10 Reasons to Cruise New England and Canada on Carnival

By Kim Knox Beckius, About.com Guide

Worried a New England/Canada cruise will seem like a snooze to your kids? Even though there's unlimited, 24-hour ice cream? Or that the close confines of your Carnival Glory cruise ship cabin will leave you all screaming: "Too much family togetherness!"? There's such a diverse and jam-packed slate of activities aboard and ashore that even hard-to-please teens won't be bored for a moment, and rest assured: You'll spend very little time in your cabin and have plenty of opportunities to carve out time apart with supervised children's programs and onboard happenings ranging from art auctions to Bingo to sing-a-longs to seminars to a hairy chest contest.

Best of all: The moments you spend together as a family will be immensely memorable. We'll never forget baby's first karaoke performance! Even the DJ was impressed... not by her singing, but by the fact that she tackled a huge song he said no one ever chooses: "Fame."

As we drove home on the MassPike after our cruise, she began jotting down all of the memorable "Firsts on This Trip." For a well-traveled nine-year-old, it was a pretty impressive list, and I'll bet some of these would be new for your children, too:

First...

• Cruise ship
• Visit to a foreign country
• Use of passport
• Meal in Canada
• Kayaking trip
• Taste of Mahi-Mahi (she devoured the entire fillet)
• Comedy Club
• Karaoke Performance
• PG- and PG13-rated stage shows
• Magic and illusion show
• Dancing waiter
• Towel animal
• Three-story water slide
• Rickshaw ride (in Halifax, a city that is all uphill from the harbor)
• Whale spotting
• Meeting with the captain of a cruise ship
• Time behind the wheel of a tall ship
• Jazz Festival
• Swim in a saltwater pool
• Cocktail party
• Chocolate sushi