When age is a problem!

We are getting to the time of year when people are looking for a good last minute deal. There are plenty around, if you can go at the drop of a hat, and you are looking for a 2 berth cabin. 3 and 4 berth cabins are hard to come by at the last minute, especially when it comes to school holidays. This isn’t the only problem though, as some people are quite happy to book 2 cabins on a late deal and put 1 adult and 1 child in each. Great, you may think, but this is where a child’s age can become a problem.

Take P&O for instance, they will only allow so many children in each of their age groups. Below is a table of how the ages are broken down although these DO NOT  coincide with the kids club’s age groups.

Minimum Age- 6 Months

6 Months – 23 Months

24 months -35 Months

3 Years – 7 Years

8 Years – 8 Years

9 Years – 12 Years

13 Years – 16 Years

If you have a family who have 2 children of different ages there may be availability for 1 child but not the other. This happens regularly when people leave it to the last minute. Cunard and Princess also have the same policy as P&O so the best thing to do to make sure the whole family can be catered for is  book early!

Other cruise lines like NCL, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity,to name a few, do not have a restriction on the ages of children, although they still restrict how many children can go to the kids clubs.

Another problem  families sometimes have is if there are 2 adults and 3 or 4 childresn as there isnt many cruise lines that have cabins that will cater for the whole family sharing. Royal Caribbean do have family cabins which will sleep upto 6 people and these have twin beds that convert to a double, a converable sofa bed and usually 2 upper pullman berths. Again though you do have to book really early to get these as they usually sell out fast.

What do you think ? Should there be limit on the number of children on board or not and should they be so strict with the age groups?