I was wondering if anyone knew of any cruise lines BESIDES the Imperial Majesty that allow 18 year olds to sail without persons over 21 in the Miami-Ft.Lauderdale, FL area. This is for a high school trip and anyone info is greatly appreciated. Thanks

When I check through cruise lines in my information I found Orient (useless in FLL) and Princess (YES, Princess). Their age restrictions read that "Anyone under 18 must be accompanied by someone over 21 in the same stateroom" I think I would double check that. I can't find it on Princesses website. However, for a group of kids, the rates on PRC could be a bit prohibitive. If it's truly a school group, why not contact someone about booking as a group, in most cases you can get free rooms for the required chaperones.

About a year ago I checked into this for a client that wanted to take a bunch of high school seniors on a senior trip. At that time, Princess and NCL were the only cruiselines that would allow 18 year olds to travel without someone 25 years old or older in the stateroom for a 7 night sailing. I have been told that Carnival will allow 18 year olds to travel on their 3/4 night sailings on some of their older ships. However, each passenger is required to put up a $250 security deposit against damages, which would be returned at the end of the cruise, providing the passenger didn't cause any damage. You may want to check with a TA about that.

I was able to arrange a high school group cruise on 'Carnival's 'Fantasy' in 2001. The rule at the time was that there had to be one chaperone over the age of 25 for every ten students going on the cruise. Students were accommodated in triple and quad cabins. Chaperones were in doubles. Usually not too far away from the student cabins, but close enough so that they could see (hopefully) that everyone was not misbehaving.
Free berths were awarded for every 15 full paying guests, damage deposits were 100.00 per person. Cruiseman

[This message was edited by cruiseman on January 16, 2003 at 04:52 PM.]