Why my kids liked Celebrity more than Carnival and Royal

My wife and I recently decided to book a short 3-night cruise on Celebrity Silhouette over Easter weekend, on the tail end of my kids’ spring break.

I’m not sure who we were more nervous about – my parents, who joined us for their first cruise ever, or my two children, ages 9 and 7, who were taking their first Celebrity cruise. 

After all, the median age on a Celebrity ship is typically far closer to my parents’ ages than my kids, and we’ve read reviews that called Celebrity a much less kid-friendly cruise line than Carnival and Royal Caribbean, which we’ve sailed many times as a family.

Related: Here’s how Celebrity Cruises deals with rough seas

To put it mildly, we didn’t agree with any negative reviews. In fact, both of my kids liked Celebrity better than either of those cruise lines in several different ways.

To be fair, there’s a lot that my kids liked better on Carnival and Royal Caribbean. For example, they were a bit disappointed when we boarded the ship and they discovered there wasn’t a waterslide or arcade. 

They’re also a big fan of the candy stores that are commonly found on Carnival and Royal Caribbean’s ships, and while some of Celebrity’s ships have them, Celebrity Silhouette does not.

However, they quickly got over all of these things.

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Why my kids liked Celebrity so much

For one thing, my kids loved the general lack of crowds on the ship compared to the other two “family-friendly” cruise lines. As an example, when we boarded around noon, we went straight to the pool. 

The shallower of the two main pools had about 10 children in it and didn’t feel crowded whatsoever. On the other hand, it’s common for Carnival pools to feel overwhelmingly packed, especially on embarkation day.

There’s also the kids club, which Celebrity calls Camp at Sea. Don’t get me wrong – they thoroughly enjoy Adventure Ocean on Royal Caribbean ships and Camp Ocean on Carnival, but there can be a lot of kids. We sailed on Wonder of the Seas in December, and there were hundreds of children in Adventure Ocean at certain times.

There were certainly more kids on our sailing than you’d typically find on Celebrity. After all, we sailed over Easter weekend, when many schools (including ours) were on Spring Break. 

But even with the elevated number of children, there were a total of 19 in my kids’ group. Not at the camp at the same time – 19 total kids registered for their age group. This meant it was easier to make new friends, and in my 7-year-old son’s case, much less competition for the four Xbox setups they had.

Also, they enjoyed some of the unique programming for kids. While a silent disco on the pool deck has become a cruising staple, Celebrity’s Camp at Sea offered one just for the kids in the camp. On Easter Sunday, the camp hosted an egg hunt on the ship’s wonderful Lawn Club on the top of the ship.

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Celebrity Cruises is more kid-friendly than you might think

Celebrity has a reputation for being a cruise line that caters to adults, and for good reason. Even on a Spring Break week, there were just a few dozen kids on board (as opposed to literally thousands on some Royal Caribbean ships). And as mentioned, some of the kid-targeted amenities like splash pads and arcades aren’t there.

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However, there’s a lot to like about Celebrity for a family vacation. We were admittedly skeptical heading into the trip, but as we were getting ready to head home afterwards, my 9-year-old said that Camp at Sea was her new favorite kids club on a cruise ship. That’s high praise – she’s been on over a dozen ships from four other cruise lines.

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