Age ratio on DCL med cruises?

[DisneYE]

Never been on a DCL Europe cruise and I'm really excited for our upcoming one in June.

But I'm curious, what does the age population look like?
I'm sure it won't be like the Wish were there is a crazy amount of small kids.
In our Panama Canal cruise last year there were less than 100 kids and if felt like most cruisers were like 50+ ... I LOVED it.

After sailing twice recently on the Wish it felt like a maritime daycare so I'm hoping for a more balanced cruise population wise

So what's it like?

 

[Marc D]

European cruises on DCL attract families with older kids and teens. But there are also more adults-only groups than on Caribbean cruises. Repo cruises like PC and TA have the least amount of young kids since they are usually scheduled during school time and they are longer.

 

[msmama]

I'd say definitely more kids than Panama Canal. Maybe not as many as a 3 day Caribbean.

The Med cruises were filled with a lot more European families. It makes sense, but I didn't really think about it before my cruise. The American (families who traveled to get to the Med) families were mostly off the ship all day doing excursions, while the ship stayed filled with European families (according to our server, I was off the ship, lol). We did B2B TA and Med and there were A LOT more families with kids on the Med than the TA. The TA was much more like the Panama Canal.

That said, we were so busy with our excursions that we barely interacted with other passengers. But the personalities of the two cruises were quite different.

 

[brentm77]

Never been on a DCL Europe cruise and I'm really excited for our upcoming one in June.

But I'm curious, what does the age population look like?
I'm sure it won't be like the Wish were there is a crazy amount of small kids.
In our Panama Canal cruise last year there were less than 100 kids and if felt like most cruisers were like 50+ ... I LOVED it.

After sailing twice recently on the Wish it felt like a maritime daycare so I'm hoping for a more balanced cruise population wise

So what's it like?

Ours was in June 2022, and the ship was only about 2/3 full, at most, so it isn't a good sample. But there was a ton of teens, less younger children. Few adult-only groups. For some reason, the teens were crazy wild. Worse than any other cruise I had been on. I saw one push another down half a flight of stairs, severely hurting his back. Others would run so fast through common areas that it was dangerous. I felt bad for the cast members who just looked on in shock, probably too scared of repercussions if they said anything. Maybe it was families who had cruised DCL so many times that the teens were bored when on the ship. I don't know.

 

[DCL Repeaters]

Ours was in June 2022, and the ship was only about 2/3 full, at most, so it isn't a good sample. But there was a ton of teens, less younger children. Few adult-only groups. For some reason, the teens were crazy wild. Worse than any other cruise I had been on. I saw one push another down half a flight of stairs, severely hurting his back. Others would run so fast through common areas that it was dangerous. I felt bad for the cast members who just looked on in shock, probably too scared of repercussions if they said anything. Maybe it was families who had cruised DCL so many times that the teens were bored when on the ship. I don't know.

I may have been on the same cruise as you, 8 night Greek Isles. The teen population were wild maniacs running out of control constantly. One day at Cabanas there were maybe 15 or so teens seated together throwing food at each other and left a disgusting mess on the table. Felt so bad for the crew that had to clean it up. I’m heading back to he Med in May. Hoping not to see that again. To the OP, there were definitely few little ones.

 

[brentm77]

I may have been on the same cruise as you, 8 night Greek Isles. The teen population were wild maniacs running out of control constantly. One day at Cabanas there were maybe 15 or so teens seated together throwing food at each other and left a disgusting mess on the table. Felt so bad for the crew that had to clean it up. I’m heading back to he Med in May. Hoping not to see that again. To the OP, there were definitely few little ones.

That was it! I am glad it wasn't just me getting older. I was afraid I was turning into the guy yelling to get off my porch. But it seemed over-the-top bad on that cruise.

 

[DisneYE]

Ours was in June 2022, and the ship was only about 2/3 full, at most, so it isn't a good sample. But there was a ton of teens, less younger children. Few adult-only groups. For some reason, the teens were crazy wild. Worse than any other cruise I had been on. I saw one push another down half a flight of stairs, severely hurting his back. Others would run so fast through common areas that it was dangerous. I felt bad for the cast members who just looked on in shock, probably too scared of repercussions if they said anything. Maybe it was families who had cruised DCL so many times that the teens were bored when on the ship. I don't know.

Thanks! I don't mind teens and their shenanigans, maybe bc I have one and I'm kinda used to it.. It's the small kids that exasperate me when there are hundreds of them.
What do you attribute it to have been only 2/3 full? Were there still covid restrictions? maybe masks/tests turned ppl off a bit? Asking out of hope we also get a less full ship.

 

[brentm77]

Thanks! I don't mind teens and their shenanigans, maybe bc I have one and I'm kinda used to it.. It's the small kids that exasperate me when there are hundreds of them.
What do you attribute it to have been only 2/3 full? Were there still covid restrictions? maybe masks/tests turned ppl off a bit? Asking out of hope we also get a less full ship.

I think it was just the post-COVID ramp up. You had to be vaccinated (which eliminated some guests) and you had to be tested at the port. It was a very long and expensive way to go to risk being turned away. I think that kept a good chunk of people away too. Some families were denied boarding due to positive tests, which further reduced the passenger count (one unfortunate family was even cleared to board, and then paged and told it was a mistake and a member was positive!). Also, sailing in early June helped, as I think some people didn't want to sail right after school was getting out. I heard the cruise after us was more full. It was unique conditions that I wouldn't never expect again. On the other hand, they are discounting European cruises, so maybe they won't be completely full.

It was amazing showing up to the theater and seeing all the back rows empty, or always finding plenty of seats at Cabanas. I wish every cruise was like that.

 

[kiford]

I think it partially depends on the length of the cruise and time of year. Our first Med cruise embarked the day before Labour Day so, as you can imagine, there weren't many school-aged children on board and many of the children that were on board were with families who lived in Europe (not exactly inexpensive flying a family of 4-5 to Europe from North America for a 10-day cruise). The only downside we found was that the adult-only areas were packed on the sea day.

There were slightly more children on our second Med cruise which was in mid June and on our Baltic cruise which was in early July but they tended to be on the older side and a lot were from Europe (flight thing; Med cruise 11 days, Baltic cruise 12 days). Still far fewer than we're used to seeing on other cruises and the ships were reasonably full.

 

[Drbutters56]

I did the Iceland one, Baltic one, a med one. The crowds were always better than the CA and FL cruises. More polite and more civilize

 

[DCLMP]

Never been on a DCL Europe cruise and I'm really excited for our upcoming one in June.

But I'm curious, what does the age population look like?
I'm sure it won't be like the Wish were there is a crazy amount of small kids.
In our Panama Canal cruise last year there were less than 100 kids and if felt like most cruisers were like 50+ ... I LOVED it.

After sailing twice recently on the Wish it felt like a maritime daycare so I'm hoping for a more balanced cruise population wise

So what's it like?

There will be kids and families, but not like a cruise out of PC.