Families Afloat

Families Afloat: Children onboard a Crystal Cruise //© Crystal Cruises

At this moment, on dozens of ships around the world, families are relaxing in hammocks, whizzing down waterslides, bowling, ice skating, playing mini-golf and feasting on hot dogs and hamburgers from the grill. Teens are playing mega-screen Nintendo Wii games, meeting at discos and learning photography; toddlers are singing new songs and painting their faces.

This is the year for family cruising thanks to incredible discounts and very low rates — sometimes free — for additional passengers in a stateroom. Rooms are better designed to accommodate families and more ships feature enhanced youth activities and family dining. Plus, getting to a cruise is easier than ever, with more than 50 percent of North American families now living within driving distance of cruise-ship ports, thereby eliminating the cost of air travel.

Cruise programs are getting more sophisticated and targeted, increasingly catering to all ages. Carnival Cruise Lines, which carries 600,000 children a year, recently separated the 12- to 14-year-old group from the older teens, creating the Circle C Club. At the other end of the scale, Disney Cruise Line has group babysitting for babies as young as 12 weeks and Cunard Line allows participation in its children’s program by youngsters under a year old (with parents present). Royal Caribbean International recently announced its new programs for Royal Babies (ages 6 to 18 months) and Royal Tots (ages 18 to 36 months).

In addition, many lines have partnered with brands and organizations that are icons of the family market, including Royal Caribbean’s alliances with Nickelodeon, Fisher-Price, Mattel and Crayola; Carnival’s partnership with Coca-Cola and Sony Playstation; Princess’ work with the California Science Center and LeapFrog; Crystal’s alliance with the 76-year-old Gollatz Cotillion for etiquette classes; and Regent Seven Seas’ continuing partnership with Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society.

The very make-up of “family” has changed as well. Children are coming onboard with single parents, grandparents and multigenerational family reunions. Julia Elzie, a family travel
specialist with Personal Touch Travel in Boise, Idaho, said there’s a trend toward groups in which two sets of parents are friends and travel together with all their children.

“They feel that they will never have such good value again and they should go now,” Elzie said.

Flexible Accommodations
Brad Anderson, co-president of America’s Vacation Center, has taken his family, including six children, on at least 30 cruises. He says one of the key features for families is the variety of connecting staterooms and family suites.

“You wouldn’t think a simple door could make such a big difference, but it does,” Anderson said. “There is an additional bathroom and much more privacy and storage space.”

These family and group accommodations are also getting fine-tuned, and new vessels coming in will raise the bar even higher. Lisa Bauer, senior vice president of hotel operations for Royal Caribbean, said that the line’s research with advisory boards and guest comment cards led to the development of staterooms that sleep anywhere from six to eight people on Freedom-class ships and the new Oasis of the Seas.

Carnival designed the new Splendor with nearly 200 interconnecting staterooms, and more than 350 rooms that accommodate three to five guests. Deluxe oceanview staterooms are configured with two bathrooms: one full bathroom and a second with a junior tub, shower and sink.

Andy Stuart, executive vice president of marketing, sales and passenger service for Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL), said NCL decided to mix categories in connecting accommodations, so ordinary staterooms can be linked with suites.

“The best family suite to buy is the [category] AB Penthouse. It’s a two-bedroom suite with a master bedroom and a second room for the kids with its own bathroom,” Stuart said.

Next year, NCL’s Norwegian Epic will place 225 family deluxe balcony and 146 family balcony staterooms near the children’s areas; most will connect for larger groups.

Among luxury ships, options depend on the size of the vessel. For example, Crystal Serenity has 50 connecting staterooms and 154 staterooms with a third berth, while on the much smaller SeaDream ships, many family reunions make “deck buys,” where they take the Owner’s Suite and the 21 staterooms on Deck 3 for instance.

More Dining Options
Cruise lines are providing an increasing number of choices for family dining as well. NCL’s Freestyle Cruising program, with up to 11 restaurants per ship and open dining times, is beautifully suited for families, and the line has made its child-sized kids’ buffet so attractive that adults enjoy it, too. Many cruise lines, including Crystal, have custom dishes and items comparable to those on shoreside kids’ menus, as well as baby food available on request. Special service for children is a hallmark at Disney Cruise Line, where it’s not uncommon to see a server cutting up food for youngsters or chefs pureeing fresh food for babies.

On Carnival, kids can enjoy a meal with the youth staff in the Lido restaurant with their own buffet line any night except the first, according to Roberta Jacoby, Carnival’s senior vice president of corporate training. Families eating together can try the grill — serving hamburgers and hot dogs — or enjoy 24-hour pizza and ice cream and extensive children’s menus in the dining room. Meanwhile, Royal Caribbean recently unveiled My Family Time Dining, where kids receive immediate service in the dining room and finish their meals in 45 minutes, at which time they are picked up by youth program counselors for evening activities while parents enjoy the rest of their dinner at leisure.

Activities for All Interests
Today’s cruise lines also strike a balance between shared activities for all generations and time apart, with many shore excursions skewed toward multigenerational participation. A big hit for families are private island and beach experiences offered by Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Disney and NCL.

More dedicated spaces, play areas and pools are provided for the various age groups, with new ships outdoing one another in both size and variety. Oasis of the Seas will have a 28,700-square-foot Youth Zone with a Kids Avenue serving as the main promenade for cruisers between the ages of 3 and 11. Along the ship’s Boardwalk, kids will find a carousel and retail stores tailored to their interests, and the AquaTheater will offer theatrical diving performances and water and light shows; a zipline perched nine decks up will stretch to 82 feet.

Costa Cruises’ young guests interact with the international mix of passengers, with youngsters combining arts and active play with uninhibited attempts to speak each other’s language. The staff is particularly kid-friendly. In port, children ages 3 to 12 can enjoy the ship while parents explore on shore, or there are a number of shore excursions for every member of the family.

Many cruise lines have their hallmark attractions, and Carnival’s waterslides are legendary. The new Carnival Dream’s DrainPipe will be 104 feet long and resembles a giant funnel. The ship’s WaterWorks will also feature a four-deck-high, 303-foot-long enclosed corkscrew waterslide, along with twin, dual-lane 80-foot-long racing slides and more.

Disney is able to offer the unique resources of its brand with characters and activities based on its movies and television shows. Youngsters attending Cinderella’s Ball or learning to be a pirate are among much smaller groups than they would be in Disney theme parks, and they can enjoy more time with the characters, who may even greet them by name.

Celebrity Cruises strongly favors “edutainment” and employs LeapFrog School House’s educational modules focused on dinosaurs, science and space, sports, art, music and wildlife, as well as on the heritage, customs, crafts, art and music of geographic regions in which the company sails.

Princess Cruises’ youth program offers teen-specific lectures and workshops on relationships, fashion, entertainment and more. The line’s Pete’s Pals program gives youngsters the opportunity to learn about endangered species, including humpback whales, manatees and pandas.

Preserving the future of the world’s waters is also addressed in children’s programming, such as Cousteau’s Ocean Futures programs on Regent Seven Seas Cruises, the Officer Snook Water Pollution Program on NCL ships and the Team Earth area on Celebrity’s Solstice.

In a move to win over the most difficult group to please, Royal Caribbean put together a teen advisory board, adding features such as “scratch” DJ classes. The line also has ice-skating, rock-climbing and even bungee jumping for all ages, too.

River Cruising
On river cruises, family activities revolve around the destinations and their themes. Lines are seeing families with children mostly ages 12 and up booking trips to the famous Christmas markets. On Avalon Waterways’ five-night Christmas in the Heart of Germany and nine-day Christmastime on the Danube, guests can enjoy the lights and crafts of the traditional holiday markets of Europe. In 2010, Avalon also will be unveiling four- and five-day cruises on the Danube, which are also well suited to family travel.

Amawaterways has nine-night holiday-market cruises from Budapest, Hungary, to Vienna, Austria, and a 12-day Christmas Wonderland itinerary with three days in Paris and a seven-night cruise from Trier, Germany, to Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Viking River Cruises’ eight-day Danube Holiday Delight combines Germany, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia.

Joost Ouendag, vice president of product development for Viking River Cruises, sees river cruises as a great choice for families.

“River ships carry 110 to 200 guests as a rule, and you have plenty of public space to mingle, but also find some privacy — the size is just right,” Ouendag said. “In many destinations, guests simply walk off the gangplank and they are in the middle of an old city.”

Uniworld has developed multigenerational river cruises specifically to appeal to grandparents and parents who want to share Europe with the special young people in their lives. The Historic Normandy itinerary allows families to experience the history of the greatest generation, and the storybook castles and curious museums on the Rhine are ideal for shared generations.

Tauck offers a new 2009 itinerary especially for families called Cruising the Blue Danube. Also, exploration cruises to destinations such as the Galapagos Islands offered by Avalon Waterways, Tauck, Celebrity and Lindblad, are life-changing experiences. In particular, Tauck’s Galapagos: Wildlife Wonderland cruise sails aboard the Santa Cruz, a ship which has an above-average number of triple and quadruple cabins.

Older lines have seen the cruisers’ children come onboard for vacations, honeymoons and anniversaries, and now their grandchildren are doing the same. Given the expanding definition of family groups and the repeat, incremental business as young cruisers grow up, it isn’t surprising that agents and cruise lines are increasingly raising the bar on what families can expect when they walk up the gangplank.

New Ships for Family Travel In 2009

Ocean-Going:

Carnival Cruise Lines’ 3,646-passenger Carnival Dream
Celebrity Cruises’ 2,850-passenger Celebrity Equinox
Costa Cruises’ 2,260-passenger Costa Luminosa and 3,004-passenger Costa Pacifica
MSC Cruises’ 3,300-passenger MSC Splendida
Royal Caribbean International’s 5,400-passenger Oasis of the Seas
Yachts of Seabourn’s 450-passenger Seabourn Odyssey

River Cruising:

Amawaterways’ 148-passenger
ms Amadolce and ms Amalyra
Avalon Waterways’ 138-passenger
Affinity and 140-passenger Creativity
Tauck’s 118-passenger Swiss Jewel
Uniworld’s 160-passenger River Beatrice and 84-passenger River Tosca
Victoria Cruises’ 378-passenger Victoria Jenna
Viking River Cruises’ 189-passenger Viking Legend