Which is the best cruise to take departing from either Miami, Ft Lauderdale or Port Canaveral..?

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TINKERTOY ..... the 1 & only

INFORMAL CRUISING:

The cruise line that you may want to go on if you want things very informal is Norwegian Cruise Line. They offer "freestyle" cruising which simply means that you do not select a time for dinner each day (as is done on traditional cruises). You just go to dinner anytime you want after about 6:00 PM. Seating in the main dining room is open but they do seat you at a table and you have the same good and fancy food that is served on traditional cruise lines like Princess and Royal Caribbean.

Formal nights on ALL cruise lines are actually REQUESTED attire rather than REQUIRED attire (except on Cunard and very high end cruise lines like Crystal). So on formal nights you can dress casual, or what they call sports or resort casual, basically slacks, shirt with collar, skirt/dress, blouse. On Norwegian ships they stress casual all of the time and even refer to formal nights as "dress up if you want to" night.

While Norwegian emphasized casual dress you CAN do the same on all other cruise lines. I have done about 20 cruises on 4 different cruise lines and its the same on all of them. You will always find people on formal nights dressed casual. Either because they have not dressed for dinner, or because they already had dinner and maybe a photo taken, and they changed back to casual. You will not be denied access to the main dining room or anything else as long as you are sports casual. But you cannot walk around public areas in the evenings in jeans, tanks and T's, flip flops, or swim wear, unless you are in or around the pool/hot tubs and/or the gym.

BEST CRUISE:

Below are the web sites for the ports you are interested in.

Port Canaveral:
http://www.portcanaveral.org/cruising/cruising.php

Ft Lauderdale (Port Everglades):
http://www.porteverglades.org/index.php

Miami:
http://www.miamidade.gov/portofmiami/cruise_schedule.asp

The Norwegian Cruise line does not cruise out of Port Canaveral or Ft Lauderdale. So if you want to cruise from Florida with NCL it must be from Miami. You can only cruise on Disney, Carnival and Royal Caribbean from Port Canaveral. You can cruise with a large variety of lines from Ft Lauderdale. You can cruise on Norwegian out of Miami and also Carnival and Royal Caribbean do many cruises from there.

There are two factors to consider when planning your best cruise (1) what activities are on ship, and (2) what port stops will be made that I will enjoy.

The activities on the cruise ship can be the most fun. You did not say what gaes your kids are but just about every line and ship has established FREE programs for kids. The cruise lines have professionally trained staff who develop and run programs for kids by age groups. These staff people supervise the kids in activities on ship all day and sometimes into the early evenings. The kids are grouped by age. Some ships have special areas where the kids go to participate in the activities. ALL OF THIS IS FREE !!

Royal Caribbean Cruise line calls their kids programs "Adventure Ocean". Carnival, for example, calls one of its kids programs "Camp Carnival". Norwegian calls one of its kids programs "Navigators". Other cruise lines also have programs for kids as long as there are at least about 20 kids cruising. So you don't have to go on Disney just to have fun things for kids.

In addition to the supervised programs, many ships have special areas just for kids including shallower pools, water slides and play areas. Royal Caribbean cruise line has some of the best on board activities of all of the cruise lines, including on various ships, ice skating or roller blading, mini-golf, table tennis, rock climbing wall, basketball court and on the new Freedom class ships, Liberty, Freedom and Independence of the Seas the flowrider where you can body surf right on ship. These ships also have a special water park area just for kids called the H2O Zone which has a mini lazy river, a small pool, water cannons and lots of fun stuff just for kids.

You can read about the kids programs on each cruise line's web site; just click on the "On Board Activities" tab or link and look for kids and family stuff. The best cruise lines to go on for kids activities would be Disney, Royal Caribbean and Carnival. My recommendation would be Royal Caribbean.

For adults there are always pools and hot tubs and many ship have a Solarium (a cover area) with a pool and hot tubs for adults only. This is in addition to the regular pool and hot tubs for everyone. Some ships have water slides. Ships have great gymnasiums with a variety of equipment. The RC's Freedom and Liberty have THE best gyms I have ever seen on ships.

The cruise director will organize games and activities around the pool, especially on "at sea" days when there is no port stop. They may also have a midnight party on the pool deck with a buffet, music and dancing one night. Each night there will be a show and it is usually run twice so that no matter what time you go to dinner you can see the show. If you go on the Royal Caribbean ships with the ice skating rink they will have a free ice show that is fabulous.

If you are a gambler there will be a casino, except on Disney ships. Each day you will receive a "newsletter" type flier in your cabin that details the time and location of all of the activities on ship the next day. So you will know what is happening and where. Also, most ships will have a channel on the TV in the room that recaps activities for the current and next day. If there is a port stop the next day most ships will have a presentation in the show room or a lounge that talks about where to shop; then this is repeated on TV.

Recommendation:

I have cruised on 4 different lines out of all of the ports that you are interested in. My recommendation for a great cruise is one on the Mariner of the Seas out of Port Canaveral to the Western (or Eastern ) Caribbean. The Mariner is a Voyager class ship and I have been on two of them and they are really nice, plus you can be as informal as on any other cruise. My second recommendation would be a cruise out of Miami on one of Royal Caribbeans Freedom Class ships, the Liberty of the Seas or the Freedom of the Seas. These ships are identical and I have cruised on the freedom and your family will have a great time on one of these ships.

SL7811

I'ma fan of Royals Freedom class ships that cruise the eastern and western carribean from Miami.

We did a family cruise in January of 2007 on the Freedom and everyone LOVED it.

www.freedomoftheseas.com

chevyray8

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/gohome.do

You don't have to go to the Formal Dinners just go to the other places to eat. They have different ports to depart from.

Time travler

All the cruises have formal nights but you can forgo the formal nights and eat at the buffet instead, no problem. So pick whatever cruise interests your whole family.

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