Cruise FAQ's

Frequently Asked Questions

To join this cruise, you will be booking through our travel agency, Fora Travel. Use the booking form at the bottom of the page to start a booking inquiry. You can contact us through WhatsApp, Facebook messenger or email to ask questions. You can find our contact information at the bottom of this page. Use the form at the bottom of the page to get us all the information we need to get you the most current accurate pricing and book you into the worldschooling group. Once we have everything we need to book, we will send you a link to a secure credit card vault to add the payment info. You can also call us with the card info. We book directly through the cruise line's back end, as a travel agent, so the prices are always the same as on the cruiseline website plus the additional travel agent perks we can usually get for you.

Read more from others who booked with us about the process: POST

No, we do not charge anything to organize worldschooling cruises. As travel agents, we book directly with the cruise line and are compensated by the cruiseline directly. Your cabin price will be exactly the same as if you were to book directly with the cruise line. We do have some additional perks and amenities that we can offer on some cruiselines depending on which cabin you book.

Please utilize us as a resource for all your travel booking needs unrelated to our Worldschooling trips. It takes a lot of time and effort to make the Worldschooling trips happen. Your support with other trip bookings helps support this effort to ensure we can continue.

No, only families who booked through us are considered part of the worldschooling group. If you want to sail on your own, you are welcome to book yourself. If you want to be a part of the worldschooling cruise group, you need to contact us to book. We spend countless hours putting these group trips together and promoting them to make sure that you have a great group of families to travel with. We do not charge anything for that service, apart from the commission the cruise lines pay us naturally.

Additionally, all the families who book into the group are connected in a Whatsapp group early on to get to know each other and make other plans before and after the cruise.

Worldschooling cruises are DEEPLY educational in their nature. There are multiple public cruise ship organized talks during each sailing on how the ships and operations work that kids and adults can attend. The social experience of spending time with a group of diverse kids from different families in our group is often more educational and valuable than school itself. Some cruise lines offer additional enrichment opportunities throughout the cruise with talks on different topics. There are trivia and game shows daily that can be used as an educational component. We usually try to request the engineer and ship manager to come and give a talk to the kids, however that's subject to ship's approval. Children as young as 10 can have the kind of freedom on the ship that they can't find anywhere else and that, in itself, becomes an incredibly learning and growing experience for many families.

Aside from what was mentioned, there is no additional scheduled educational programming to worldschooling cruises, because the cruise experience is extremely scheduled out and busy with activities in itself. Having other families join in the fun makes it even busier as the kids and adults tend to enjoy the company of like-minded friends.. Most families find that they decide to forego school all together and just let the kids enjoy the freedom and the friendships. We have also found that families appreciate having group time and alone time and adding more activities to what is already scheduled by the ship creates too much stress.

With the cruise ship's scheduled activities and programming, plus having other families join in the fun makes the sailing pretty busy, as the kids and adults tend to enjoy the company of like-minded friends over organized activities. We have found that families appreciate having group time and alone time and adding more activities to what is already scheduled by the ship creates too much stress.

For that reason, we limited scheduled group activities to meet and greet on the first day and then a group dinner that same evening so get to know each other better. That tends to be enough to get everyone acquanted. The kids become instant friends and the adults usually break out into slightly smaller groups of people they resonate with and spend more time with. Depending on the dynamic and personalities, some groups do a lot of things together, others spend more time in smaller groups and occasionally meet all together for parties or dinners.

We usually try to request the engineer and ship manager to come and give a talk to the kids, however that's subject to ship's approval.

There will be a way to communicate with the whole group on the ship, so you can always request company for any activities. All cabins will be linked for dining reservations so it is easy to eat together or separately depending on each family's wishes on daily basis.

Sea days are the fun days. If you are new to cruising, you might not know yet, just how much fun sea days are. Port days are great for exploring new places, but they can be exhausting and don't really allow any time to explore all the fun features and activities the ship offers. Consecutive sea days give you more of a routine and plenty of time to enjoy your worldschooling group, connect with others, join in the ship's activities and explore the floating "city". The longer I have ever had was 11 consecutive days at sea with the worldschooling group and it was one of the most fun experiences I have ever had.

We do organize Group excursions on many of our Worldschooling Cruises. This is an additional cost to the cruise fare, however we do negotiate very good pricing through the tour operators to keep costs as low as possible. In most cases, it will be much cheaper than booking excursions on your own. You will pay Every Avenue Travel directly for the excursions we organize. We will send out a list of the excursions we will be organizing via the WhatsApp chat for that specific cruise with all of the details you need.

Generally our goal is to always make these excursions as affordable as possible. We organize these trips the way we would do it for our own family. Looking for the biggest deal and the most epic experience and try to balance that out. We spend quite a bit of time searching for and reaching out to local tour operators, negotiating with them on rates and figuring out the best tour itineraries.

One of the biggest goals we have as a company is to always work with locals so that our money goes to people who live there rather than to a call center/corporation. What we try to do is outline some experiences that cannot be done somewhere else. If a destination has something very unique to it, we will do it, as long as it’s in a reasonable price range for that experience.

For example: hobbiton in Tauranga, or glow worm caves in New Zealand, snorkeling in Barrier reef in Honduras, or interacting with sloths. Usually the walking tours in European ports for 2-3 hours tend to be the cheapest options: $30-50 pp

The more intensive excursions are about 80-100 pp, like all day tours or something unique. Once in a while there will be one that is $150 pp, but they are usually really special.

You are always welcome to join or skip any of the group excursions, based on your family's goals or budget.

Yes, on all cruiselines and ships, there's an ability to communicate through the ship's app. Your designated organizer will create a group with everyone's stateroom numbers, so the group can text. Prior to the cruise, there's a WhatsApp group where all communication takes place, as well as a google document with the detailed information that each family chose to share about themself, and tips for the cruise.

Most ships are so large that sea sickness is not an issue, even for those who experience car sickness and small boat sickness. They have very strong stabilizers and the crew does their best to avoid bad weather. In our experience, 2 week ocean crossings usually have about 2 rocky days that do not impact most people. We do recommend bringing some sea sickness pills and patches just in case, but they are rarely needed.

I think that's a question you need to ask yourself. We have never had an issue whether families did not get along.

During our past cruises, introverts have enjoyed sporadic company of other introverts, while their kids were able to be social and extroverts had fun with the whole group. No matter what you will have the perfect experience for you. The more you put into it the more you will get out of it. Be yourself, be authentic, and make time to connect with others. You'll be so happy you did!

Find out what others said who sailed with our groups: POST

We always quote prices with port taxes and fees included.

INCLUDED:

port taxes and fees
cabin
food in main restaurants, buffet and most cafes
water, tea, coffee
scheduled ship activities
kids and teen clubs
gym
shows
water and body slides

EXCLUDED:

(this list is not exclusive and differs ship to ship, but it is a general guide to what generally isn't included)

spa
thermal suite
premium coffee
beverages aside from tea, water and coffee
wifi
gratuities ( $16-25 per day per person on most ships)
excursions
casino
specialty restaurants
some activities (like go-karts, escape room, VR, arcade)

Generally speaking, most families on a budget can get by with not spending much more than the cruise fare.

Additional expenses would be for optional things like wifi, alcohol, casino, spa treatments and excursions.

Gratuities are automatically put on your Onboard Ship Balance and on most ships and vary from $16-$25 per person, but can be removed or adjusted by visiting the guest services desk on the last day of the sailing in favor of tipping in cash directly to the staff.

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