Crowd levels in Jan?

[pixiedust1125]

So my husband and I have a Jan 2013 Fantasy Cruise booked We are wondering what the crowd levels are like in early Jan, also how many children might be on board?

 

[lbgraves]

The ship will be full and there will be lots of kids on it. We cruised in January 2010 and 2011, both thanks to last minute kids sail free offers. If they don't sell the rooms at the regular rate, they will fill the ship with *GT or KSF deals. There are always lots of kids onboard, even when it isn't a holiday. We took the kids out of school in November [1], December [3], January [2] and last year in July [year round school]. Year-round schools go back mid to late January anyhow and many homeschool.

 

[kcashner]

DCL does whatever they can to fill the ship on each and every cruise. What you will find is that the age distribution shifts with the dates. In January, you will see lots of young kids--as in 5 and under. The older ones will have just started back to school after the holidays, and many parents won't cruise during school times. DCL typically offers specials (whether Kids free or IGT/OGT/VGT) to fill the ship, so families will jump on these specials. There will be SOME school aged kids, some teens, and LOTS of little people.

 

[ddixon1]

I am curious about this as well. We will be at Disney for the Marathon, then are booked on the Dream for Jan 13th. I thought that Disney limits number of children based upon capacity of the child care/kids programs? Can someone clarify? Thanks!

 

[pharmama]

I am curious about this as well. We will be at Disney for the Marathon, then are booked on the Dream for Jan 13th. I thought that Disney limits number of children based upon capacity of the child care/kids programs? Can someone clarify? Thanks!

Likely there is some kind of limit in terms of the kids programs, but they have a LOT of capacity. The CD on our Dream cruise said before the show one night that there were 1,067 children on our cruise. I have no idea what "children" meant in this context (under 18? Under 11?) but either way, that's a LOT of kids. I have no idea what the MAX might be but DCL knows their target market and can certainly handle big numbers of rugrats.

 

[lbgraves]

In the past on the Magic in December and January when we went to the kid club graduation program they announed that there were over 1200 kids between the ages of 3 and 12 alone, not counting the other ages. There are limits to the number of kids that they will allow to book in each age group, but as stated already that number is very high.

 

[jdb in AZ]

When we did the DCL Panama Canal cruise a year ago January, all the staterooms were occupied, but the cruise director announced there were 400 fewer kids than usual. There were plenty of preschoolers, but few teens.

The Dream's 3 and 4-day cruises in January would have more kids than the longer cruises because they wouldn't have to miss as much school, and of course the shorter cruises are less expensive.

 

[mammacaryn]

Our first cruise was on the Wonder JAN 2009. I personally feel like that was probably the least congested things felt not that I ever feel overly crowded on the ships. We had booked kind of last minute (late Oct. or Nov.)

 

[pixiedust1125]

Thanks for all the help!