First Time Cruising - Holland or Celebrity
 

Hi All...

We have traveled to several Caribbean islands....but thought we might like to try a cruise for the first time next spring, 2008. This would happen near or around my Spring Break week off from school. I had "selected" a cruise to the Southern Caribbean on Holland that I really liked (as far as port stops, point of departure, etc.). The only thing is I read something that Holland recently expanded their services to now be more appealing to families....more on-board kids clubs, etc. Not that I have anything against kids (I have 2 grown and 1 almost grown of my own)...but the main reason for this trip would be for it to be fairly relaxing, and relatively absent from shouts of Marco Polo at the swimming pool. For those of you who have cruised both lines, which would you advise, based on my above preferences?

Thanks!

We have sailed both and liked them both too.
It really depends what time of the year you sail (schoolholidays/highseason or not), also a sailing longer then 10 days usually has less children.
Also the itinary can be important.
In general both lines donot have that many kids as e.g. Carnival or RCCL.

The Vista class ships of HAL and the ships of Celebrity will both have far more families than usual over spring break. While probably not as bad as RCI or Carnival, there is no way I would do either as I do my best to avoid cruising with kids.

Thank you both for your replies. Unfortunately, being a teacher my time-off is tied to the school schedule....so it really would be almost impossible to go on a cruise line, and not expect to see some kids....give my timeframe of possible vacations . I just thought that these two above might have less children, perhaps....and of the two, which one? From all that I have read lately, it would appear that Celebrity might fit the bill a little better.

I have cruised both and within the past year. The Vista class ships of HAL are more familiy oriented than the smaller ships.

IMO, you will see equal numbers of kids on both lines over spring break. There are just as many complaints over on cruisecritic.com on spring break disasters on X as there are on HAL.

If you can book a smaller HAL ship (Veendam, Maasdam, etc) you will be better off.

We have sailed on both over holidays, most recently, Dec. 23-Jan. 6 on Celebrity.....I would say there were loads of children, mostly Spanish speaking from South/Central America, I believe. Many large families, some with nannies, and there were also alot of British and, of course, Americans. We didn't see the children all that much, but did hear them at lunch and in the hallways.(One of the crew said there were over 600 children under 17) Three years ago we did Christmas on Holland America and there were far fewer children and we saw very little of them...seemed well cared for, no running around visible to us. This year's cruise was two weeks LA-Hawaii-LA and the previous ones was eleven days Mexican Riviera SD, three Mexico stops and back to SD. On other HA, Princess cruises, off holiday times, there were few children. I don't think children will be a problem to your relaxation, though I did not visit the pool at all and have no info. other than a British couple who said there were children in the jacuzzi and were left alone with men who were strangers, however I have no personal knowledge.

At the risk of repeating myself, our July & April cruises on HAL had few children. Our recent Mexican Riviera cruise, December 16 - 23, had about 400 children on board.

It's all about the holidays. Maybe you should consider going with a more upscale line like Regent or Seabourne.