Anonymous wrote:Price and atmosphere/experience are usually closely related. You can't reasonably expect elevated cuisine and a quiet, uncrowded upscale atmosphere on a less expensive ship catering to families with kids, so setting expectations is important. Some cruise lines do cater to families on a budget who travel with kids, others don't. Use CruiseCritic to help sort through different lines and vessels. As a rule of thumb, the larger, newer mega-ships may be what you're looking for, with lots of kid-centric activities and diversions, but don't expect the atmosphere as you'd find on the 6-star lines.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would say Royal Caribbean. I've cruised with them several times and they are family friendly so offer a good balance of everything.

Been on both and we chose RC first for the same reason (could go on a cruise twice as long) and I would not use RC again.

Which RC ship?

Which itinerary?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We haven't done a Disney cruise so I don't have that point of comparison experience or cost-wise - but we just did the Royal Caribbean Icon of the Seas for spring break and we all loved it. It's one of their new, huge ships and it's very geared for families.

We are going on icon later this year—would love any tips or suggestions!

Also if you are a Costco member recommend looking at them — you can typically get either a freebie like free specialty dining and/or just Costco cash back.

Another tip is that most cruise lines do sea days as their fancy dinner day. So if you want to book a specialty dinner, picking a different night gets you most marginal benefit. We’ve only booked one specialty for Icon — the sushi restaurant and only that because they had a really good price on it pre cruise.

DP

I haven’t been on Icon but I follow numerous CruiseTubers and travel groups, and Icon has had some issues—including a fire and major technical issue that impacted its sailing/itinerary. They also had the horrific break in its slide that severely injured someone.

FWIW, every crew member I’ve chatted with has consistently said they prefer smaller ships to the newer mega ships. They point to the inability to provide good service to such big crowds and cryptic comments on the “big and inexperienced staff.”

More details:

Recent issues for the Icon of the Seas include a passenger jumping overboard in May 2024, a minor fire in June 2024, and a significant technical issue in September 2024 that caused the ship to sail at reduced speed and led to a canceled cruise and maintenance in Freeport, Bahamas.
More recently, in July 2025, a crew member stabbed a fellow crew member before jumping overboard and dying, and in August 2025, a passenger was injured when an acrylic panel on the Frightening Bolt water slide broke.

Half those things have nothing to do with that specific ship and could happen on any of them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would say Royal Caribbean. I've cruised with them several times and they are family friendly so offer a good balance of everything.

Been on both and we chose RC first for the same reason (could go on a cruise twice as long) and I would not use RC again.

Anonymous wrote:I would say Royal Caribbean. I've cruised with them several times and they are family friendly so offer a good balance of everything.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We haven't done a Disney cruise so I don't have that point of comparison experience or cost-wise - but we just did the Royal Caribbean Icon of the Seas for spring break and we all loved it. It's one of their new, huge ships and it's very geared for families.

We are going on icon later this year—would love any tips or suggestions!

Also if you are a Costco member recommend looking at them — you can typically get either a freebie like free specialty dining and/or just Costco cash back.

Another tip is that most cruise lines do sea days as their fancy dinner day. So if you want to book a specialty dinner, picking a different night gets you most marginal benefit. We’ve only booked one specialty for Icon — the sushi restaurant and only that because they had a really good price on it pre cruise.

DP

I haven’t been on Icon but I follow numerous CruiseTubers and travel groups, and Icon has had some issues—including a fire and major technical issue that impacted its sailing/itinerary. They also had the horrific break in its slide that severely injured someone.

FWIW, every crew member I’ve chatted with has consistently said they prefer smaller ships to the newer mega ships. They point to the inability to provide good service to such big crowds and cryptic comments on the “big and inexperienced staff.”

More details:

Recent issues for the Icon of the Seas include a passenger jumping overboard in May 2024, a minor fire in June 2024, and a significant technical issue in September 2024 that caused the ship to sail at reduced speed and led to a canceled cruise and maintenance in Freeport, Bahamas.
More recently, in July 2025, a crew member stabbed a fellow crew member before jumping overboard and dying, and in August 2025, a passenger was injured when an acrylic panel on the Frightening Bolt water slide broke.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the responses so far.

The things we really liked about DCL were the cabin size, the kids club, the dinners (maybe not fine dining for luxury foodies, but definitely enjoyable for us and the kids; the buffets were more hit and miss but I've never viewed buffets as high quality), the shows and movies (as a family, we love Disney/Marvel movies), and the feel of there being a lot to do, but not overwhelmingly large. Not necessarily adventure type stuff, but fun activities. One of the biggest draws for us is that our 10 year old made friends and we were comfortable letting them hang out on the ship by themselves (in the club or not) without worrying because there were only so many places they could go. I'm not sure I'd have that same level of comfort on other ships.

I've started looking at Royal Caribbean, but the largest classes of ships look like too much and it's hard to figure out what would be the sweet spot for size. I don't have interest in Carnival. I need to learn more about NCL, Princess, Celebrity, etc.

RC has junior suites where you get more room in your cabin and dinner access to the suites-only dining room with excellent food and service. It sounds like it could check a couple of your boxes and is still less than a Disney cruise.

We didn't find our large RC ship to be overwhelmingly large. It was totally manageable and I'd be fine letting my tween go places alone. On our last cruise we gave our 11 yo an old cell phone (no sim) to connect to the ship WiFi and she used it to send us messages if she was headed to a new destination.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We haven't done a Disney cruise so I don't have that point of comparison experience or cost-wise - but we just did the Royal Caribbean Icon of the Seas for spring break and we all loved it. It's one of their new, huge ships and it's very geared for families.

We are going on icon later this year—would love any tips or suggestions!

Also if you are a Costco member recommend looking at them — you can typically get either a freebie like free specialty dining and/or just Costco cash back.

Another tip is that most cruise lines do sea days as their fancy dinner day. So if you want to book a specialty dinner, picking a different night gets you most marginal benefit. We’ve only booked one specialty for Icon — the sushi restaurant and only that because they had a really good price on it pre cruise.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the responses so far.

The things we really liked about DCL were the cabin size, the kids club, the dinners (maybe not fine dining for luxury foodies, but definitely enjoyable for us and the kids; the buffets were more hit and miss but I've never viewed buffets as high quality), the shows and movies (as a family, we love Disney/Marvel movies), and the feel of there being a lot to do, but not overwhelmingly large. Not necessarily adventure type stuff, but fun activities. One of the biggest draws for us is that our 10 year old made friends and we were comfortable letting them hang out on the ship by themselves (in the club or not) without worrying because there were only so many places they could go. I'm not sure I'd have that same level of comfort on other ships.

I've started looking at Royal Caribbean, but the largest classes of ships look like too much and it's hard to figure out what would be the sweet spot for size. I don't have interest in Carnival. I need to learn more about NCL, Princess, Celebrity, etc.

Anonymous wrote:I’ve done a lot of research and ultimately decided that I would be disappointed with other cruise lines, particularly the food. When we are older I would consider river cruising though.