The A, B, Seas of Royal Caribbean
This long-time cruise expert takes a thorough look at the world's second largest cruise company and what it offers to families.
Royal Caribbean's newer ships, the Voyager Family (including the Voyager, Navigator, and Mariner of the Seas) offer unique and fun family activities such as ice-skating and rock-climbing. In a ground-breaking move, the ships have four age-specific youth rooms, a great improvement over the one youth room and teen room/disco on other RCI ships of the past.
The youth program operates for divided age groups from 6-months to 17-years, with activities in port and teen activities until the wee hours of the morning. Children must be potty-trained to participate, but the littlest sailors can take advantage of new programs designed with Fisher Price to provide safe and stimulating play spaces aboard, stocked with the latest playthings (children under 36-months must be accompanied by a parent). Private and group babysitting (for those at least 1-year old) is available if booked 24-hours in advance, and late night group babysitting in the "Party Zone" is an option as well.
Royal Caribbean's "Adventure Art" program for children 3-12, in conjunction with Crayola, features creative projects that tie into the ship's destination. For example, on a Greek Isles cruise, kids create a Greek Theater Mask, and in Alaska they make an Eskimo oil lamp. Each project is age-specific and supported by a selection of historical and illustrative books to help kids learn while they play. "Adventure Science" is another age-specific program with fun experiments. There's also "Camp Broadway," which uses theatre games to help kids express their creativity.
The huge Voyager class ships have equally large youth and teen rooms devoted solely to kid-friendly facilities. The teen facility offers unique concepts and styles in its main areas, "The Living Room," " Fuel," and the "Back Deck." The Living Room is a place to hang out and features Club Café with 15 Internet stations just for teens. Fuel is the late night party area with a disco, light show, and even a fast food café. The Back Deck is an outdoor area just for teens, with lounge chairs, food outlets, and a dance floor under the stars.
The Royal Caribbean line also opened a pirate-themed water playground called Splash Bash on Labadee, its private beach in the Caribbean. The land-based water recreation area features water cannons, spray jets, geysers, toppling water buckets and water archways. There is also a separate play area for little ones aged 3-5. Aqua Park, also on Labadee, is a floating playground just offshore with teeter-totters, rock-climbing "icebergs," water trampolines, and a separate area for youngsters.
All ships also offer a "Y Spa" for teens aged 13-17 with special spa and beauty threatments just for them, like an "Acne Attack" facial or an application of self-tanning cream. Mother/daughter and father/son massages are also available.
SMOOTH SAILING: We found the RCI service and youth staff personable and friendly. Despite accommodating large numbers of children during school vacation, the counselors' personal touches overcame the potential feeling of being one of too many. The children's talent show and Adventure Science (which blends hands-on experiments with entertainment) were also special. Alexandra particularly loved earning "dollars" every time she participated in the youth program, which she could exchange for logo-type prizes on the last day of the cruise.
ROUGH SEAS: Most of RCI's ships have family cabins, but be forewarned, the fleet's standard cabins are traditionally some of the smallest in the industry. Also, when we cruised in late May, my then 4-year-old daughter was placed with children as old as 10. With over 150 children on that voyage, we were surprised and disappointed. The dining room staff was very accommodating to kids' palates, but as on most RCI cruises, adult food is good but not tops.
Overall, Royal Caribbean successfully caters to a middle-of-the-road crowd with a complete age range represented.
