Why Cruises Are The PERFECT Family Vacation

Let’s face it vacations are not cheap from plane tickets to housing the bill starts to add up, and that’s just for one person. So forget about doing a family vacation right! Wrong! Family vacations are a great way to bond and make memories so how do you save money while also creating a fun experience for your kids? The answer… Cruising.

A fun fact about me is I have been cruising since I was 7 years old. Now, at 22 I still LOVE them.

My parents made the brilliant decision that our family’s Christmas gift would be cruises. So instead of buying $300 dollars worth of toys, gaming consoles and otherwise things we just didn’t need or even use. They would put that money to a cruise for an experience to travel, see the world, and meet new people. And 90% of everything is included in the price from room to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. What more could you want!

I have seen cruises for as low as $200/per person during off season and it’s much more memorable than the year I got my Wii.

As a self designated cruise expert I’ve put together my top 5 reasons why cruising is the perfect family vacation.

Most vacations you make with children you spend 95% of the trip worrying, watching, and trying to take care of the kids. I’ve heard a lot of parents say, “I need a vacation after my vacation.”

But cruising makes sure that parents get just as much of a vacation as the kids. All cruise lines that allow children have a daycare facility (sometimes even night). On sea days (days where you’re only on the boat) I only recall seeing my parents for dinner.

When I wasn’t with them I was at the kids club.

They offer arts and crafts, entertainment such as movies, boat scavenger hunts, and even dance parties. They were a lot of fun and when I wasn’t at the club sanctioned events I had a group of friends that I explored the boat with.

The nice thing about being stuck on a boat is there’s not a lot of places you can be.

And this space allowed my mom to tan for hours and my dad to watch the games in the sports bar.

Admittedly, I am not a parent but one thing I would want to teach anyone younger than me is to choose experience over material goods. Sure you could spend $5,000 USD on a Louis Vuitton bag or you could use a quarter of that money to go experience something new!

Experiences quite literally change the way we view and experience the world. By trying new things and exploring new things we learn more about ourselves which is so incredibly important when you’re younger. You become a much more well rounded human.

Sure a new doll or new video games will be fun, but how long will they be fun? For me I don’t remember what I got for most Christmas gifts, but what I do remember is the people I met on the islands, excursions we went on, and food I tried for the first time. I remember how the sun looked setting while the boat moved us to our next location. I remember looking down and seeing wild dolphins swimming next to the cruise ship.

And I reckon I’m better for it.

This is one of the biggest perks in my mind. Growing up my dad was a teacher and my mom worked in a hospital so any vacation we took they were counting their PTO hours trying to ensure they had enough time saved up. This meant that we couldn’t go on 2-week or 3-week vacations. We, like I assume most families, had one week to have fun (and honestly we couldn’t afford more than one week!).

So sure we could go to a water park or Disney World and sometimes we did but when you do that you are always stuck in that one place.

But cruising allowed us to truly get the most bang for our time. On a 7 day cruise you are likely to have 3 different ports – which means islands the boat docks at. So not only do you get to go to 3 different islands and explore their local culture, cuisine, and shop, but you also get to say you went to Cozumel, Belize, and Mahogany Bay. And every island has different specialties. So some islands are great for jewelry shopping or jet skiing, others are great for scuba diving or making chocolate.

No matter which island you stop at, you're guaranteed to experience something new if you’re up for it.

From friends at the kids clubs to the staff members if you are seeking new friends on cruises you will find them. The wonderful thing about cruises (besides the food) is you’re on a boat for however many days with the same people.

Your room attendants are the same for your entire stay, oftentimes in the main dining room your waiters are the same as well. If you’re a frequent karaoke attendee or maybe your thing is trivia, whatever it is you will find like minded individuals attending and the staff will come to recognize you as well.

From a kids perspective, I made multiple friends in the kids club most of them didn’t even live in the U.S. which to my 9 year old brain was crazy. I would spend the majority of the days at sea with them, sometimes in the kids club a lot of the time not. But even me, someone who is a little more anti-social, made friends for the cruise. Many of those kids I kept in touch with for years over email (this was pre-cell phones). My brother who is older than me and did have social media and a phone still keeps in contact with a lot of those friends to this day. My parents even made friends as well.

It still genuinely baffles my mind when I meet people in their 30's or 40's who have never been on a plane or been to an airport and while there’s a lot of reasons as to why and I am not judging them. I do have to say I am grateful for having traveled when I was younger because it gave me confidence to travel as I got older.

When I moved to college from Michigan to California I moved all by myself, and while it was my first time traveling solo, I’d done it before so I was much more confident than if I had never done it before.

Now, years later I love solo traveling, despite being a woman I absolutely love it. I don’t feel the pressure to have to wait for friends or family to be able to join me or to wait for them to save up enough money or enough PTO. I have the confidence and knowledge to just go by myself.

Traveling when you're younger, in my experience, gave me an incredible curiosity for the world. I have a real drive and passion to see and experience more of the world. I have a deep rooted understanding of other people's way of life. And I do account a lot of my wanderlust to my parents for allowing me to travel so young.

I truly believe traveling is healing to the mind, body, and spirit. So I recommend it to everyone.

I feel like I could rant and ramble on and on about how much I love cruises and how they are the perfect family vacation. It’s a 3 in 1 deal. You get room and board, food options all day, and travel to new locations. Anything else you do outside of the boat like excursions, local restaurants, and shopping is just icing on the cake.

Name another vacation where you can spend $800 or less for a 4 person family vacation with all the same inclusions.