Cruising with Kids – a Review of Our Trip on Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas
In 2016 I was lucky enough to go on a cruise with my sister. She had earned the cruise because of her MLM gig at the time, and chose to take me as her guest. Yay me! I was SO nervous about that trip- I thought I’d be claustrophobic and panicky and absolutely hate being on the sea, but as it turns out, it was one of the most amazing experiences I’d ever had. I loved everything about being on that cruise, and I immediately started planning my next trip. Cruising with kids was next on my agenda.
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The cruise with my sister was on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas ship, which was, at that time, the fleet’s largest ship. It’s was certainly huge, with multiple neighborhoods and a million things to do. In 5 days, I don’t think I even saw every deck! When planning the cruise that I would take my husband and kids on on 2017, I wanted to do a short trip, and since the Oasis wasn’t doing short trips, we chose the Enchantment of the Seas, and a 5 day trip to the Caribbean that would stop at CocoCay, Nassau, Bahamas, and Key West.
Up until this vacation, my kids had never done any traveling by plane, but at ages 3 and 5, my husband and I agreed that it was definitely time to start showing them the world. We booked the cruise and invited 4 other families with kids to cruise with us. As parents, we were particularly excited about the fact that Royal Caribbean has a kids club. The complimentary Adventure Ocean Youth program was open throughout the trip and provided a fun, safe place for our kids to play while we adults were enjoying the bars on the ship or exploring the ports. Every single morning my kids begged me to take them to “the kids room” and I was happy to oblige. Each session included art and craft projects, science experiments, reading books, and even movies during the late night sessions. My friends who were traveling with a one year old utilized the on board nursery – which was really convenient in the evening because babies need to sleep!
Enchantment of the Seas also had other features that my kids enjoyed, including the splash pad and toddler sized pool on the pool deck, the personalized attention and special kids menu at dinner, and a video arcade where kids and parents could play together.
We stayed in an outside cabin, which was labeled as a “large exterior cabin”. We had one double bed, a sofa that pulled out into another double bed, and a large window in the center of the ship. This room was perfect for two adults and two children, and while a little bit of extra room would have been welcomed, we didn’t spend that much time in our room so it didn’t matter much. Some day when I have some extra cash to spend I’d really love to cruise in one of Royal’s suites. I’ve been looking at them in the Oasis Class ships and I’m a little bit obsessed!
Overall, cruising with my kids on Royal Caribbean was a very good experience! There were a few meltdowns and a bit of whining, but I would have expected that from my kids anywhere. They kept talking about this trip every day for weeks after we came home – and I hope that this was the first of many amazing trips for us together.
Here was one of the towel animals the room stewards made for us. So fun! You can read more about our adventures in Cruising in the post I wrote about our 2nd trip cruising on this ship with the kids!
