Cruising Over Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year

The tree goes up in the atrium on day one, and by day three you have counted eleven strollers in one elevator bank. Holiday sailings are wonderful and expensive, and the port days are the part people get wrong.

My quick take

I like holiday sailings and I do not pretend they are good value. You are paying a premium for a week when the ship is full, the youth club has a waitlist, and a chunk of the world is shut on the one day everyone wants to be ashore.

So decide which thing you actually want. If you want Christmas at sea with the decorations and the carols and the family all in one place, book it and stop comparing the fare to March.

The quick facts

• Fare: Christmas and New Year weeks are usually the most expensive of the year and they rarely drop.
• Occupancy: Expect a genuinely full ship, with more third and fourth berths sold than any other week.
• Kids: Family ships can carry several times their normal child count, so youth clubs and nurseries fill fast.
• Ports: December 25 and January 1 shut shops, museums and sometimes the whole town.
• Booking: Cabins that sleep three or more sell out first, often close to a year ahead.

What holiday week actually buys you

A holiday cruise is not a normal cruise with tinsel on it. It is a different product, priced differently, sold to a different crowd, and run to a different daily schedule.

What you are buying is the logistics being somebody else’s problem. Nobody cooks, nobody hosts, nobody drives four hours with a car full of gifts, and the grandparents get their own bathroom.

The fare is the first shock

The week that contains both Christmas and New Year is reliably one of the two or three priciest weeks on the calendar, alongside the peak of spring break. On the same ship in the same cabin category, it is common to see holiday week priced well above a random week in early December.

Worse, it does not behave like a normal fare. Most sailings soften as final payment approaches and unsold cabins pile up, but holiday week usually fills instead, which means the price you see early is often the best one you will get.

That changes the strategy completely. My guide to deposits, final payment and price drops explains why waiting works on most sailings, and holiday week is the clearest exception to it.

A full ship feels different, not worse

Cruise ships quote a double occupancy number, and in holiday week they sail well past it because families put three and four people in a cabin. The passenger count can run noticeably above the brochure figure without a single extra cabin being sold.

You feel that in specific places rather than everywhere. Elevators, the buffet between noon and 1pm, the pool deck on a sea day, and the line for the main theater are where a full ship shows up.

The kid to adult ratio, honestly

School is out across most of the country for two full weeks, so the child count on a mainstream ship in holiday week can be several times what the same ship carries in October. On the biggest family ships that can mean well over a thousand children aboard.

This is not a complaint and it should not be. Those families paid the same premium you did, and a ship full of excited kids on Christmas morning is genuinely lovely if you are in the mood for it.

It does have practical consequences. Youth clubs run at capacity and sometimes cap sessions, the nursery slots on lines that have one get claimed immediately, and the adults-only sun deck stops being a secret by about day two.

If a quiet ship is what you are after, the pattern is predictable enough to plan around. My roundup of the worst weeks to cruise with kids and the quiet ones maps the school calendar onto sailing dates.

The decorations are better than you expect

Cruise lines take this seriously, partly because it is cheap theater and partly because guests genuinely love it. Expect a tree in the atrium tall enough that the crew need a ladder to decorate it, garlands on every stair rail, and a gingerbread display that people photograph for a week.

Most ships run a tree lighting evening in the first day or two, with a choir made up of crew from a dozen countries. It is the single best hour of the week and it costs nothing.

Programming usually stretches beyond one faith and one date. Menorah lightings, seasonal galas, cookie decorating for kids and a visit from a red suited gentleman are all standard on the big lines, though exactly what runs varies by ship and year.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day onboard

The two evenings are usually built as a pair. Christmas Eve tends to get the carol service and a dressier dinner, and Christmas Day gets a bigger lunch, a gift moment for children and a quieter evening than you would guess.

Religious services are commonly offered over the holidays, and some lines carry clergy on those specific sailings. If it matters to your family, confirm it with the line for your ship rather than assuming, because it is not universal.

New Year’s Eve at sea beats New Year’s Eve alongside

If you get to choose between an itinerary that is at sea on December 31 and one that is docked, I would take the sea day. The ship throws the party either way, but on a sea day the whole passenger list is there for it instead of half of them straggling back from a port that closed at 4pm.

Expect a deck party, a countdown, sparkling wine handed out free and the crew looking as pleased as anyone. Some lines sell a ticketed dinner or a private party on top, which I have never thought was worth it.

The port day problem nobody puts in the brochure

Here is the part that catches people out. The ship runs a full holiday program, so it is easy to forget that the town you are docking in has the day off.

December 25 and January 1 are close to universal shutdowns across Europe and the Americas. Shops are dark, markets do not set up, public transit runs a Sunday timetable or less, and some of Europe’s headline museums close outright on both dates.

Then there is the day after. Much of the English speaking world, including a long list of Caribbean islands, also treats December 26 as a public holiday, so a Boxing Day call can be almost as quiet as Christmas itself.

This is the single thing I would check before booking a holiday itinerary, not after. My guide to port days that land on a holiday covers how to look up a specific city and date, which is the only reliable way to do it.

What still works on December 25

Plenty, as long as you stop trying to shop. Beaches, coastlines, hiking trails, harbor walks and viewpoints do not observe public holidays, and neither does the weather.

In the Caribbean the useful pattern is that the outdoors stays open while the buildings close. Even the national park visitor centers in the US Virgin Islands shut for Thanksgiving and December 25, but the trails and the sand are exactly as they were the day before.

Resorts and beach clubs are the other reliable option, since hospitality is one of the few sectors that works straight through. Ship sold excursions also tend to run, because the operators are contracted in advance, though there are fewer of them and they sell out early.

• Usually open: Beaches, national park trails, cathedrals and churches, hotel day passes, ship excursions.
• Usually closed: Museums, government sites, banks, most shops, many independent tour offices.
• Unpredictable: Restaurants, taxis, ferries and public transit, which often run but on reduced schedules.

Thanksgiving sailings are a different animal

Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday in November and gives most families a long weekend rather than two weeks. That shapes the whole product.

Thanksgiving sailings skew shorter, often four to five nights out of Florida or the Gulf, and they are usually cheaper than the Christmas and New Year block. They are also heavily American, which is exactly the point if you want turkey and football at sea.

The port day problem is much smaller here. Thanksgiving is a US holiday, so Cozumel, Nassau and most of the Caribbean carry on with a completely ordinary Thursday.

Weather is the other thing December changes

Winter in the Caribbean is beautiful and it is also the windy season. The trade winds strengthen through December and January, which is lovely on a balcony and much less lovely at a port that can only be reached by tender.

I would not build a holiday itinerary around a single tender only port I badly wanted to see. The pattern behind it is covered in my piece on why winter cancels Caribbean tender days, and it is worth understanding before you pick between two similar itineraries.

Europe in December is a separate calculation entirely. Short days, cold rain and a 4pm sunset are the trade for one of the best seasonal experiences in cruising, and my guide to the best cruise ports for European Christmas markets is the place to start if that is the version you want.

Booking, cabins and the connecting door scramble

The cabins that go first are not the suites. They are connecting pairs and the standard cabins that legitimately sleep four, because that is what a family of five needs and there are never enough of them.

If you need one of those, book roughly a year out and accept that you are choosing from a thinner list than usual. Waiting for a deal on a connecting cabin in holiday week is how you end up on two different decks.

Getting there in late December is the risky part

The cruise is not the fragile bit of a holiday trip. The flight is, because you are flying in the busiest and most weather disrupted stretch of the year, and a missed connection on December 23 is not easily rebooked.

Fly in the day before at minimum, and two days before if you are connecting through anywhere that gets snow. A hotel night is cheap compared to chasing a ship to its next port.

Insurance is worth more than usual this week for the same reason. The value is not the medical piece, it is the trip interruption piece on the one week of the year when everything is full and there is no spare seat to rebook you into.

The quiet week hiding right next to the expensive one

Early December, roughly from the start of the month until the schools break up, is one of the softest pricing windows of the entire year. Same ship, same ports, same weather, and a fraction of the children.

The ships are already decorated by then, which is the part people do not realize. You get the tree, the garlands and the seasonal menus without the fare, the crowds or the closed port day.

Quick answers

Are Christmas cruises worth the extra money?

They are if the point is having your family together somewhere nobody has to cook or host. They are not if you are mainly buying sunshine, because early December delivers the same weather for far less.

How far in advance should I book a holiday cruise?

Around a year ahead for anything that sleeps three or more, and as early as you reasonably can for everything else. Holiday week tends to fill rather than discount, so late booking is a losing game here.

Do shops and tours close on Christmas Day in cruise ports?

Shops, museums and most independent operators close, and in some towns nearly everything does. Beaches, trails, hotel day passes and ship booked excursions generally still run.

Are there a lot of kids on a Thanksgiving or Christmas cruise?

Yes, and on a big family ship in the Christmas and New Year block it can be several times the normal number. Premium and luxury lines stay much calmer, and adult only lines stay calm entirely.

Is New Year’s Eve better at sea or in port?

At sea, in my opinion, unless the port has real fireworks over the water. A docked New Year’s Eve usually means a town that closed early and a party that starts half empty.

Final word

A holiday cruise is a very good way to spend Christmas and a very poor way to save money, and the people who enjoy them most are the ones who booked knowing both things. Go in expecting a full, loud, decorated ship and you will have a great week.

Just do the port homework before you pay the deposit rather than the night before you sail. Look up every scheduled call against its own local calendar, and if December 25 lands somewhere that will be completely shut, pick the itinerary that puts you on a beach or at sea that day instead.

More on this topic: browse every guide on weather, crowds and conditions.