Many people sail on Celebrity Cruises because the line generally has fewer kids onboard compared to its sister brand Royal Caribbean. Celebrity ships don't have the rock walls, waterslides, Flowriders, and mini golf courses that are available on nearly every Royal Caribbean ship.
Celebrity does welcome kids and teens with dedicated spaces, clubs, and activities, but it does not really cater to them. A teenager or even a younger kid should be able to have fun on a Celebrity sailing, but that fun won't include ice skating, laser tag, bumper cars, and some of the other activities offered on Royal Caribbean's newer ships.
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Kids and teens can still take part in cruise ship staples like eating way too much pizza, drinking too much soda, and setting new records for soft-serve consumption. But on most Celebrity sailings you won't see as many people under the age of 18 as you do on many Royal Caribbean sailings.
Celebrity Cruises, however, does have kids onboard and it offers a pool complex with bar service, hot tubs, and lounge chairs that are off-limits to guests under the age of 18. The cruise line, however, does make some exceptions to the age limit and that has some Celebrity passengers fairly angry.
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Celebrity offers family Solarium hours
Both Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises offer covered adults-only Solarium areas on their ships. Some of the Royal Caribbean Solariums have retractible roofs while others have permanent roofs and a few are open-air.
Celebrity Cruises President Laura Hodges Bethge was asked some pointed questions about the Solarium area on her cruise line's ships during a recent Ask Me Anything on the Cruise Critic message boards.
A user identified as Hrhdhdh posed the question during the AMA, "Why are there family hours in the Solarium?"
They also shared their reasoning for asking the question.
"I enjoy the adults-only Solarium. I use it in the late afternoon when supposedly I should be getting ready for dinner. I'd like to enjoy child-free time, too, and do not appreciate having to guess if 'family hours' will be announced during a cruise (when the website states otherwise), the poster asked.
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Celebrity's Hodges Bethge tried to answer
"To accommodate guests under the age of 16 during colder weather, the Solarium does offer family hours on select sailings in Alaska, The Baltics, and Antarctica from 5-7 p.m. daily. Our goal always is for everyone to have a positive experience. While there are some instances where this could change, we will do our best to make sure you have ample notice to make sure you can plan around this for a better cruise experience," she wrote.
The problem is that her answer is not fully valid. It's common for the cruise line to offer Family Hours in the Solarium on warm-weather sailings out of Florida. Many of the people on the message board, including the one who asked the original question shared that with her.
"Thank you for the reply. I regret to inform you that 'Family Hours' are not limited to the sailings you identified. Another example of the lack of consistency at Celebrity. Full transparency would indicate that the hours you say are the actual ones should be noted on the website so people can have the information before booking and sailing," Hrhdhdh.
Other posters shared specific examples.
"This does not explain why there were Family Hours on a Panama Canal sailing, There was definitely no cold weather unless you consider low to mid-80s cold weather," DaKahuna wrote.
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"There were family hours on our Caribbean cruise. We had toddlers in the hot tub outside of family hours as well. It was a challenge to be in the hot tub trying to carry on adult conversations," 3boyz2keep added.
Celebrity appears to offer Family Hours in the Solarium during cruises where there is bad weather, including rain, which limits the availability of the outdoor pool decks. It also appears that on some ships sailing from Florida (and maybe others) Family Hours are routine and offered every day, not just in bad weather situations.
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