COVID-era cruising is a completely different animal, understandably so, but if you are bringing kids on the ship, expect to be barred from many of the activities and areas. Unvaccinated guests may only attend certain showings of the performances (which book up very quickly), may only dine at certain times in certain areas, and are unwelcome at many of the ship’s events and activities. Our large family group had booked my time dining, but you can’t do that with kids, as children are not allowed in the my time dining designated area. Slots in the kids club are extremely limited (due to reasonable COVID restrictions), so you as parents are barred from those areas and activities as well. Furthermore, you are not allowed to get off the ship unless you have booked a ship-affiliated excursion. Expect to spend a lot more than you usually would. You can’t even go into port with kids to look around the shops without an excursion booking.

The staff has been amazing and has tried very hard to be accommodating and make things better, but facts are facts. There’s not much reason to take kids on this cruise at this point. I wish they had communicated the restrictions up front, but we got hit with all these limitations mid-stride.

Apart from these issues, the food and staff have been wonderful. The ship is clean and looks nice, but doesn’t have any of the amenities of other ships, as it’s dry dock was scaled back considerably due to financial constraints of the company during COVID closures. Read more