If you had of asked me my thoughts on “cruising” 5 years ago I would have laughed and simply answered cruises are for retirees…. how wrong I was! We’ve just experienced our first cruise on board the P&O Pacific Adventure travelling with a 6, 4 and 2 year old and unlike most first time cruisers choosing a shorter trip to test the waters, we dived in head first and booked a 10 night cruise and boy did we have fun! 

Here’s what I learnt on cruising with a young family! 

• Book early. A family cruise was not on our radar until 4 months prior to our departure date. When we started looking, we were surprised to see cruise lines sailing over the Christmas period either already fully booked or we were struggling to find a room to suit our family size.  Anyone with a family bigger than 4 knows the issues with trying to book accommodation of any type and a cruise is no different! As a family of 5 the only option available to book was a 5 birth suite which comes with a not so nice price tag. We quickly learnt following a number of phone calls with a number of cruise lines that people book cruises 12-18 months in advance and they weren’t wrong! Other options available for families of 5 are 2 interconnecting rooms or booking 2 rooms next to each other.  Our key learning from this cruise was you really don’t spend much time in your cabin aside from sleeping so as nice as a 5 birth suite was the price for us really wasn’t worth it! 

• Kids Club. We all love our children dearly but it is nice to have a few hours a day without being “snack queen”! Kids club starts from age 2 and up and is open for a number of session times during the day (no additional cost, included in the fare). It is first come first served but we never once during the entire trip had an issue getting 3 spots. I would highly recommend registering your child/children prior to your cruise departure date (this doesn’t guarantee you a daily spot but will save you completing a heap of paperwork onboard!). Our kids really enjoyed going and the carers were amazing and did lots of fun activities with the kids. If you are travelling with a toddler who struggles to stay awake beyond 7.30pm, the biggest advantage of the P&O kids club was that they pop mats down if children want to sleep and will provide blankets. Please note kids club opening times will vary by cruise line but P&O Adventure were open from 9am-12pm, 2.30pm-9.30pm and post 9.30pm they charged $12 per child per hour.  One thing we did find was that the kids club was cold so make sure you send your little ones up with a jumper. 

• Dining. There are a number of dining options available which are included in the cruise fare and prior to departure date you can pre-book an early or a late sitting. How do we know what time we want to eat at 2 months out from cruising I hear you ask?! Believe me we had the same question being first time cruisers and once we boarded the cruise and got familiar with the P&O cruise app (which can be used without wifi) we were delighted to learn that day to day we could change our dining times & restaurant choices with little to no hassle, subject to availability. What worked best for us travelling with 3 kids under the age of 7 was to do an early dinner with them at around 5.30pm and then we would do a late sitting (just me and my husband) at around 7.30pm and drop the kids into kids club for 2 hours. There were breakfast and lunch options to eat at the restaurants inclusive in the fare. There is also a pantry which offers a range of different cuisines which opens for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you fancy something a little bit fancier there are also 2 restaurants you can book at which are an additional charge (I would highly recommend both and we booked these for evenings the kids were happy to head to kids club for a few hours)! 

• Disconnecting from the outside world…. for anybody who knows me well knows I love to spend time on my phone and honestly the idea of not having wifi did initially send me into a panic pre departure date but it was for us as a family the best decision not to purchase the wifi package for the duration of our trip. We were onboard a ship with 15 levels, activities on the hour for us to choose from and 4 swimming pools so the need to be connected to the outside world quickly became less and less important! We did bring 2 i-pads for the 3 kids to share and ensured we had pre-loaded them with lots of kids movies, games and shows so we could have on hand if needed and for us that was mostly when Mr 2 year old was not having a bar of sitting still and eating his dinner! 

• Keeping kids entertained. Our kids are pool obsessed (we easily took them 3 times a day) so for us we knew that they would have zero interest in building lego and playing with trucks when there were activities all around them all day every day. In the end we packed a few card games (Uno and Dobble) which came in very handy for the evenings to play with Mr 6 and 4 year old while our youngest slept in the pram! We also packed around 20 match box cars to keep Mr 2 year old entertained while eating out and a bunch of colouring books and pencils. All of the restaurants that we ate at with the kids offered colouring pencils and the menu had mazes and objects to colour in so in the end we didn’t use the colouring books we had brought! 

• Travelling with over 3,000 other passengers. This was our biggest concern pre departure date….. will the ship feel constantly rammed and will we be queuing for dining reservations. Absolutely NOT! Our cruise was at full capacity so had over 3,000 passengers on board and it honestly never felt like there were that many people on the ship. We had a mix of young families, couples, retirees and groups of friends travelling together. You have to remember not everyone likes doing the same activities and on the hour every hour from first thing in the morning there is something happening on the ship from daily bingo to trivia, a casino, sporting activities, a number of pools to choose from, singing contests, live performances, spa & hairdressers…. the list goes on. We were never bored or twiddling our thumbs!  

• Day tours at port stops. Do your research prior to cruise departure date to get an idea of what is on offer at each of your port stops. Once you board there is a dedicated P&O desk open daily which is extremely helpful and you can book directly with them and we found them extremely helpful as we had a number of questions on suitability of some of the tours for small children.  

• Theme nights. Old or young these are so much fun and the onboard crew go above and beyond on these nights to make these memorable experiences! Don’t forget to pack your glitz and glamour outfits with you as you will not find an outfit for purchase onboard! These nights aren’t just for adults, for the most part they usually did a kids party earlier in the evening on theme nights so the kids could get dressed up too.

I hope the above has provided some helpful insights for you to consider when deciding if a family cruise is for you. 

We were warned before we booked this cruise that they can become addictive and we didn’t believe it but within a week of getting off our first cruise we have already booked to go on another one!

Happy cruising!