility on the departure date, do not want a cruise of more than 4 days, and are flying in to Orlando. Thanks for your feedback.

aliska

Have never been on 4 day cruise but have sailed on Carnival Legend during Spring Break with 2 teenage girls on 8 day, southern Caribbean cruise. Don't know wanything about your ship. Yes, I would recommend a cruise. If you feel your boys are mature and responsible, you can probably let them roam around between meals alone. I would suggest having "touch points" like breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc. so you can check on them during the day.

Be aware that soft drinks on board are horribly expensive. Our girls drank the lemondade, punch and other stuff that did not cost $$. You can buy a drink card for the duration of the cruise (at least we could on 8 day). That too was very expensive.

My girls were 15 & 18 at the time (still in high school) and prime material for college boys. Doesn't sound like you will have that problem. We had daily talks about rude staring and leering, lots of drunk kids, being irresponsible, etc. Really think it was good for them to see this in a "controlled" environment.

Our ship excursions were all together as a family. They made a few friends on board, but we did not let them go off ship with strangers. We had a bad experience in the Bahamas with a small child working icw couple to try to steal our stuff. This was definitely a con. We survived andf our stuff was intact, no damage through good wit. We used it as "lessons learned" for girls to always be on your toes in unfamiliar surroundings. We always had one of us guarding our stuff while the others swam in the ocean.

Try to anticipate what could happen and educate your children. You don't need to scare them. The message should be to use common sense and not do stupid stuff. Don't take anything valuable with you and you won't be crying if it is stolen or lost. Good Luck!

Greenboys

Aliska -

Thank you for taking the time to reply. Your comments were very helpful. As a side note, it seems like the cruise lines take advantage of having a captive audience when possible. You mentioned the soft drinks. I've heard the beer and cocktails are really expensive, too. Thanks again!

gail

I cruised with my college-freshman daughter, 2 of her friends, plus my elderly mother and mother and aunt of one of the other college students (spring break 2009). (NCL - 5 night out of Miami). The ship was NOT overrun with college students - in fact, the girls had difficulty finding other people their age to hang out with. On most cruiselines one must be 21 to occupy a cabin without someone older than 25, further limiting the spring breakers. Also, cruiselines enforce 21 year old drinking age as strictly as most land places.

March 28 is very late for college spring break - hardly any college has spring break that late. It is the week prior to Easter - therefore a popular public school spring break so you are more likely to be innundated with shrieking toddlers and kid pool hoggers than drunken young adults. No one leered or stared at the college girls - and I can assure you they paraded around in skimpy swimsuits and are all attractive - except perhaps for one drunk middle aged guy with a beer belly and nose hair. Again - no different than the real world.

I think a cruise would be a good choice for kids that age. They are old enough to safely go from place to place alone on the ship and also to enjoy the "tween" kids activities.

I find Aliska's choice of cruise issues to be overly negative. You buy a soda card for a few dollars/day and you are all set. Alcohol costs about the same as in an upscale bar. If you want to drink all day, you will run up quite a tab - but I am guessing you do not.

After you pay the cost of the cruise, the only thing "required" to pay is tips - they tell you how much. There are "excursions", but most ports have opportunities to do something fun for not a ton of money. Yes, they will try to part you from your money in many ways - optional restaurants, art auctions, gambling - but one the 5 cruises I have been on the only real charge I have on my bill are sodas, alcohol perhaps a specialty coffee and an organized "excursion" or 2 to see something semi-interesting or to do something like ride a jetski.

Safety for kids or anyone - there are 3,000-5,000 people in one place - all of whom paid to be there but all of whom are strangers. You dock in places - usually a foreign country - where there are even more people. You likely would not let your kids go wandering around for days on end in either situation at home or land - so I have found need for sense and security to be the same as at home.

All of you will likely need passports - either as a cruiseline requirement or port requirement - make sure you check it out because if you do not have them, you need to get them now. (An added expense of about $100 each).

Food on board is perfect for boys that age as well - they eat a lot, and there are burger, pizza, buffet options all day. Then you also get to sit down to dinner with them for 4 nights to reconnect.

We have cruised several times with our now-adult kids. At each age the experience was a little different for them and us, but always a positive one.

Greenboys

Gail - You addressed many of the things my wife and I have been discussing. Extremely helpful. Thank you very much!

gail

Some additional points to consider. Are you getting one or 2 cabins? Hopefully 2 - even for families used to getting one hotel room, ship cabins are tiny comparably. The cruiseline will likely make you "officially" put one adult and one kid in each cabin - they do not care who actually sleeps where.

In Nassau and Freeport if you just want to go to a beach, skip the beach "excursions" from the ship. As you leave the ship there are all sorts of cabs and "beach shuttles" for $5-10 that take you to and from the beach. At the beaches they sell food, useless trinkets, there is usually a bar and yet another place to gamble.

Your room card is your charge card for the ship - it is all cashless. You can either allow or not your kids to charge on their room key - we always let our kids charge since they thought it was cool to buy a soda on their own with the card and we trusted them not to buy $1000 worth of art - but in theory they could have. When you buy a soda or drink by the pool, for example, a tip is included in the charge - of course you have the option of tipping more but you do not have to although they try to trick you into doing so by leaving a space for the tip. Discuss this with your kids.

Our rules for our kids - even older than yours was no leaving the ship and they were allowed only in public areas of the ship - and that included not going into new friend's cabins. (This was more of a concern for us with our daughter, but should apply to sons as well). We saw them 3 meals/day and each time they left us we said "meet us at x by y time". Soimehow we always ended up running into them sooner.

Our son when the age of your kids actually liked the sit-down dinners - totally out of character for him. He discovered early on if he asked politely they would bring him meals with all protein and no veggies, a main course for an appetizer, or 3 desserts. A burger and fries on the pool deck was just the type appetizer he had always dreamed of.

I am not a cruise junkie - usually enjoy land-based vacations. But as the one in our family who always bears the full responsibility for planning vacations, I sometimes enjoyed a cruise where someone else had that responsibility - the cruiseline.

sobeachkat

Gail's right, most College Spring Break's are over by then.
We just took a Christmas cruise with our boys, 12 and 15 and they loved it. They have both cruised in the past and really enjoy cruising. There is always a wide variety of food available and many activities to keep them busy. The dining room staff seems to really cater to the kids. They have even brought the boys food items that aren't on the menu that night. "You're not eating, you don't like that, what type of food do you like?" I was amazed. My youngest son had lobster every night on a Carnival Cruise 2 years ago.

ITA with Gail about her rules and use pretty much the same, we let them go off to play ping pong, shuffle board, or to hit golf balls, but they have to stay together or be with one of us.

Greenboys

Gail & Sobeachkat:

I feel much more comfortable about the idea of a cruise after reading your comments. I was also exploring land-based vacation options but decided to stick with the cruise. Thank you for taking the time to contribute!