Recommend a cruise destination

mogwai

Hi all,

We're planning our next holiday with our 19month old and having done 2 beach holidays with him so far would now like something different!

Ive been looking at cruises but a bit overwhelmed by the different ones available

I was considering a barbados and carribbean cruise but realised there probably wasn't loads to do except swim and beaches - I don't swim and find beaches boring!

Any other destinations that would be good? We want to go sometime in the next few months and would love to go straight from the UK and avoid the dreaded screaming toddler on a plane phase but they mainly seem to go around western europe

loobs40

Try the cruisecritic forum. Lots of info there for first time cruisers

travellerboy

Would suggest the Caribbean is definitely NOT for you. I would try the Med or Northern Europe (Baltic), these are mostly cultural and scenery biased not beach holiday

david39

Going to the Med on board from UK. means you spend too long at sea getting there and back.
I suggest you try a cruise from a north-coast Med port like Venice or Barcelona which are just 2 hours flying time.

We did a cruise with Celebrity a couple of years ago from Barcelona taking in Italy, Croatia, Montenegro which was superb and has spoiled us for other ones. Did a similar one with different ports of call with MSC last year which was good, but not as good as the Celebrity one.

browneyedbazzi

I did an Eastern Med cruise from Rome (Civitavecchia) with Royal Caribbean and it was really good - the flight to Rome and transfer to the port is not bad and the stops along the cruise were quite a nice mix of places with interesting things to do and see.

daveyjp

A child friendly 7-14 day UK cruise leaving from a UK port will take you to:

Atlantic Coast, Canaries, Western Med, around Britain, Iceland, Norway, Baltic and Scandanavia.

"Few months" is very vague, but any cruise to Norway etc is best left until June at the earliest. This leaves not a lot!

PeacefulWaters

daveyjp wrote: »

"Few months" is very vague, but any cruise to Norway etc is best left until June at the earliest. This leaves not a lot!

I'd argue that the Fjords are at their best in May.

daveyjp

It depends when in May. My parents went in the first week and it was still very much winter.

Very cold, lots of snow still lying which meant curtailed and cancelled trips and at a few ports very little was open. Not much fun for the OPs 19 month old.

Kynthia

I enjoyed a summer trip to Oslo, Helsinki, Stockholm, St Petersburg, Tallinn and Copenhagen.

Neil49

Try and get a cruise leaving from Venice and heading out to the eastern med.

A specialist cruise company is a good place to start.

MasterPoo

I note some people have discounted the Caribbean as you are not a Beach person. So yes Med or Fjords are great suggestions.

I just wanted to add, when I did a Caribbean cruise with my 2 sons (much older than your toddler) a few years ago, we organised excursions which did not always include Beaches, you don't have to go to the beach, you could spend the day exploring the ports, going to museums, visiting the cultural landmarks et..

When we did the Caribbean, we did white water rafting, River tubing, walk in a rain forest, carnival in Martinique, so there is much to do especially if you arrange different non-beach excursions.