this is tough Rex...as having a family I do consider price when planning a family cruise as part of the overall likeness. but...
1) Has to be Disney...(can be quite pricey though)
2) Carnival (my kids like it...)
3) Royal Caribbean (my kids didn't care about the rock climbing or ice skating...even though they are hockey players...lol)
I have had reports of good experiences on NCL and Princess....but I don't have any personally.
We've only been on Celebrity. While Celebrity doesn't first market itself as a family line, they do include information about it in thier liturature. They don't have a whole lot of 4 person friendly rooms, so you would never have as many kids as you wold on Disney, where most of the rooms are 4 person friendly.
We had around 57 kids in the program from 3-17 on our 2 week Thanks Giving day cruise. and that seemed about right.
I can only tell your that our kids had fabulous time. They liked it better than Disney World.
I think I would feel comfortable on any medium size ship. If the program wasn't all that good we'd just do more family activities.
We've just been on Carnival and Princess so I can't offer a true rating.
I would recommend Carnival as the facilities (play areas, etc) seemed great for my daughter (she went on Carnival ships at 23 mo -- too young for the program, 3 years old, 4 years old). Princess has a full program if you go during the times school is out.
We probably wouldn't consider Disney as it seems too pricey for us.
One thing to consider is that Princess (and I think Carnival too) has self-service laundries on every ship. Very convenient if you have kids.
As you may know most kids now have kids clubs and there are a ton of activities for kids. If I were to list I would have to say best experience in this order would be Disney, Carnival, Princess, RC.
We have only been on 3 cruises and all 3 have been on Carnival and we love their
kids program. So I can't really rank any other cruise line. My 8 yr. old son has not
had any complaints so that means a lot to us.......
I think it depends on the age of your child and what their interests maybe.
We have taken our children on Disney twice and RCI once. The Disny cruises were their first cruises. I think my daughter was 10 and E was 8 on that cruise. They truly loved Disney but by the next year the tea was way below them. They still enjoyed the cruise but some things were just too "young" for them. Now that was their words not mine. lol
We went on freedom of the Seas in November and they are in love with that ship. While mine are too old (once again their words) for the water park they loved the Flowrider.
We have yet to take them on Carnival but hopefully will be able to soon. We had the Carnival freedom booked for November but our High Schooler would have messed too many days and her grades are more important to us then a cruise right now.
For me I would rate the lines as follows....
RCI's new ships with the kid friendly venues
Disney for younger children or ones who have not outgrown the characters
Carnival I have heard many awesome things about
My daughter enjoyed both Royal Caribbean and Princess. Those are the only two I have taken kids with me. I can't say which was better. Maybe Royal Caribbean.
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, so I can't rank them. Neither my kids nor I want anything to do with Disney.:thumbsdow
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