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Six Set Sail on a Cruise
A Big Family Takes a Short Cruise
By Maria T. Olia
On the first night of our cruise, our waiter, Marcello, came to the table and placed five different desserts in front of my 13-year-old son. "Since you couldn't decide which dessert to have, I brought you one of each," said Marcello. My son was stunned to be so indulged – and became an instant cruise fan.
We had just set sail from Los Angeles on Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas for a four-night Baja, Mexico cruise. Each morning the Monarch brought us to a different port – San Diego, Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico – and each day was a new adventure.
For our family of six – myself, my husband, our four kids, sons ages 16, 14 and 13, and our 9-year-old daughter – this was our first ever cruise vacation. And it definitely won't be our last!
I booked two outside cabins on Deck Six – a double for my husband and me and a quad for the kids. The kids' cabin was a bit tight. They had two lower and two upper berths, but the kids really enjoyed the novelty of having bunk beds.
Each night the kids were delighted to find that our cabin steward had snuck into their room during dinner and fashioned a towel animal for them – a bunny, an elephant, a turtle and once a monkey hanging from the ceiling! Yet we hardly spent any time in our cabin because there was way too much to do while in port and on the ship.
We sailed in August during summer vacation, so the cruise really had a family vibe. There were lots of organized activities for kids on board in Royal Caribbean's "Adventure Ocean" program for children ages 3 to 17. There was a video game room and the teen-only disco called Fuel. The Monarch has two large pools, and in the late afternoon my kids went swimming or played a pick-up game at the ship's basketball court while my husband and I dozed from our deck chairs.