Best Overall Family Cruise Experience: Disney Cruise Line

Family vacations can take one of two tacks: Either they are full-on disasters, or they go down as one of the “best vacations ever.” Cruise vacations are “best vacation ever” opportunities in the making.

Quite simply, our kids (and yes, your kids too) love to cruise. And why not? After all, where families are concerned, a cruise ship is little more than a floating, self-contained family resort, with all the features and activities that adults and kids could ever wish for.

The Disney entertainment empire knows how to treat people right, and a Disney cruise certainly meets the high expectations developed over many decades of theme parks and media entertainment.

For families with young kids, no other cruise line can touch Disney, which custom-designed its vessels, its onboard experience and even its shoreside programs to cater to that exact demographic. In true Disney fashion, everything is orchestrated to produce a specific sense of fantasy and wonder. Where Disney’s parks are centered around a fairytale castle, Disney cruises are centered around its ships —  Disney Magic, Disney Wonder and Disney Dream — which were designed to evoke the fairytale world of early 20th-century ocean liners, with their sharp bows, art deco and art nouveau interiors, and even multiple funnels, even though one of those funnels on every Disney ship is fake — but they sure do make a cool place to hide the teenagers’ clubs.

The heart of the Disney cruise experience is the kids’ and teens programs, which have no equal in the cruise business. Staffed by dozens of Disney-trained counselors, the programs cater to kids from age 3 months to 17 years, with supervised activities available from about 9am to midnight. Aboard each ship, about half a deck is devoted to play and learning areas for kids, including a nursery for babies and toddlers and the Oceaneer Club and Oceaneer Lab for kids 3 to 12, where kids can take part in princess- and pirate-themed activities, put on shows or listen to storytelling sessions, watch movies, work on art and animation, conduct fun science experiments, and just generally.

At night, moms and dads can check their kids into the children’s centers and nurseries until midnight, and enjoy a little downtime at the ships’ dedicated adults-only zones, which offer dancing, piano music, jazz, comedy, and other diversions in a range of lounges, from sports bars to chic cocktail clubs.

Presented By:
Rawhide Travel and Tours Inc
6008 West Bell Rd # F105
Glendale, Arizona  85308-3793
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