Mediterranean and Caribbean cruises

about cruises in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean with a child

You can see the prices and rating of cruises on the website cruisecritic .

I used to think that only very wealthy people could afford to travel on a huge snow-white liner. This myth was dispelled when, on a travel forum, I accidentally saw a sale of Caribbean cruises: $ 200 for a week tour on a five-star ship! I had a shock in the good sense of the word, and I began to study the websites of cruise companies for a long time and painstakingly. It turned out that a cruise can be bought really inexpensively (including air tickets, the rest will be comparable to a trip, say, to Thailand or Western Europe). As a result, we have already gone on a cruise twice: in the Mediterranean in 2011.

There is an opinion that cruises are boring and such a vacation is more suitable for pensioners. Yes, there are a lot of elderly people on the liners. Moreover, the higher the status of the ship, the more elderly people. This is because it is very convenient to relax on a cruise. Almost every day you find yourself in a new place, but you don’t have to go anywhere, fly, drag a suitcase, plan a route and spend time moving. Loaded things once, settled down and that's it! This is especially important when traveling with a small child or in the last months of pregnancy.

If you want - walk, go sightseeing, go to the beach, if you don't want - stay on the ship, swim in the pool, sunbathe, sleep, sit in a restaurant. A cruise can be a very dynamic holiday, or it can become a complete relaxation. It all depends on the wishes of the guests. When I talk about cruises, I get asked two questions all the time.

1. Does the ship rock? On modern liners, such powerful stabilizers are now installed that pitching is not felt at all. At some point, you generally begin to forget that you are at sea. It seems that this is an ordinary hotel somewhere on the coast. We felt slight hints of pitching when we went to the Caribbean Sea through the Atlantic Ocean. But it was only swaying when we did not experience any negative emotions, and the child slept better than usual.

2. Is there any discomfort from the fact that there are about 2000-3000 passengers and about the same number of attendants on the ship at the same time? No. The ship is huge, and everything is so perfectly organized that we have never seen pandemonium. There is always a free table in the restaurant, you can always swim in the pool, go to the evening show, there are never queues for elevators and so on. Even when the liner berths in a new port, you can always leave freely, and even enter later. In Egyptian hotels there is more pandemonium.

How to buy a cruise ticket? Cruises are sold by USA travel agencies, but comparing prices, I saw that the “cheat” from the official price of the cruise company is 50-100%. Yes, the cost of the tour includes the services of a Russian-speaking guide, but is it worth paying so much for an interpreter? The minimum knowledge of English is quite enough to buy a cruise, and, already being on the ship, to navigate and understand everything. Everything is organized so simply and clearly that even with a couple of dozen English words you can safely travel.

The ticket price depends on the duration of the cruise and the type of cabin. The cheapest is internal, without a window. The most expensive is a penthouse with several rooms. Both times we took the middle option - a cabin suite with a balcony. With a child, this is especially convenient, because when the child is sleeping, you can safely chat on the balcony, looking at the sea, without fear of waking him up. The sites, as a rule, indicate the cost of the trip per person based on double occupancy. Children are not always free! You have to look at some of the specials. For example, I bought under the promotion “the third person in the cabin is free”, so even if an adult was traveling with the child, he would also be free.

What to do on board a cruise ship? The liner has a concert hall with such equipment that will give odds to most St. Petersburg halls. There are real Broadway shows, concerts, dance performances twice a day, at eight and ten in the evening, so my husband and I managed to watch the show in turn (Alice did not appreciate the theater). There is a library with books in different languages, including Russian; game room with checkers, chess, dominoes and puzzles. There is a real casino, a jogging track, a basketball court, a cinema, several shops, a beauty salon and a SPA. And, of course, pools with sun loungers and many viewing platforms where you can sit and admire the sea, sunset and even dolphins.