Our Eight Day Eastern Caribbean Cruise with Kids

For our first cruise we chose to do an eight night Eastern Caribbean cruise which we booked through a travel agent. Gary and I have never been to the Caribbean and if we were going to fly all the way to Florida, we might as well make it worth our time by doing a longer one! We chose Carnival Cruise Line due to the affordability and the family-friendly nature aboard the Carnival Sunshine. Fifteen tips for first-time cruisers can be found here.

Family in Grand Turk

Here was our itinerary:

Fifteen Tips for First Time Cruisers

Gary and I never envisioned cruising as middle-aged adults as we anticipated trying it out once the kids moved out. However, various friends of ours went cruising with their kids and after looking into it we realized that there were family-friendly cruises that were affordable for our family of five.

Grand Turk Beach

Using a travel agent we booked an 8-night Easter Caribbean cruise with Carnival Cruise Lines.  Our decision was made based on affordability, family-friendliness, the number of ports and their locations, and finally the dates–you can read about our trip here. Being that we had never travelled this way before we had a lot of questions. We asked friends and read online as much as we could and here are some pieces of advice I would offer you:

Fifteen Tips for First Time Cruisers

Chapmans Cruise the Caribbean

Every year we have one big trip and for 2017 it's an eight night Caribbean cruise with the kids! This is not something that I planned months in advance which is unusual for me. Usually I research and book early but we had no idea until recently that we would have two weeks totally free to do as we wished. We always envisioned an Alaskan cruise with our kids but you can't do that during Spring Break and I wouldn't mind some sunshine right now.