Cruise During Christmas or New Years

[pdwimmer]

Hi All:
Need some advise. My family has had some members of the family pass this past year that were the backbone of our holiday celebrations. We were thinking of doing a cruise away from home during the holiday season.

Has anyone else done this and found the family had a good bonding time or did it just make everyone sad?

Trish

[jdb in AZ]

We did an extended-family vacation a few mos after my father-in-law passed. It was good for DMIL to get away from home and memories, and be with her grand kids for the holidays. We had a great time, establishing new traditions and happy memories.

Holiday cruises aren't cheap(!) and you need to schedule them as early as possible.

[pdwimmer]

Originally Posted by jdb in AZ

We did an extended-family vacation a few mos after my father-in-law passed. It was good for DMIL to get away from home and memories, and be with her grand kids for the holidays. We had a great time, establishing new traditions and happy memories.

Holiday cruises aren't cheap(!) and you need to schedule them as early as possible.

We are not necessarily concerned about price. We do have a budget. But are more concerned about the memories. Which cruise did you choose? We have been on the Dream twice and the Magic once.

[jdb in AZ]

Originally Posted by pdwimmer

We are not necessarily concerned about price. We do have a budget. But are more concerned about the memories. Which cruise did you choose? We have been on the Dream twice and the Magic once.

We did the Western Caribbean on the Magic, but that was before the Fantasy was built. We prefer the size of the Magic, but the Detective Agency, the new version of Animator's Palate, and the Aqua Duck would be major considerations if we had to make that decision today.

[candmfox]

We've done both the Christmas and New Year's Eve cruise in the recent past, and while the New Year's Eve cruise was a total blast, we missed the traditions of Christmas at home. Your circumstances are dramatically different from ours, but I can tell you that for us, Christmas holds more memories and cherished events/traditions/family moments than New Year's Eve. We won't do another Christmas on board again for a long time unless the wife and I go alone in the far, distant future. But I don't even see that happening. I would, however do another New Year's Eve cruise again - probably next year.

Just my thoughts, no pride of authorship as we each have our own issues and circumstances.

Best of luck to you and yours.

["Cinder" Ella's Mom]

Took the whole extended family on a Western Caribbean cruise last year over Christmas(Dec. 24-30). Loved it! We did not miss the craziness of the stressful holiday season. Presents were few and the kids were fine with that. We gave them an excursion and they each got 2-3 presents. We loved getting all dressed up and the pictures from the ship are our best holiday pix ever. We live near Chicago, so going somewhere warm was important. The Bahamas was not far enough. Grand Cayman, Cozumel and Jamaica were all warm. If we were not booked on the fantasy for July, we would cruise at Christmas again.

[Paragd911]

i loved the NYE cruise. I wrote a trip report about it a few years ago.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2052361

Mark

[Aurora l]

Sorry for your loss. Great idea with the cruise.

[darwinsrule]

Honestly go for it. Our first WDW visit with the kids was a few months after MIL passed away. Our girls were only 1.5 & 5.5 at the time but it gave us a chance to reconnect and focus on what was important. A year after she died we did a big family trip to WDW with a 4 night cruise on the Wonder. FIL picked up the tab for 10 (him, the four of us plus both BIL and their families) of us for that trip. He got to see the grandkids having a blast and has tagged along with us on our other cruises.

[BeardedDragons]

Go for it! We took our first Disney cruise two years ago under similar circumstances. Knowing Christmas wouldn't be the same, I took my DS on a Disney Cruise for the holidays. It was fantastic! The tranquility of being on the ocean gave us personal time we needed, felt really at peace, and Disney kept the holiday special for us. It brought my son and I closer after some very stressful times and we were able to whole-heartedly enjoy the memories of past years and our lost loved ones. Still some tears but it was easier not having to look at constant reminders about what was 'missing' and to be able to 'escape' when needed. It was perfect for us and decided this would be a new Christmas tradition and went again last year. Unfortunately not going until January this year - Christmas will be tough for us here as we had another close loss.

Really sorry for your loss. Cherish the memories