Our family is thinking of taking a cruise over Christmas. We have never been on a cruise and are looking for some info. Would like to do the Carribean. We are a family of 2 adults and 2 children (12 & 9).
We live in New Jersey. What cruise would you recommend for all of us? Any help with this would be great and thank you. Look forward to hearing your input.

Do a western caribbean which includes Jamaica (the falls) and the Cayman Islands (Sting ray city) kids will love it. Over New Years is pricey and also more of a party crowd. Doing Christmas is nice. Ships are usually decorated for the holidays. Bon Voyage!

Your family will love the cruise vacation! Our family has been on over 10 cruises now (majority to the Carribean; Alaska; Greece and Northern Europe) and we LOVE them! The only decision you have to make is pretty much what to wear, and everything else is pretty much taken care of for you!

I would also recommend going on a Carribean cruise for your family. Royal Carribean is a great cruiseline. If travelling with kids, Id recommend staying away from Celebrity and maybe Princess cruiselines, as the avg. age is a bit older on those cruiselines. We're a fan of RCL...have never tried Carnival, but Im under the impression that they're more geared towards the younger crowd (which is why theyre a bit cheaper) and their ships arent as clean/nice.

A great site to check out:
www.vacationstogo.com
They list every cruise line and destination, along with prices.

Hope this helps!

Have cruised Princess over Thanksgiving and over Christmas and there are plenty of kids on board.

I actually think Princess is a classier line over RCCL and believe the food and service is better on Princess.

I would look at the itineraries and prices and go from there. When you cruise over Christmas, the prices are significantly higher then cruising a week before.

Also, the ships are normally pretty festive - Santa will come on Christmas day, there will be a special Christmas meal, the ships are nicely decorated, etc . .

Thanks for the info. Still can make up our minds on what to do yet. My son would rather go snowboarding for Christmas and do a cruise over Easter break next year since it is in March. Any other info. would be great. I was actually looking at RC and maybe Princess. Someone told me Princess is just so big and that was the only thing they did not like. You didn't get that personal attention. Any info for Easter (3/27/05) would be helpful.

dawnag -

RCCL has several ships that are larger then any of Princess' ships. Both lines has both mid sized ships and larger ships but RCCL right now has 4 extremely l arge ships that are around 138,000 tonns.