The Arosa cruiseline is a German-based river cruise company that has many promotions geared towards family. In fact, we booked primarily because all 4 of our children were 100% free on board our 5-night river cruise down the Danube. I almost couldn’t believe it when I saw it advertised, but I added the rooms to my cart on the website, and there it was, all free. As a family of 6 we stayed in two separate 3-person cabins for the same prices as just two adults. Unreal. Full cost breakdown coming soon, but here are the details I wish I knew when booking.
1. Book a ‘family cruise’ (or not)
Not all Arosa cruises offer family friendly activities, so make sure on the website that you are choosing from the “family cruise” menu. It’s fairly straightforward, so not going to dwell on it, but I’ll include a screenshot of the tab you should be looking for below:
If you don’t want kids running around, maybe you should opt for one of the many non-family cruises! On our family cruise of about 200 people, however, there were maybe only 15 kids total.
2. Book a table on night one
When you board an Arosa cruise, they announce that on the first evening, you can meet the restaurant staff at a certain time to reserve your table. We honestly didn’t fully understand how important this was, but I went to check it out anyways. It turns out that this process ensures that your family has a set, reserved table for the entire cruise – breakfast, lunch, dinner. It cost 5 euros per day per room, but it was money well spent. The mealtime rush was my least favorite part of the cruise with people rushing to the buffet, so the last thing I wanted to worry about was finding a table for 8 people (our family of 6 plus grandparents). We always knew, anytime of day, that the table was ours and it served as a nice easy meeting point, too.
3. Kids club activities
We were aboard the DONNA ship, which did not have a dedicated kids club area (I think some ships have this, but ours did not). For us, the kids club happened about three times a day starting the day after we set sail. Each event was an hour or two long and included crafting, pizza making and the evening timeslot was always games (8:30 – 10:00pm). The ship functions in both German and English, but all of the other kids were German speaking. Our kids are bilingual, so they jumped right in, but the kids club hosts spoke English and would have accommodated English speakers, too. Although, I would think game night across both languages may have changed the dynamics, so something to consider if you only have one English speaking child.
4. Check the full itinerary before booking
We specifically booked our cruise for two ports: Vienna and Bratislava. That being said, there was another ship during the same week that only docked in Bratislava for a few hours, so we purposefully avoided booking that cruise due to the limited time in port. Double check the itinerary before you book your ship.
5. Coffee
We had a “Premium All Inclusive” booking. I honestly don’t remember choosing it and it may have just been the default option. With this type of booking we received ‘free’ house wine and beer (the sparkling wine was the best in my opinion) plus soft drinks. We also read that it included coffee and specialty coffees. I overlooked the part where it said ONLY AT BREAKFAST. If I knew the coffee hours were so strict, I would have brought my favorite to-go coffee cup to have one more coffee on the go for after breakfast. I should note that in good ol’ German tradition, there was usually a half hour in the afternoon for Kaffeezeit where you could also go grab a coffee (usually 3:30-4:00pm). All coffee or specialty coffee was from a standard coffee-making machine, which was fairly decent.
6. German and English
The ship itself operates in both German and English. All announcements are made in German first, and then repeated in English. All staff spoke both German and English, in fact some spoke English better than German. However, when we showed up to the English safety briefing the first night (for my sake plus my dad, who was with us), we were the only English-speakers on board. Since we speak German (some of us ein bischen and some of us natively, and the kids somewhere in between), we didn’t notice any real inconvenience with the language split.
7. Don’t forget bathing suit
Our ship featured a slightly heated, tiny pool, plus a sauna on board. Remember to pack kid and grown-up bathing suits for both. Although, spoiler alert, German sauna rules applied all but one hour each day which meant that bathing suits weren’t actually necessary or allowed, if you know what I mean.
8. Ship layout
Our ship (Arosa DONNA) had three floors plus the top deck. On the first floor every room allowed 3 people and had a window outside. On the second floor each room fit only two people and had a small balcony. On the third floor there was a lounge, restaurant, sauna, gym, and a handful of staterooms. In total the ship featured around 100 rooms, and had a max capacity of 280 passengers. No major words of wisdom other than to consider whether you would actually want a balcony with young kids. For us, traveling with a two-year-old, I did not want that risk or worry, but with older kids it may be nice (I think our 8 and 10-year-olds would have really enjoyed the breeze!).
Since we needed two staterooms, and connecting rooms were not available, we opted for rooms across the hall from each other. It was nice to be able to have kids cross the hallway easily back and forth, plus the main reason: we had a view out both sides of the ship. If something exciting was happening on one side or another, we always had a vantage point.
9. Bring water bottles
Water bottles were a must on Arosa ships. There were refill stations always available and while there are carafes and glasses you can bring to your room, we always love having the kids’ bottles with us to keep them hydrated. We would refill before we headed onto shore and anytime someone needed a refill. We loved having potable water so accessible around the ship.
10. Skip the fancy outfits
While ocean cruises often have dinners with formal attire or at least a bit of a dresscode, river cruises really just had a no-shorts policy. Keep that in mind for warm weather cruising, but otherwise jeans or any long pants for the kids were perfectly fine. We brought a nicer outfit each just in case we felt we were underdressed, and for the most part we didn’t use them.
We learned so much from our Arosa ship and there’s plenty more to share about what five nights aboard looks like with kids. Check out the details of each port of call on upcoming posts, and subscribe to follow along for more travel breakdowns.
