A cruise is like having a baby-if you have never done it, it's very hard to really understand it when someone else explains it. We took a 7 day Carribean cruise on Royal Carribean Cruiseline, and it was truly indescribable. I felt like a rich lady!  I am very overprotective, but I felt totally safe letting my kids go to the camp they had onboard, which was open practically all the time. You could drop off and pick up whenever you wanted-no set times. My son was safe and felt grown up at the teen camp too. Mostly we kept the kids with us, but they went to camp at least for some time most days. Going ashore at port was easy and very doable with kids. The food is indescribable. We met many people who had cruised many different cruise lines (Carnival, Holland America, etc) and all agreed Royal Carribean was either better or just as good. I doubt we would bother trying a different line next time, and there WILL be a next time!