European Cruise Alternatives w/11 yo

[pearljammer]

Hi All, yes, I just can't bring myself to pay 10K when we still have to get to Europe, add gratuities, hotels, etc. You get it.

Looking for anyones experience with alternate cruise lines maybe I'm not thinking of and what's good/not good. FYI - Not interested in Carnival; don't want to get into a debate on the way so please respect that.

Would love a great pool with maybe slides for the kid but also good iteneraries. Of course good food and clean rooms (I'm not sure I can look at a brown hotel looking bed comforter for a week).

Consider - unlikely we'll be looking for verandah or anything as we are trying to make this as affordable as possible yet enjoyable. Willing to pay more for quality but don't need to spend it on room type. That's money we can use somewhere else.

So input/suggestions/feedback on your personal experience would be MOST welcome and appreciated!

Many thanks all. Yes we would love to do the 11 night Iceland DCL but that's painful.....so buh bye.

 

[jenf22]

We like to cruise NCL because their price is right up our alley. Are you looking for a Med cruise or Norway/Iceland? I think Royal and NCL have bigger ships in the Med than they do for Norway or the longer night Med cruises. We did a 10-night on the NCL Spirit with our (then) almost 10-year old son. We had 8 ports and only 2 sea days. We didn't do a lot on the sea days - they had a cupcake making event that was fun and they had a nice pool. There weren't any slides though. I think we played in the arcade some too. I'm really not remembering how we filled the sea days. Our kid had a great time though. He was good in all the ports and we had some long days. He loves going to the Teppanyaki restaurant. It looks like the Epic is on the 7-night Med cruises and the Getaway is doing the Baltic in summer 2019. We've been on the Getaway and there is a TON for kids to do and some fun slides too. If you can find one with "Free at Sea (With Free Extra Guests Choice)" you can get 3rd and 4th passenger free.

I'm rambling now, so I'm going to stop. If you have specific questions I can help with, let me know. Best of luck!

 

[owensamo]

We took an 11n Italy & Greece cruise with Celebrity (Reflection) last summer and loved it. The service was very much Disney-level. We're not as much a fan of the Celebrity MDR, but they have a buffet option for dinner nightly and very good specialty restaurants. They don't have water slides, though - they do have kids clubs the kids seem to enjoy, but there seemed to be less kids in general than I'm used to on DCL. However, the price was great, and we spent very little daytime hours on the ship anyway, since it was a very port-intensive cruise.

For an 11yo looking for slides - check out Royal Caribbean. It's the same company that owns Celebrity, so it's on our list to try. It tends to be more adventurous/kid-friendly (or at least they want to give that impression from their ads). And they're usually a lot less than Disney on similar itineraries.

Another option would be some of the European cruise lines. We're seriously considering MSC, in part because they have a reciprocity program with pretty much everyone else so since we're Platinum on DCL, we'd be their top reward level immediately, and their loyalty incentives are actually pretty good.

Something to keep in mind for Europe - most of the European cruises are very port-heavy, so the cruise ship is essentially a floating hotel. We found that we really enjoyed the service and amenities on Celebrity, but one of the reasons we like it so much for Europe is that it *isn't* Disney, so we don't feel we're missing all the fun/cool stuff on the ship by fully exploring the ports. We didn't feel like we were missing out by skipping some of the shows, not going to the MDR, etc. We found that very relaxing! For us, it's a very different kind of cruise vacation to how we experience DCL.

We love DCL and have another cruise booked - but wouldn't hesitate to book on Celebrity (or RCL or maybe MSC) if the itinerary and price was right.

 

[mousefan73]

Hi All, yes, I just can't bring myself to pay 10K when we still have to get to Europe, add gratuities, hotels, etc. You get it.

Looking for anyones experience with alternate cruise lines maybe I'm not thinking of and what's good/not good. FYI - Not interested in Carnival; don't want to get into a debate on the way so please respect that.

Would love a great pool with maybe slides for the kid but also good iteneraries. Of course good food and clean rooms (I'm not sure I can look at a brown hotel looking bed comforter for a week).

Consider - unlikely we'll be looking for verandah or anything as we are trying to make this as affordable as possible yet enjoyable. Willing to pay more for quality but don't need to spend it on room type. That's money we can use somewhere else.

So input/suggestions/feedback on your personal experience would be MOST welcome and appreciated!

Many thanks all. Yes we would love to do the 11 night Iceland DCL but that's painful.....so buh bye.

We booked oasis of the seas med cruise June2019. Veranda for 4 (no kids %) is 4400 for 7 nights.

 

[MUN]

Hi All, yes, I just can't bring myself to pay 10K when we still have to get to Europe, add gratuities, hotels, etc. You get it.

Looking for anyones experience with alternate cruise lines maybe I'm not thinking of and what's good/not good. FYI - Not interested in Carnival; don't want to get into a debate on the way so please respect that.

Would love a great pool with maybe slides for the kid but also good iteneraries. Of course good food and clean rooms (I'm not sure I can look at a brown hotel looking bed comforter for a week).

Consider - unlikely we'll be looking for verandah or anything as we are trying to make this as affordable as possible yet enjoyable. Willing to pay more for quality but don't need to spend it on room type. That's money we can use somewhere else.

So input/suggestions/feedback on your personal experience would be MOST welcome and appreciated!

Many thanks all. Yes we would love to do the 11 night Iceland DCL but that's painful.....so buh bye.

How many people in your party?

 

[pearljammer]

Thanks all for the feedback so far. First choice would get iceland if possible but seeing it mostly looped with a lot of Norway (which is okay I guess) but Med cruise is another alternative. Specifically combo of greece/italy.

FYI MUN, 2A and 1K. Thanks all. Ideally we'd like to look anywhere from 8 to 11 nights (realizing some are 12 so may have to do either 7 or 12 nights) dependent on itinerary.

 

[MUN]

Thanks all for the feedback so far. First choice would get iceland if possible but seeing it mostly looped with a lot of Norway (which is okay I guess) but Med cruise is another alternative. Specifically combo of greece/italy.

FYI MUN, 2A and 1K. Thanks all. Ideally we'd like to look anywhere from 8 to 11 nights (realizing some are 12 so may have to do either 7 or 12 nights) dependent on itinerary.

A 7-night DCL cruise in Europe for a family of 3 (for just the cruise, not factoring in airfare, & other costs) does not necessarily have to cost $10K. I've priced several 7-day DCL European cruises for 3 people (Inside and Oceanview rooms) that are well under $10,000.

 

[jenf22]

Thanks all for the feedback so far. First choice would get iceland if possible but seeing it mostly looped with a lot of Norway (which is okay I guess) but Med cruise is another alternative. Specifically combo of greece/italy.

FYI MUN, 2A and 1K. Thanks all. Ideally we'd like to look anywhere from 8 to 11 nights (realizing some are 12 so may have to do either 7 or 12 nights) dependent on itinerary.

If you want to see Iceland, I would suggest flying through there on the way out or the way home. We spent 2 nights there after our Norway cruise. It was amazing!

The NCL Star has 7-night and 11-night cruises from Venice that go to Greece. We're booked on one in Oct 2019, but there are summer dates too. The late August ones and later have the kids sail free (7-night). That puts it ~$4100 for 3 in a balcony room with the dining package. They also have $50 deposits right now too, so it doesn't cost much to hold one while you decide.

 

[FSU Girl]

Thanks all for the feedback so far. First choice would get iceland if possible but seeing it mostly looped with a lot of Norway (which is okay I guess) but Med cruise is another alternative. Specifically combo of greece/italy.

FYI MUN, 2A and 1K. Thanks all. Ideally we'd like to look anywhere from 8 to 11 nights (realizing some are 12 so may have to do either 7 or 12 nights) dependent on itinerary.

I'm going on Celebrity to Iceland. They have a bunch of different options of 10, 11(I think) and 15 nights. We are doing 15 nights and the cost is half the cost of the same type of room for Disney. The main thing I like about it is they go to Ireland with Iceland instead of Norway, which really drew me in.

 

[gotomu212]

Second what an above poster said about adding Iceland on to a cruise. Depending on where you live in the US Icelandic Air usually has very competitive prices to Europe. As a bonus they allow you to stopover for several days in Iceland on your way to or from Europe at no added charge. So you could cruise from the Med and hit Iceland on your way home for 2 days if you didn’t want an Iceland/Norway cruise.

We thought NCL was a good fit for our Europe trip, but RCl also looked great. We spent far less time onboard with long port days. So the cruise was more dinner and a bed.

I know you don’t like Carnival,but a few people have gone on the new Carnival Europe cruises and those looked nothing like what I think of as a Carnival cruise. The new ship looked amazing and the crowd looked like Disney’s (lots of families not young party crowd). We definetely reconsidered them in light of those reports.

 

[trvlgirlmq]

Second what an above poster said about adding Iceland on to a cruise. Depending on where you live in the US Icelandic Air usually has very competitive prices to Europe. As a bonus they allow you to stopover for several days in Iceland on your way to or from Europe at no added charge. So you could cruise from the Med and hit Iceland on your way home for 2 days if you didn’t want an Iceland/Norway cruise.

We thought NCL was a good fit for our Europe trip, but RCl also looked great. We spent far less time onboard with long port days. So the cruise was more dinner and a bed.

I know you don’t like Carnival,but a few people have gone on the new Carnival Europe cruises and those looked nothing like what I think of as a Carnival cruise. The new ship looked amazing and the crowd looked like Disney’s (lots of families not young party crowd). We definetely reconsidered them in light of those reports.

We sailed the Carnival Vista on it's inaugural season in the Mediterranean in 2016. It was the most amazing vacation we have ever done! Carnival usually only sails Europe when they are launching a new ship so they will have a short season this year with Horizon but nothing for 2019. The new ship they are launching in 2019 won't be delivered until November and it's going strait to it's home port in California.

To answer the original question we have booked a Princess cruise to the British Isles for 2019. It was significantly less than any of the DCL longer cruises.

 

[aggiedog]

Look at the Yacht Club on MSC, or standard MSC if you want really good prices. YC is their concierge section, and we did the Med for less than half of DCL non-concierge. They often have 2 for 1 pricing.

I'd also recommend looking at an IcelandAir stopover. Iceland is very easy to do as a land tour, and even a 3 day stop over will give you so much more than a couple of port days.