Tips to Cruising with Teenagers

The teenage years mark the transition between childhood and adulthood and depending on where on this spectrum your teens lie, your vacation experience can vary greatly. Cruising appeals to people travelling with teens for many reasons. It allows the young passenger the opportunity to enjoy the freedom of doing what you want, when you want, and the security of knowing that their parents or guardian is close by. After taking several vacations with our teenagers, here are a few tips to consider:

1. Choose a teen friendly cruise line. Royal Caribbean and NCL are good choices. On Royal Caribbean your teens will enjoy the teen programs and the ship’s many features such as ice skating, rock wall climbing, and surfing. NCL appeals to teens with their “freestyle cruising” allowing you to eat when you want at several different on-board restaurants. NCL has bowling, a rock climbing wall, and a waterslide to keep your teens smiling. Both lines have a high percentage of family travelers.
2. Compromise on excursions. Let your teens pick at least one shore excursion for everyone to enjoy and participate in. This will allow your teen to be involved in the planning of the cruise and gives them something to get excited about. It will also get you to experience something that you most likely would never have tried. Let’s just say I would not have tried an “aqua scooter” or inner tubing in Jamaica if not for our teens.
3. Consider using a small excursion operator. We used Port Promotions on our most recent cruise with NCL to the Mediterranean and they provided a driver and a minivan that held eight passengers while the cruise line ran the same excursions with busloads of people. There is a much better chance that the pace and the time spent at each attraction will be more appealing to your teens.
4. Don’t try to fill every day with tours. Allow your teens time to “hang out” and absorb their environment. Odds are it’s their first time in the port you are visiting. Your teens are taking-in all sorts of things that might not be interesting to you. They are looking at the way people dress, speak, drive, what they eat, the cell phones used, and cars that people own. So don’t be too insulted if they are tired of visiting museums or churches, to them there are so many things to see.
5. You will likely not be able to “plan” the memories of the trip. Your teens will most likely come home and talk about the crazy drivers in Naples, the yachts in Cannes, the shopping in Florence, or the cute guys/girls they saw. If you look however at the pictures they take, you will see the Coliseum in Rome, statutes from the Vatican Museum, the Tower of Pisa, the Amalfi coastline, the architecture of Gaudi in Barcelona, and the towel animals your stateroom attendant left behind each night.