Family friendly Cruising with Royal Caribbean

If perhaps like me you’ve never “cruised” before you might think that it belongs to the retired community. The grown-ups whose children have long left home, after all what could there possible be to do on board a ship for familys….This is what I though until I went aboard the rather fabulous Royal Caribbean Anthem of the Seas. Breaking every preconceived idea of cruising their main target is us. Familys with children at school!

We were lucky enough to be sent on board for the weekend for the pre-inaugural sail. We expected a couple of teething problems especially with my allergies but delighted by the whole aspect.  In fact you can extend your holiday because once you’ve booked your holiday you can start exploring the ship through their app and choose which shows you’d like to book on and when and pour over which restaurant you would like to book in on which night. We had great fun exploring this beforehand and the children adored it!

Virtual Balcony

Royal Caribbean  believe that you shouldn’t miss a day’s holiday with travel so you can book in and print off your paperwork weeks in advance so that as soon as you arrive you can be in you room within 15 minutes and enjoying your holiday. Fabulous hey? And spot on in fact. Within 15 minutes of taking our luggage out of the car we were in our room and unpacking. Within 25 minutes we were exploring the ship and heading off for lunch. A quick TOPTIP here but when you arrive for a cruise with Royal Caribbean pack a day bag. Your luggage will arrive at about 3 in your cabin but if you’ve got on board at 11 your children will want to be in the pool asap! PS there is NO luggage limit! No horrible charges await you when you book on. You can pack for everything and any event and no need to worry.

When you get on board the first thing you’ll notice is the extreme high level of finishing throughout! The stateroom which consisted of a king-size bed and a sofa bed for the children was spacious and airy and the bathroom had a large shower as well. As mentioned before most of the staterooms have balconies but there some inside cabins and they have a virtual balcony. The boys were fascinated by this as it is supplied but a camera offering real time viewing of outside. What a fabulous way to wake up at a new destination! Each room is fitted now just with plugs but with USB ports too so in case your teenagers need to charge their ipad during the day or your phone or camera it’s a perfect way to ensure everything can be charged without running out of plugs.

The ship is huge. A city on the sea in fact with different areas for different styles of people so if you come with grandparents they can sneak off for some quiet time in the well-stocked library. Also with Royal Caribbean’s new dynamic dining on board it also means that you can head off and eat when YOU or rather your kids feel hungry. This was great with ours as they are early riser they were quite happy to tuck into two lunches a day! 

The dining I think almost needs a post to itself. I have allergy’s and was a little worried whether there would be anything to eat on board. I couldn’t be more wrong. Despite the fact that we were on a pre-inaugural sail and our menus had been created for us in advance each restaurant had a childs menu for the children and had no problems catering for me. The chefs had a separate part of the kitchen to prevent cross contamination and the one night I couldn’t find anything I felt like eating the waiter without pausing for a beat informed me he could whip me up a 3 course meal from pieces within the menu. IT WAS AMAZING! I never thought I would crave papaya salad but I do now! I never felt that I was a problem or something which had to be sorted and by the second day the waiting staff knew all my allergy’s and seamless pointed out what they and they chef thought I might like! 5 star catering.

Now for the entertainment. We were of course on their newest ship but do consider that each Royal Caribbean ship is different, allowing you the holiday that you want! From my last post you’ll know some of the amazing activities on board – the surfing, the ripcord, bumper cars, swimming pools (do be warned though swim nappies are not allowed in most pools)  a superb teenagers only lounge, Xbox station, arcade games, a fabulous puzzle room for adults and a wonderful children’s play area and club. The club runs till 2am in the morning so if you want to go and see one of the amazing west end shows you can pop your kids in and know they’ll be given as good as time as you when you collect them. If they’ve been on board already though they might be a tad exhausted by the end of the day and you can book babysitting. This is the bit I like. For the same price you get not one but two babysitters. Safety is paramount aboard Royal Caribbean boats and this just helped be realised that it really was designed by parents! TOPTIP the Anthem of the Seas is the 3^rd largest cruise ship so take some walkie talkies. If you have teenagers it’s a great way to communicate with them on board without the need for mobile phone charges.

My Royal WOWS have to be:

WOW Band

1, The wonderful bracelets that everyone wears. No need for losing cards or having to take your wallets around with you. All the information is there on your wrist which is also waterproof!

2, The sheer level of entertainment!

3, The costings! It truly is a case of everything is paid for. If you choose food and drink deals I don’t think you would actually need to spend a penny once on board. Every new entertainment and show is included in the price as are gratuities.

Disclosure: I travelled on Anthem of the Seas as a guest of Royal Caribbean and as part of Mumsnet Bloggers Network Research Panel, a group of parent bloggers who have volunteered to review products, services, events and brands for Mumsnet. All views and opinions are my own.