Princess Cruise

[LCoulter]

Has anyone here been on a Princess Cruise with kids. I have a DD who is 10. I am looking at 7 day or 8 day Caribbean on Regal or Royal.

We have cruised with Princess as adults, although that has been over 11 years ago. I know they skew older crowd which is fine with us.

I know the kids club will be smaller and have different hours but I also heard it isn't as crazy crowded which could be good. If you sailed with Princess with kids, did they like the club?

My other concern is that if there isn't enough kids sailing, do they cancel the clubs?

 

[MickeyD]

We sailed Princess years ago when our son was much younger. He loved the club! They limit (or used to) the amount of kids on each sailing which is why it used to skew older crowd. I don't think they do that anymore. I can't answer whether they cancel the club, but I can't imagine they would. Especially on the ships you mention, there will be children. FWIW, we love Princess and it is our cruise line of choice when we don't do Disney. With kids or without.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Has anyone here been on a Princess Cruise with kids. I have a DD who is 10. I am looking at 7 day or 8 day Caribbean on Regal or Royal.

We have cruised with Princess as adults, although that has been over 11 years ago. I know they skew older crowd which is fine with us.

I know the kids club will be smaller and have different hours but I also heard it isn't as crazy crowded which could be good. If you sailed with Princess with kids, did they like the club?

My other concern is that if there isn't enough kids sailing, do they cancel the clubs?

They won't "cancel" the club, but they have, on occasion, merged two clubs when the attendance at any one level is too small.

Reports I've read say that the Princess kid's clubs, while different than DCL, are enjoyable.

 

[DisneyPiPhi]

Princess has been renovating and re-vamping their kids' club programing based on their partnership with Discovery and Animal Planet, and some of the activities sound pretty cool. They are actively trying to appeal more to families, so I doubt they would totally shut down kids' clubs on a particular sailing.

 

[losfp]

We sailed with Princess last year to Alaska, on the Star Princess. We tried to make DCL work, but it just wasn't feasible with an Alaskan cruise.

Long story short, it was a great cruise. Not as "nice" as DCL (we had previously gone on the Fantasy on a Western Caribbean itinerary) but not too shabby either. Due to timing (end Aug/early Sept), there were actually very few kids on board - the kids club told us there were something like only 50 kids registered in total so they merged the clubs and our 4yo and 9yo were in together. They still loved it though, our older girl in particular hates crowds so she enjoyed the smaller group.

 

[blizzard]

We are Platinum on Princess and our kids have cruised on 3-4 cruises with us. They both enjoyed the kids clubs. Clubs close for an hour at lunch and dinner, so you won’t be able to leave the kids all day. Late night kid sitting is an additional charge (after 10 or 11). They will combine groups if there are fewer kids, and the activities will skew to the ages on board, so may be boring if your child skews the other way (both my kids have been in that position on different cruises). Overall, my kids enjoyed the kids clubs, and they are small enough that they get to know some other kids, and the counsellors know everyone by name. You will need to bring photo ID to pick up the younger kids - they are very strict about this.

Overall very happy with Princess - trying a Disney Cruise for the first time in 4 days!

Edit to add the new ships are phasing in the Ocean Medallion, which is the equivalent of a magic band. There may be some added novelty with that.