family of 5 cruising

[5wdwnutz]

We have never cruised before and were wondering what our options would be as far as which room category could accomodate us.

We are me, DH, DS (12), DD's (8 & 4).

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Missy

 

[sanddune]

Cat 4 and up . We like to book two cat.10's . For 2 bathrooms and extra space! Plus if you are using points it's cheaper than one cat.4 room.

 

[5wdwnutz]

I was wondering if I could do two rooms. Would they guarantee rooms next to each other or are there connecting rooms?

Missy

 

[sanddune]

You can book connecting rooms in a cat 10. ( yes they would be guaranteed. Feel free to ask more ? If needed. Chris
PS . You didn't say if you were using points. I'm playing around with points for the member cruise. It's afew points cheaper for cat 8 and cat 11 than 2 cat 10's. We are also a family of 5. Me,DH,DS-13,DS-10,& DS-6 Hope this helps

 

[missyoh8]

depending on the ages of the kids...............consider maybe one cat 6 or 7 and an 11 across the hall. They will guarantee you what cabins you book, I believe. This is a little different than a hotel in that aspect! We are also a family of 5......so we have looked at all options. Our favorite is Grandma and Grandpa pay for their own and we put one of the kids with them! lol

missyoh8

 

[mjvans]

Because of the ages of your kids, I would definitely look into connecting rooms, rather than side by side or ones across the hall from each other........the only other choice you have is a category 4 family suite.......but depending on the time of year you are going on, that can be spendy.......we are going in april of 2006 and have booked 2 category 10 cabins on deck 7.....the difference in price between those cabins and a family suite was $3000.00

 

[DonnaDavid]

Just a word of warning . . . We are also a family of 5 with a 10 yr old DD, 7 yr old DS, and a 3 yr old DD. In the past I booked two connecting Cat. 9's and it worked out well with the 2 tv's and 2 bathrooms. I am booked on the Aug. '05 repositioning cruise. At the time I booked, they were not assigning staterooms. I debated between the Family Stateroom and two connecting cabins and decided on the 2 connecting cabins. I knew there was a possibility of not getting connecting staterooms, but one of the DCL CM's assured me that I was almost guaranteed connecting staterooms as we were booking so early. I've just been assigned staterooms. Although they are next to each other, they are not connecting. It's going to be a real pain for us to not have those connecting staterooms as my kids are too young to have their own stateroom. In hindsight, I would have probably booked the Family stateroom rather than the connecting staterooms that are not guaranteed.

 

[5wdwnutz]

Thank you everyone for all the information.

sanddune: if we do this it we would not use points...we already used our points for this year..uy is sept. points from next year are being used in jan06 w/ family.

Happy sailing to all!



Missy

 

[hydster]

We are also a family of 5 with 3 kids under the age of 12. When we did the land/sea we booked a Cat 4 and it was fine but I don't know if we could have stood 7 days in that one cabin but for 4 it was ok.

For this last May trip we booked 2 connecting cat 6024/6026 and they had the porthole windows. I made sure they were connecting and had a door going through to the other one.

About 3 weeks before we were due to sail we got comp upgraded to 2 connecting cat 4's 8504/8506. It was awesome!

Our rooms showed the connecting door in between the rooms in the brochure which is how we knew which ones we wanted. We used Dreams Unlimited and Misti I asked her if connecting rooms were available and they were.

I don't think I could ever go back to all of us in 1 cabin again. It was so nice to put the kids to bed and we could watch tv, sit on the balcony or read and not disturb them. It was also nice to NOT have to crawl over the murphy bed in front of the balcony door in the morning to go out there.

Heidi