<p>Have cruised more than a dozen times and have enjoyed all the cruises I’ve taken. Have been on Royal Caribbean, Celebrity,Carnival, Holland America, Disney, and Cunard. Have not been on any of the more exclusive lines. I’ve actually enjoyed the Carnival cruises I’ve been on. Celebrity and Royal Caribbean are my favorites though.</p>
<p>Which cruise lines are somewhat casual, but not overly full with young/partying or old/retired travelers? </p>
<p>We liked Norwegian (NCL) the last time. EPIC was a big ship (too big for some of the travelers), but it was great for us. The freestyle dining seemed ideal, but that may have been due the our intense shore excursion scheduling. The rooms were small, but the balcony made up for it. We’d consider Norwegian again, but we’d want variety of a different ship.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that people have their personal preferences/biases about the different cruises lines. Note that there are 6 mass markets lines that everybody is talking about. Looking at brochure pics don’t really tell you that much because there is overlap. The 6 lines are competing for the same passengers.</p>
<p>We have cruised more than 2 dozen times and have sailed on Princess, Carnival, Royal C. Holland America and Celebrity. Have enjoyed all our cruises. They all have pluses and minuses. </p>
<p>When cruising with our teens they prefer Carnival over the others simply because the teen program and hanging out, so to speak, were the best. Even though our next cruise is on Princess to South America, we would do Carnival in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>I’ve only done Holland America so I can’t say anything about the others–but I have loved Holland. Ship feels very upscale!</p>
<p>In terms of ports, I’ve done Belize City, Santo Tomas in Guatemala, Mahogany Bay in Honduras twice (favorite place ever), Grand Cayman, Holland’s port in the Bahamas, and Cozumel twice. I cruise with my BF’s family and we do tend to do excursions as we’re all fairly active. </p>
<p>-Belize City–we did cave tubing, there’s a 1/2 mile hike through the rainforest after a 45-60 minute bus ride through Belize. It is a really cool experience, and it makes you appreciate how smooth American roads are 
-Santo Tomas–you port at an actual cargo port, but the country is gorgeous. We did a hike and swimming in the waterfalls at a rainforest national park. One of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had
-Mahogany Bay–we did an excursion the first year (snorkeling) at this gorgeous resort, and then sat on the beach the second year. There’s also ziplining, scuba, and a lot of other excursions. Overall, my favorite place to go just for the beauty
-Grand Cayman–you tender to the island, which was choppy for us. We did the excursion where you went to the dolphin rescue area and swam with the dolphins/had them do tricks, etc. and then went across the street to the Cayman Turtle Farm. Didn’t do much else other than walked around downtown, which has decent shopping and lots of banks
-Bahamas–did horseback riding on the beach and in the water. The beach is very nice and expansive, but there’s not much else to do.
-Cozumel–one year we did scuba and the next we did 4-wheeling through the jungle. Both were fun, and of course you have to get the yard drinks!</p>
<p>We’ve done Wind Star, Holland America, Disney and one I can’t remember at the moment to Mexico. We’ve liked them all. I didn’t expect to like Disney, but I really did. So fun with kids and nice to let them run around together. We traveled with 3 young cousins and they had so much fun.</p>
<p>We’ve decided against a cruise for this trip and will be staying in Pompano Beach at a Mom and Pop resort that we’ve enjoyed in the past. Right on the beach.</p>
<p>Thanks for the good input! DH has been looking at cruise videos on youtube. (That was a good way to learn about NCL Epic last time). He mentioned that he does NOT want to wear a jacket and tie every night. I’d probably also prefer not to be dressy every night. Based on this, which cruise lines should we rule out?</p>
<p>NCL has “freestyle” dining - no fixed dining (you eat when you want, just as at a restaurant) and no formal nights. They do have “Dress Up or Not” nights, but many people choose the “not.”</p>
<p>Even on cruises that do have formal nights, they’re only once or twice for a 7 day cruise. And if you don’t want to dress, you can go to the buffet or specialty restaurants and not dress up. On the other nights, ties and jackets are not required. “Nice casual” is sufficient.</p>
<p>I would not rule out a particular cruise company because of the dressiness. I only dress up for cruise formal nights and the wife’s office party. The rest of the time I dress in vintage Costco jeans and shirts :).</p>
<p>Thanks - We thought every night in the dining room would be formal. Maybe DH could wear a blazer on the plane if he didn’t want to fuss with a garment bag.</p>
<p>Regarding teens, our daughters have been cruising with us since age 5 and have yet to participate in a single teen type activity… Time flies very fast on week cruises, and I would really not be very concerned about “booooring” type proclamations. </p>
<p>Now if you sail out to Hawaii or so on a 14 day cruise with 9 sea days, or a transatlantic, that’s a different story, but on a week long with 3-5 ports, not so much.</p>
<p>We like the idea of cruising, but we’d certainly not like it with too many sea days. Sailing transatlantic would not be my cup of tea.</p>
<p>^^Colorado_mom:</p>
<p>Every cruise we’ve been on has had some sort of formal nights. Holland America is much more formal of a ship because of the more mature clientele. </p>
<p>Your H should plan on one suit and one blazer and a few nice button down casual shirts for the evening dinners no matter what cruise line you take. To me, that is the one drawback of cruises…but I think you could probably “opt out” of those nights if you wanted to…most evenings people do wear nicely casual clothing…Carnival to me was the least formal, but I didn’t care for that line for a number of reasons.</p>
<p>Try not to take the evening dinner at a set schedule…this way you can spend as much time on the island and then shower and leisurely get ready for dinner a bit later.
We never did this, but I suppose you could just stay in your shorts or bathingsuits and eat dinner at their casual buffet upstairs instead of the dining room…</p>
<p>PS: We took a 7 day cruise around Hawaii on NCL once…fly into Honoloulu and cruise the isalnds and dock in Honoloulu again…</p>
<p>Interesting. Our 7 day NCL cruise (Freestyle dining) did not have a formal night, but I read the longer ones did. On that trip we wanted luggage light for other travels, and we did fine w/o a jacket for DH. (I had some dresses that travelled fine in the suitcase. Ha, one more than planned due to a lost-luggage scare.).</p>
<p>I’ve been on Princess, Royal, Carnival and Disney. I liked Princess the best I think. We too like the Port Intensive cruises where we arrive in the AM and leave at dinner time. I enjoyed a cruise out of Galveston and the ports it hit, although I’m a wee bit tired of Cozumel after 4 trips including one long vacation in Cozumel not by cruise ship. But if you’ve never been there it’s a good port because everything is close: beaches, shopping etc. We loved Progresso since it’s not terribly cruise ship built-up. The kids enjoyed cruising with us when they were younger but by 17 they didn’t enjoy it as much as they were “tweens”…too old for the kid stuff and too young for the disco stuff. We try to go every 3 years or so…seems like a good interval. I also like the common (and less expensive) St. Maarten, St. Thomas, etc. itneraries. I’m going to try NCL next probably somewhere warm just for the experience if not getting to dressed up for dinner.</p>
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<p>Come with on the March 30th EPIC cruise to Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten.</p>
<p>I am happy to answer any EPIC questions. We loved it - just want the next cruise to have some onboard variety.</p>
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NCL doesn’t have formal nights on any of its cruises. It has “Dress Up or Not” nights.</p>
<p>I guess all our nights on NCL were “Dress Up or Not” nights. I don’t remember special designations. Everybody was dressed neatly, some quite fancy. I made sure I had tie shoes for our Ice Bar night - there was no way I was doing that is sandals!</p>
<p>My kids are in college, one here CO and one in Boston. I asked the CO kid if she thought we should consider an early January cruise as a family. She surprised me and said they’d prefer skiing 
But I have not ruled out a cruise for we warm blooded parents later in the winter ;)</p>
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They don’t make a big deal of it on NCL - that’s part of their “brand.” You had to look for the designation in the daily schedule. Otherwise, you missed it!</p>