Family Cruise? - Washington,DC

I have gone on the 1st week of January. We were surrounded by Santa's. Apparently they all go on a cruise together for a Santa convention after Christmas time.

Carnival is the least expensive, and extremely kid friendly. We did 5 nights, and our kids tickets were only $99 each. If you don't drink a lot of alcohol, a cruise can be very inexpensive. Once it's paid for, it's paid for.

We went to Grand Cayman and Cozumel and we had a fantastic time. Grand Cayman was the most beautiful place I'd ever been. The best part about the cruise is you don't have to spend tons of money. Eat breakfast on the ship. Pack snacks in your bags to get you through you time on land, and get back on the ship for a late lunch early dinner. Other than a taxi fee, we spend close to nothing while on land. My family of 4 spend $80 the entire vacation. Seriously. Your trip can easily be under $2k!

You might have to scale down to a 4 day cruise for that price for 5 people....just a quick google search will show that. I've heard that Royal Caribbean is the way to go....
Ugh..you've got more spunk than me--no WAY can I start planning now for next December! LOL

First of all, $2,000 for five people around the holidays will be impossible.
Cruises tend to be more expensive then. You might be able to get a
4 or 5 day cruise from Florida for that price on Carnival. If you go onto
Vacationstogo.com you can see all the cruise lines and prices for next year.

My DH as booked our cruise for my 40th birthday, while it might not be for Christmas I would highly recommend it. Depending on your budget will determine what cruise you take. We will be on a Royal Carribean cruise ship. We decided that one because we received tons of feedback about what is best and hands down Royal Carribean came in at #1. We are driving to Florida ourselves.

vacationstogo.com has the best deals and they have never screwed up.
a travel agent that we paid full price to in order to guarantee a perfect honeymoon repeatedly screwed up.

You must realize that the ship will have more kids than any other time of year. The cruise workers HATE dealing with kids. We traveled the week after the kids went back to school and the workers were tired and advised us NEVER to travel during school vacation.

If you go to yahoo travel or some of the other places you can find lots of trips that would be less than that. I don't know how old the kids are but if they are in elementary school they might enjoy Disney the best, if older than I would pick one that still had a kids club but that had more activities like the rock climbing walls or surfing pools, etc....it really depends on what they like.

I think that doing Amtrak to the place you get on the ship might be fun too. From your area there are several that go down the Florida way. But many go out of other ports too.

I would say go talk to a travel agent that has been around forever and tell them your budget and see what they can do. Depends on length of the cruise, cruiseline, packages chosen(if your family drink pop consider a package or going cold turkey for the cruise) also in this case since you are a year out going during cold and flu season and inclimate weather could occur purchase a decent travel insurance or make sure the credit card you book with has it as you wouldn't want your money disappearing due to a blizzard or an illness. Prices for older children are higher, remember there are taxes, port fees, fuel taxes and gratuity. Please get full information so that you are not disappointed with the outcome. You may have to up your budget a bit and figure out how to pay for it as even a short cruise may be. A bit higher.