It’s December 25 in Livorno and, like our fellow passengers in Amphora – the a la carte restaurant onboard Windstar Cruises’ Star Legend – our family of four is settling in for a fancy Christmas dinner. Dressed in our festive finest, my husband and I sip champagne while our nine- and seven-year-old daughters draw as we wait for our starters to be served. So far, so good on our decision to swap Christmas at home in France for a small-ship Mediterranean cruise. We’re on day three of our seven-night sailing from Rome to Barcelona and we have all adapted to the luxuries of life onboard with alarming speed. I wish I could ask Father Christmas for this evermore.

That is, until my youngest takes offence when I stop her from taking her cardigan off. In protest, she slams her forehead into her fine-china place setting in front of her, before starting to wail at her usual high volume. The commotion stops conversations around us. A crew member swiftly comes to her side, removing the tableware from her reach.

I don’t need to look up to see the knowing glances passing between people nearby. My smugness has evaporated, replaced by a blush that quickly deepens: Windstar’s minimum age is eight years old, and we’ve been granted an exception to bring her on the cruise. She is, right now, demonstrating exactly why that limit has been set.

While few cruise lines explicitly ban children (Viking and Virgin Voyages being the most notable examples), not all of them offer Disney and Royal Caribbean-style bells and whistles. At the smaller end of the cruise ship scale, Windstar and its like among other premium and luxury lines welcome younger guests (the age limit varies per line) but they don’t have any dedicated kids programming as such.

That’s why you’ll probably find only a handful of kids onboard – and exactly why many adult cruisers book with them. But small-ship cruising with kids can be done, though you’re probably best to resign yourself to one experience akin to our Christmas meltdown. What’s more, it can be fun for everyone, especially with some smart pre-planning. Here’s what I’ve learnt.

Prioritise holiday sailings

Cruises that fall during school holidays, particularly Christmas and New Year, are much more likely to have other children onboard than those during term time. Out of the 193 passengers onboard Star Legend, more than a dozen were under 18, the majority travelling in a multi-generational family unit. It takes a day, but the girls befriend the two other nine-year-olds onboard, and soon they’re the ones making the plans: we need to hurry up and finish dinner so they can catch the screening of Elf that the crew has especially arranged for them and their new friends in the cinema room.

Stay onboard in port

It’s the kids’ holiday too, and they are not going to have fun if they’re constantly being told off for doing something for fear of disturbing the other passengers. Very early, I give up giving out to them when they race each other down the corridor to the cabin (unless there are other people about). I also don’t want to be the party pooper when they put on a dance show in the plunge pool on the top deck. We come up with a compromise: some days we stay onboard when most people head off on shore excursions. We may miss out on Florence, but we have a blue sky winter’s day in Livorno and their laughs as they play in the heated pool make up for it. I guess they are probably too young to appreciate the Renaissance masters anyway.

Organise your own shore excursions

The ports we visit in the Mediterranean have plenty to entertain kids, but understandably, they are not the priority demographic, and the program of shore excursions is heavy on coach tours and wine tastings. So I plan our own – Christmas markets in Monaco (with the Oceanographic Museum on standby if we have time) and a walking tour of Barcelona with some well-timed tapas stops. That’s not to write off all ship-organised activities. In Genoa, a morning spent hiking the fortress-lined ridge behind the city is the leg-stretching opportunity we all need after two full days of indulgence on the boat.

Embrace the family time

It’s the rare small ship that has a kids club – like Explora Journeys and the uber-luxe Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection fleet – but it’s easy to forget just how much entertainment a pack of cards can provide. Most small ships also have a games corner. In Star Legend’s Yacht Club lounge, they have a bookshelf of card games, puzzles and board games to choose from. Despite having some kids’ movies on the in-cabin TV, the week is surprisingly light on screen time.

There will always be disapproving looks

Of course, you’re never going to please everyone, and there are definitely times we feel people moving away from us, so set are they on avoiding any interaction with children. Maybe they are the same passengers who complain to the manager when we let the girls stay up until 10pm one night to dance with the handful of revellers still on the dance floor. Saying that, people are more positive than negative, none more so than the crew, who embrace having children onboard. And that’s what my kids remember the most; that’s who they’re still asking to go back to see almost daily, even months after we return home.

Our two will probably blame us when they get older and start having to pay for themselves, but I think we’re breeding two small-ship cruisers for life.

The writer and her family were guests of Windstar Cruises.