Never Cruised - Questions?????

[TerriBelle]

We have never been on a cruise before. I am looking into taking the 4 night cruise in Feb '05.

1) Is this a good time of year or will it be too cold? Is it better to wait until the summer?
2) Anyone stay in a cat. 4? We have 3 kids so we need to sleep 5. I need to book early to get a good price.

Thanks

 

[LAMPSKIES]

Our first land/sea was Feb of 2000. The weather was perfect! Some people said the water a CC was too cold at 82 degrees but comming from Chicago it was o.k. with us

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

I've never cruised before either but...
1) Weather is unpredictable and so far from what I've read there are pros/cons to just about any time of year.... one has chance of colder weather, another time bigger chance of rain/wind, other times higher risk of hurricanes, summer blistering hot, etc. We're going on a 7-day in Feb 2005.

2) We have a family of 5 also- and we were going to stay in a cat 4 -let me tell you why we decided against doing that. The cat 4 is just barely bigger than cat 5/etc- to make room for a murphy bed to pull down in front of the door to verandah. So it's not that much more room- plus the murphy bed practically renders the verandah useless (hard to get out there?) when it's down with a child asleep in it. So it just wasn't worth it to us to pay more, hardly get anymore room, and the verandah unable to use when we'd probably use it most- when the kids were asleep.
We decided to go with connecting rooms in other categories- it comes out cheaper, we have way more room, extra bathroom, etc. We ultimately decided on 2 cat 10's- connecting rooms. But I think even 2 higher cat with verandah's comes out cheaper than a cat 4. So to me it's just not worth it- paying more for just a little more space & a murphy bed to come down off the wall.
You might want to check out other categories for your family and compare the price of 2 connecting rooms vs. the price of the cat 4 before you make a decision on that.

 

[TerriBelle]

BibbidyBobbidyBoo,

How old are your kids? I thought that if you put kids in the connecting room, you then pay adult prices for them. Is this true? It is still cheaper?

 

[Lloyd Dobler]

Yes, the first two passengers in each room are charged the adult rate. If you book connecting inside rooms (such as category 11), it will probably be cheaper than a single category 4. You'd have to get prices for specific sailing dates to compare. I don't think that two connecting verandah rooms, even category 7, would be cheaper than a single category 4. Again, price it to make sure.

 

[HooKooDooKu]

I just did a quick price comparison for sailing on the Wonder this weekend on the DCL web site.

Two Cat9 cabins split between 5 people costs about the same as a single Cat4 with 5 people.

If you still want the Verandah, two Cat6 cabins cost about 25% more than a Cat4.

And if you can stand for cabins to be accross the hall from each other, a Cat11 and Cat6 costs about the same as a Cat4.

 

[kcashner]

We've done 4 Jan/Feb cruises on DCL and one on another line (pre DCL) 4 of the 5 had wonderful weather, on one it was a little cool....of course, it can be too hot, too cool, too rainy at any time. We've going again in Feb, so you can see that we don't worry about the weather. 4 of 5 times is pretty good odds to me.

You really need to price things out both in 2 lower category cabins (like the cat 10 porthole rooms??) vs. a category 4. There are connecting staterooms available. Yes, the first 2 people in each stateroom pay adult rate regardless of age. You can't tell which way is cheaper until you plug in the actual sailing date and the ages of your kids, as well as the category you want. If you MUST have a verandah, it is probably cheaper to go to a cat. 4 If a porthole is ok, there are rooms that are listed as cat 10, but have a partially obstructed view....2 of those may well be cheaper than a 4. It all depends on what you want. The advantage to 2 cabins is that you will have twice as much bathroom space and almost twice as much room.

 

[BibbidyBobbidyBoo]

Originally posted by TerriBelle
BibbidyBobbidyBoo,

How old are your kids? I thought that if you put kids in the connecting room, you then pay adult prices for them. Is this true? It is still cheaper?

Hi,
My kids will be 11, 7 and 4 at the time of the cruise- and yes, it was still MUCH cheaper with 2 of them as adults to have 2 connected rooms. You'd think the one room cat 4 would be cheaper than TWO rooms with 2 children paying as adults- since it's not that much bigger at all... but I guess the verandah adds to it too. I don't know why it's that way- but yes, 2 rooms with us paying like we were 4 adults/1 child was much cheaper than going as 2 adults/3 children in cat 4.

 

[mom2rb]

We just booked our first cruise for Sept.2005 and it was cheaper to get two cat.11 rooms and bring along my MIL to stay with my boys than it was to get one room for the four of us. So we get to have our own room and bring someone that couldn't afford to come with us.