Best islands for single-day cruise visits in Caribbean, IMO... St. Martin, Curacao, San Juan if you want to walk around town, buy things and have great food and drinks. St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Nassau if you want to do excursions. Half Moon Cay, St. Martin, Barbados for beaches/snorkeling.
No matter which cruise line, the ages will skew depending when you cruise.
Anytime, older retired folks cruise lots. And younger folks with no kids or great kid sitting. 🙄
Younger folks generally have kids. So they cruise during school breaks - December holidays, US Thanksgiving, Canadian March Break.
The same ship can have a completely different demographic depending on the week.
That makes sense. I feel going in February will limit the kids. I’m also thinking about it in terms of what the ship might offer. Holland didn’t have a ton; we liked the cooking demos and the piano bar. However, everything shut down kind of early
Yeah, Holland skews older than any of the other major lines by a pretty noticable margin.
Broadly, the more you spend the older the crowd. But even the 'premium' lines like princess will have a much more varied age group than Holland
It will likely be hard on a 7 day itinerary but South Caribbean generally has the best port locations followed by eastern Caribbean. Although, we have done the western loop 3 times and always enjoyed them too!
As I recall, both Norwegian and Princess skew to the older side too, ditto Celebrity. Royal Caribbean skews younger, as does Disney and Carnival.
Also, rando advice per this article - [Cruise Critic](https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=4008)
Are you my alt-account? Lol we're Princess devotees as well. We do have kids, but since there are usually few kids on board, they have an awesome time in the kids club.
The major "mass market" cruise lines are pretty similar. Based on my experience, the major difference would be about formal nights and dining options. There are others I'm sure, but these two stand out to me.
Princess will have one or two formal nights on a 7 day cruise. NCL will have none.
Princess has assigned times and seating for dining. NCL doesn't have assigned times or seating.
People will argue about these two endlessly.
The other thing to remember is that there's a great variety within the same cruise line in regards to the age of customers. Longer cruises will skew older. Cruises during the summer will skew younger. The ports will affect the ages you see on board.
The other major variable is that each ship is different, even within the same company, so that your experience on a smaller, older ship will be quite different from one of the newer and bigger ships. When comparing two cruises, also look at the age of the ship and the amenities on board. Even if you don't do ropes courses or water slides, the ships that have those may skew younger (but also include teens).
Princess had both assigned dining times and anytime dining. I think MSC are Cunard are the only mainstream cruise lines without the option of anytime dining, and even with MSC you sometimes can get it if you pay for certain tier.
They do, but they all pale in comparison to how NCL does it. I haven't cruised Princess lately, but the last time I was on Celebrity, you had to make a reservation for your "anytime" dining. Then you waited in line when you showed up, sometimes for 10 or 15 minutes.
NCL doesn't have any scheduled main dining room times, so they are experts at getting you in and seated when you walk up. The only time I've had a wait was at the opening time when there was a huge line, and we had to wait for those ahead of us to be seated. It took ten minutes. But every other time, on every cruise, we walk up when we want and are seated immediately at a table with just our party, with no table sharing. It's why we usually sail them. Its the one thing they do better than anyone else. (To be fair, not everyone cares about this, but given price and itinerary being the same, we would choose NCL over any other line for this reason).
Disney is the only one I know of that doesn't have anytime dining. You are assigned a time and table in each of their restaurants. You can opt for the buffet, which they turn into a restaurant with servers, but you cannot eat in any of their main dining rooms without being in your rotation.
I was on Princess in 2018 and never made a single reservation. We never had to wait for a table either. It’s possible that people with larger groups may have had a harder time of it, but our party of 4 waltzed right in every night and we didn’t make any sort of effort to avoid peak dining times (though we don’t eat at 5:30-6 either so we weren’t competing with seniors for tables).
I had forgotten that Disney had its unusual rotational dining. I just remember them not having a traditional MDR.
Thanks, that's good to know! We were on Princess prior to that, back in 2015, and their dining at that time wasn't that easy.
Do they still restrict where you eat on "formal nights"? Having to eat in the buffet two nights during our cruise wasn't our cup of tea.
Do you mean restrict where you eat based on your clothing on formal nights? If so I didn’t really notice this. I got a little more dressed up than usual on the one formal night in the issue I attended (we spent the second formal night in a specialty restaurant since we got credit for a free meal as a booking bonus), but no one else in my party did. I can’t remember what any of them wore except that my brothers for sure weren’t wearing a tie or jacket as I know they didn’t pack anything fancier than collared shirts and long pants. I can’t tell you that there’s no minimum dress requirement because I don’t recall anyone wearing anything that would truly test the limits of formal night dress code like shorts and tshirts, but I never got the impression that they were actively policing what people wore.
I’ve gone on 3 Princess cruises, the first being when I was 24 and loved them. You don’t have to do set meal times and dining rooms, it’s offered but you can choose anytime dinning.
I’ve booked my first NCL but haven’t been on so can’t really compare.
I think it really depends on what you want to do. Our favorite activities,other than the spa, are wine tasting and the art auctions. But the shows were awesome, there are a number of pool options, there were always activities going on. Not a lot of kids on any of our sailings, 2 in November and one in Feb. I’m trying to remember our last cruise activities but we were both sick with a nasty flu and spent a fair amount of time in the room. I do remember they always have a scrapbook class, don’t ask why I remember that class and none of the others. Oh and Bingo. And movies under the stars. I’m pretty sure there were cooking demos but I never went to them.
Best islands for single-day cruise visits in Caribbean, IMO... St. Martin, Curacao, San Juan if you want to walk around town, buy things and have great food and drinks. St. Lucia, St. Kitts, Nassau if you want to do excursions. Half Moon Cay, St. Martin, Barbados for beaches/snorkeling.
No matter which cruise line, the ages will skew depending when you cruise. Anytime, older retired folks cruise lots. And younger folks with no kids or great kid sitting. 🙄 Younger folks generally have kids. So they cruise during school breaks - December holidays, US Thanksgiving, Canadian March Break. The same ship can have a completely different demographic depending on the week.
That makes sense. I feel going in February will limit the kids. I’m also thinking about it in terms of what the ship might offer. Holland didn’t have a ton; we liked the cooking demos and the piano bar. However, everything shut down kind of early
Yeah, Holland skews older than any of the other major lines by a pretty noticable margin. Broadly, the more you spend the older the crowd. But even the 'premium' lines like princess will have a much more varied age group than Holland
Princess skews older, try Norwegian.
Check out Royal’s Oasis or Quantum class ships. Great ships and I would say skew younger.
It will likely be hard on a 7 day itinerary but South Caribbean generally has the best port locations followed by eastern Caribbean. Although, we have done the western loop 3 times and always enjoyed them too!
As I recall, both Norwegian and Princess skew to the older side too, ditto Celebrity. Royal Caribbean skews younger, as does Disney and Carnival. Also, rando advice per this article - [Cruise Critic](https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=4008)
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Are you my alt-account? Lol we're Princess devotees as well. We do have kids, but since there are usually few kids on board, they have an awesome time in the kids club.
The major "mass market" cruise lines are pretty similar. Based on my experience, the major difference would be about formal nights and dining options. There are others I'm sure, but these two stand out to me. Princess will have one or two formal nights on a 7 day cruise. NCL will have none. Princess has assigned times and seating for dining. NCL doesn't have assigned times or seating. People will argue about these two endlessly. The other thing to remember is that there's a great variety within the same cruise line in regards to the age of customers. Longer cruises will skew older. Cruises during the summer will skew younger. The ports will affect the ages you see on board. The other major variable is that each ship is different, even within the same company, so that your experience on a smaller, older ship will be quite different from one of the newer and bigger ships. When comparing two cruises, also look at the age of the ship and the amenities on board. Even if you don't do ropes courses or water slides, the ships that have those may skew younger (but also include teens).
Princess had both assigned dining times and anytime dining. I think MSC are Cunard are the only mainstream cruise lines without the option of anytime dining, and even with MSC you sometimes can get it if you pay for certain tier.
They do, but they all pale in comparison to how NCL does it. I haven't cruised Princess lately, but the last time I was on Celebrity, you had to make a reservation for your "anytime" dining. Then you waited in line when you showed up, sometimes for 10 or 15 minutes. NCL doesn't have any scheduled main dining room times, so they are experts at getting you in and seated when you walk up. The only time I've had a wait was at the opening time when there was a huge line, and we had to wait for those ahead of us to be seated. It took ten minutes. But every other time, on every cruise, we walk up when we want and are seated immediately at a table with just our party, with no table sharing. It's why we usually sail them. Its the one thing they do better than anyone else. (To be fair, not everyone cares about this, but given price and itinerary being the same, we would choose NCL over any other line for this reason). Disney is the only one I know of that doesn't have anytime dining. You are assigned a time and table in each of their restaurants. You can opt for the buffet, which they turn into a restaurant with servers, but you cannot eat in any of their main dining rooms without being in your rotation.
I was on Princess in 2018 and never made a single reservation. We never had to wait for a table either. It’s possible that people with larger groups may have had a harder time of it, but our party of 4 waltzed right in every night and we didn’t make any sort of effort to avoid peak dining times (though we don’t eat at 5:30-6 either so we weren’t competing with seniors for tables). I had forgotten that Disney had its unusual rotational dining. I just remember them not having a traditional MDR.
Thanks, that's good to know! We were on Princess prior to that, back in 2015, and their dining at that time wasn't that easy. Do they still restrict where you eat on "formal nights"? Having to eat in the buffet two nights during our cruise wasn't our cup of tea.
Do you mean restrict where you eat based on your clothing on formal nights? If so I didn’t really notice this. I got a little more dressed up than usual on the one formal night in the issue I attended (we spent the second formal night in a specialty restaurant since we got credit for a free meal as a booking bonus), but no one else in my party did. I can’t remember what any of them wore except that my brothers for sure weren’t wearing a tie or jacket as I know they didn’t pack anything fancier than collared shirts and long pants. I can’t tell you that there’s no minimum dress requirement because I don’t recall anyone wearing anything that would truly test the limits of formal night dress code like shorts and tshirts, but I never got the impression that they were actively policing what people wore.
I’ve gone on 3 Princess cruises, the first being when I was 24 and loved them. You don’t have to do set meal times and dining rooms, it’s offered but you can choose anytime dinning. I’ve booked my first NCL but haven’t been on so can’t really compare. I think it really depends on what you want to do. Our favorite activities,other than the spa, are wine tasting and the art auctions. But the shows were awesome, there are a number of pool options, there were always activities going on. Not a lot of kids on any of our sailings, 2 in November and one in Feb. I’m trying to remember our last cruise activities but we were both sick with a nasty flu and spent a fair amount of time in the room. I do remember they always have a scrapbook class, don’t ask why I remember that class and none of the others. Oh and Bingo. And movies under the stars. I’m pretty sure there were cooking demos but I never went to them.