i'm not sure..
we were a family of 4 in a cat 3 last time (one of the large mid-ship cat 3 staterooms).....
it's true that the cat 3 is very beautiful (and the midship ones have a nice long verandah), but i was disturbed by the fact that the living area was filled up with the beds at night....
your kids would have to sleep on the double pull out sofa and the murphy bed...
personally i think two cat 7 staterooms would be a lot roomier....
on the other hand, you would miss out on the concierge services....not that there is all that much, but there is some...
but i think it would be nice to have the kids in a seperate room from the one you're in..
take into account that this time i'm really really splurging...we're going cat 1.....and that's because i wanted my kids in a bedroom, not sleeping in the living room, but i still wanted to go concierge....
my DS thinks i'm totally nuts....he thinks we should go in something like two cat 7's....actually he thinks we should just go in two cat 12 staterooms.....
how old are your kids?
on second thought....as i was thinking about it i remembered the bathrooms...
the bathrooms in the cat 3 (at least the 4 midship ones -- 8032, 8034, 8532, 8534) have gorgeous bathrooms.....truly gorgeous...
the kids will have a full bathroom with a shower, toilet, sink, and storage space.....your bathroom will have a bathtub, separate shower stall (that's huge), toilet, sink, huge counter and tons of storage space.....all in beautiful marble...
and there's a dressing table area outside of the bathroom with more storage space....and a big walk in closet.....and tons and tons and tons of drawers and cabinets throughout the two rooms.....no shortage of storage....
and the cat 3 is really beautiful....so.....maybe it is worth it..
clearly it was worth it for me, but we're 4 people (my kids were 15 and 18 at the time.......now they're 17 and 20)....