When traveling with children, always make sure they sign up with the Kids Club, Teen Club or whatever the age appropriate club happens to be called. My teenage daughter Amy is always reluctant to do this, but after signing up and visiting the club the next morning, she inevitably comes away with friends her own age with whom to share teenage experiences.


This is not to say that I want her to spend all her time with her new friends, and we still spend far more time together than we normally do at home, but it allows us all to spend time with people our own ages, too.

We always enjoy some trivia games and line dancing lessons, and on Caribbean Princess, we found lots of others did too.

I've never seen such large turn outs for trivia games, despite the fact that they often held two games a day. Our team nucleus of Amy, a couple of her new friends, and I had difficulty breaking into the win column against fierce competition of seasoned cruisers until we linked up with a Canadian teacher and his daughter, who was another girl Amy met at the Teen Club.

Suddenly we were unbeatable, and our relatively young team received shocked looks from competitors as we went on a winning streak of several sessions, especially when we yelled our team name, "Italia," in honor of the world soccer champions.

Amy's summer chemistry class held the answers to some questions about the periodic table, while my knowledge that Bob Dylan lived in Woodstock and was therefore possibly an organizer of the famous concert of the same name helped us beat the other top teams by a point or two, but the Canadian teacher definitely knew a wide range of otherwise useless information.

The dancing classes were the most fun I've ever experienced, with the possible exception of learning the Austin Powers dance on one other cruise. The teacher did a good job teaching the steps, but more importantly, he kept it from getting too serious. While he laughed with us as a group, he never humiliated anyone's individual efforts, and everyone had a great time.

I didn't attend the art auction this time, but when I walked past, I noticed a lot of high dollar works of art being sold in addition to the usual $50 to $300 offerings.

There were many alternative entertainment choices, like pool games, shipboard horse races and karaoke. The large movie screen by the pool was used for showing concert footage sometimes, and other indoor theaters were used for movies occasionally.

My buddy Mike and I enjoyed the classic Cassius Clay vs. Sonny Liston championship fight in Churchill's Cigar Bar. The large casino stayed active, including some tournaments which always look exciting.

I only used the tranquil pool of the health spa, but many people work out regularly, and others take laps around the ship on the jogging track high above the sea. There's also a basketball court, golf simulator, giant chess set, game room..... In short, there was something for everyone.

When you go on vacation, do you want to enjoy terrific entertainment? It is hard to beat a cruise. Best of all, while you're being entertained, you're on your way to your next port of call.