Short, summer cruise. Big mistake

If you cruise with your kids, please dont be offended. Its just no longer for us as we once did.

Never, ever, ever will we book a short cruise in the summer. Just got off another RCL cruise. Had to be 1000 kids on board. And the cheaper and shorter cruises definitely draw a different sort of crowd. And also although it was reported like some of the recent brawls on a ship, we too had an assault between a girlfriend and boyfriend in "The R Bar" which drew blood. And it was really woman who was punching.

The MDR? might as well be the Windjammer. People in bathing suits and board shorts. Loud. The opposite of how it once was. Overrun with kids? Violence? Ships now merging with aspects of theme parks? We are not used to this sort if chaos on ships. We are moving to only longer cruises and to Celebrity which provides a more traditional cruise experience. We're going to try it anyway.

Hey we once cruised with our kids. But now we would like things a bit quieter! And yeah cruising has changed a lot. Mostly for the worse, sadly.

Lesson learned. We had never once all these decades of cruising had gone in the summer. Big mistake for us.

22 Answers

Which ship was it and how many days was your cruise?

Seems to me not much is out of reach of anyone with plastic and an irresponsible attitude. Let em keep working till they drop and wonder why. Not my problem....

There are always other options ... such as Viking Ocean Cruises or Virgin. They do adults only ... so no kids at all

Since we only do Caribbean cruises, we ONLY go in Feb or early March to get a break from our upper Midwest winters. For the reason of travel I'll now only book a minimum of a 6 day cruise. We have taken [2] 3 day cruises. The first was to see if we liked cruising as a family and the second was because we were in the area anyway. I believe they have their place, and if my retirement relocation plans work out the way I hope I'll be within driving distance of a lot of cruise ports so the shorter cruises will be back on the table.

HOWEVER

Even though I haven't ever personally experienced any problem or issues with unruly children (even on [2] Disney cruises) I purposely avoid ALL cruises around the holidays and spring break for all of the aforementioned reasons.

HOWEVER

If the issues brought up on this board started to affect me and my vacation "Zen" I'd probably just start looking for a cruise line that would be financially out of reach for most families and young adults.

As we're not very close to any port, less than 7 days can't be justified with the travel time. I could see taking one if 1) I lived a short driving distance from port 2) offered in mid-wee 3) outside kids vacation period.

We have NEVER EVER cruised when school is out...nor around spring break, or certain holidays......and on virtually every ship we've cruised on for the past few years (not counting covid), theres almost always a way to find peace....sometimes it costs more, sometimes it just takes exploring...which becomes easier when you cruise the same ships. Having said that, and even tho we have a bunch booked, and even tho the $$ really doesn't matter that much anymore...well ...between the cretins that seem to cruise more and more. and the price increases, and venues closing for "reasons" that don't bear close scrutiny...and the ever present threat of variant 239 or whatever we're up to.......well...I can see a point where we would stop booking........never thought I would actually begin to think about that...

Smart. Some have aaud the 3 or 4 night cruise is what is ruining the industry. Those are bringing on the crowd that most of us don't want to cruise with. I doubt we will do anything less than a 7 night cruise again.

Might be why I prefer cruises of 10 - 14 days. Never thought of it as being the lack of kids. Never tried one less than 7 days. The 1 week ones have enough kids. Especially during certain times.

It may also depend on the age of the children, but I get it. We've been working with my niece on how to behave on a cruise for this very reason.

It's more than that period kids cruising for free obviously brings out families.. And cheap short cruises definitely have a different sort of passenger that may not be used to cruising.. It was fairly unpleasant

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