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It's a great time to be cruising if you're a family with kids
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But if you're looking for kid-free cruising, it's getting harder than I have ever known
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it to be. In the past two years, most cruise lines have been chasing families
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And even those that were effectively adult-only cruise lines, things like Holland America
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Princess and Celebrity, are now even advertising special rates for families. Even as I was working on this, I got an email from the ultra-luxury crystal cruisers of
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a kids sell free promotion. This change in focus is causing issues. I've been following
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many discussions and complaints online about the impact that families and kids had
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this past summer on previously more adult populated lines including complaints on
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Kuhnard, Oceania and Silversie. So as almost all lines seem to be evolving and embracing
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more families, what are your options if for whatever reason you want adult-only cruising
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I'm going to talk about guaranteed adult-only cruise lines and ships, how to minimize your chance
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of having kids on a cruise on non-adult-only lines, and thirdly, if you're on a cruise line with
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lots of kids, what can you do if you want a more adult-only experience
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There are three guaranteed adult-only cruise ways to cruise, though not all will appeal when you
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hear what they are. First, there are four adult-only cruise lines that I know of
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For over 18s, there is Viking, Virgin Voyages and UK's Ambassador Cruise Line, and for the over 50s, there is UK's Saga cruisers
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They do, by the way, watch out if you're considering Ambassador Cruise Line because they do run some multi-generational cruisers where all ages can go
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Next, there are two UK-based cruise lines that have some adult-only ships in their fleet, again for those aged 18 and over
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Pino Cruises have Arcadia and Aurora and Morella a value cruise line owned by Tui have Morella Explorer 2 The third option is to go on adult charters However many of these are a little bit out there
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They include adult-only nudist cruisers run by bare necessities, Swingers' cruises run by Desire Cruises and Bliss Cruises
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and some gay party circuit cruisers with a raunchy reputation run by Atlantis events
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Now, do talk about these in more detail. In my naughty tips, only cruisers over 18 should know about video if you do want to
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to explore those a little bit more. But anyway, if none of these guaranteed adult-only options
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appeal or work for you, how can you minimize the chance of going on a cruise that is going to
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have lots of families and kids? I've found there are five key things that you can do. The higher
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the grade of ship, the less likely there will be kids on board simply because it just becomes
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too costly for families compared to those resort and premium lines, rural caravans, Norwegians
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even in Hond Americas. This is a costly approach though for you too, because I'm talking about
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smallship luxury lines like Oceania, Azamara, Windstar, Sea Dream or the ultra-luxry side of
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cruising like Crystal, Region 70s, Seaborn and Silver Sea. They're all really costly to go on
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And as well as being costly for families, they usually have no kids clubs or run kids
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programs, making them even less appealing to families. Although in the past few years, I've been on
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three small ship luxury lines, Porgagan, Hapegloid and Ponont, that did offer kids' programs on
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some of their peak summer sailings. So that may be a trend coming to those other luxury lines
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So as I mentioned at the start, you can't be 100% sure that there won't be kids on luxury
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and ultra-luxury lines these days. So that leads me on to the next thing to do, which is timing
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Avoid cruising during key summer school vacations, spring break and any half-term breaks
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and check the actual school dates in the region you're looking because they can vary and they do vary
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Avoid all major public holiday periods like Christmas and New Year Thanksgiving Easter and regional major public holidays with long weekends I been on say a couple of Christmas cruises on Kuhnard and Holland America
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There's been over 400 kids, so you do need time carefully. My third tip is to go on longer cruises
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Families tend to go on shorter vacations as long trips are a big outlay for a family on a longer vacation
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So if you can go 10, 14 days or more, you'll get less likely to have kids on
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Where you cruise can also have a big impact. Repositioning cruises tend to be more adult, even on family-focused lines like Carnival, Royal Caribbean, MSE, and even Disney
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Reposition cruises are when lines send their ships between regions at the start and end of the season, so largely to and from the Caribbean and Europe, Caribbean and Alaska, and even to and from Asia
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Repositioning cruises tend to be mostly adult as they don't generally happen in school holidays. It's normally happening to school holidays. It's normally happens to
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of April and October-November time. They're usually around at least two weeks long
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They have lots of sea days. It's obviously parents are concerned about the time, the cost
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and keeping their kids busy. But also the more exotic locations you go to are going to
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reduce the chance that you're going to have families on, particularly if they require long-haul
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flights, because that's a massive added cost for families. So for example, ones that I've been on
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and found few kids are South Africa, South America, French Polynesia, and those cruises in Asia
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Another key thing to bear in mind with destinations is if you're going to the Mediterranean
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in summer or you're going to Alaska in the season, these will often have families on
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no matter what cruise line you're on because those are port intensive destinations and
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parents are looking to take their kids to experience those and they're looking for the right
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attenery at the right time and they are less concerned about what line they're on. All those
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complaints that I spoke about earlier were in those regions in the summer. The fifth thing
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you can do to minimize kids is river cruising. Although some are trying to attract more families and run family programs during the summer the nature of the places they call on and the limited facilities on board mean they tend to mostly always be adult and in fact a slightly older adult clientele too But if you have already or in the future
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need to book a cruise where there are likely to be many families and kids, perhaps because
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you can only travel to school vacation or holiday times, there are a couple of suggestions I have
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if you want a more adult take on it. Look at lines and ships which offer
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proper adult-only spaces on board. Disney, surprisingly, is probably the best known for having
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the most comprehensive offering of these. While of course they're likely to have loads of kids
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they do have generous adult-only areas, like on my Disney Magic cruise recently. They had
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a coffee shop, a swimming pool, a bar area, and in the evening a whole pot of the ship with more
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bars, a nightclub was adult-only. There was also one dedicated adult speciality restaurant
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The other family-focused cruise lines have some adult-only areas too. For example, Carnival on some ships have the Serenity Adult-only retreat area where you must be 21 plus
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Royal Caribbean on their bigger ships now have an adult celerium area for 16 plus and they also have adult-only spaces on their private islands
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MSC cruisers has an adult-only lounge on most of their ships. Norwegian Cruise Line has the Vibe Beach Club on their newer ships where they sell a limited
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number of passes and in the Haven, their premium suite area on the newer Prima class ships
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they have an adult only deck section in the Haven, however, it's not that well enforced
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to be honest. Many premium lines like Princess and Hot America do claim to have adult
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only pool areas, however, I wouldn't rely on these because of my experience they're not
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generally well enforced. Do you have any other tips on how to cruise adult only that I've
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missed. If so, leave them in the comments. And if you are an adult solo traveller, I want
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to join me over in this video where I share my tips, including on how to get around
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the annoying solo supplement. See you over there
