MinnieSconie16

Please don’t let your 8 & 10 year olds roam free and unsupervised. It is unfortunately too common that I have experienced packs of kids roaming the ship, misbehaving and impacting the enjoyment of other’s vacations. The staff also does not want to be in the situation where they must address issues with your child’s bad behavior… our last cruise, I ended up intervening on a group of kids that were stealing the basketballs from the arcade game in O’shennans and running around the bar “playing basketball”…not a parent to be found and the staff was trying to pretend it wasn’t happening which I get, they want tips and no hassle for being reported for telling “Timmy” no. Supervise your kids, don’t let them run free as a cruise isn’t a safe bubble where nothing bad can happen and staff/guests are not your babysitter. That said, I think a 10-12 year old going to the buffet to get a ice cream or snack by themselves and returning to the parents is a reasonable amount of independence without likely causing havoc to others. Yes, they can sign themselves out at that age AFTER 2 hours of being at Splash Academy but any less time, you have to sign them out so a little bit of independence is great but allowing to run free unsupervised is literally shirking your parenting responsibilities on vacation to others. I have cruised for years and have a 10 & 13 year old. Obviously the 13 year old gets more freedom but we have a lot of rules about this that are clearly communicated and agreed upon as he knows breaking them, it’s end of freedom (example: he must inform us where he will be at and what he will be doing and it’s typically time boxed). The 10 (almost 11) year old will be able to sign himself out this trip but only if it’s been prearranged with us and he would be going to the arcade or water slides with his older brother.

https://www.ncl.com/faq#!#can-my-childteen-under-17-years-old-stay-onboard-unattended-without-supervision-while-i-go-ashor https://www.ncl.com/prohibited-items

I second the “bring the car seat” if you are traveling by taxi. You’ll hear ALOT of statements that the taxis don’t have seat belts or non-functioning seat belts. We did encounter that at some ports but I would tell them I needed a taxi with working seat belts and always was able to get one. I have traveled the same itinerary you are a couple of times and kids were in car seats. Only one time in Tortola was I told they did not have a taxi with car seats so I said that’s fine, we’ll just head back to ship then and they miraculously had a taxi with seat belts show up 🙂

We always bring children’s Dramamine, children’s sized sea bands and ginger chews. Kids have actually never gotten sea sick but always figure it’s better to be prepared just in case. My spouse gets sea sick more easily and has found wearing the sea bands from day 1 is usually does the trick for not having a day feeling queasy so if really worried, have them wear the sea bands from the start. Kids are pretty resilient it seems to motion..my kids managed to be the only ones on a whale watching tour in Iceland that didn’t seem to be bothered by the motion while we were cresting waves on a very bad weather day. Also, if they do feel icky, they have green apples on the buffet and they are a good remedy for most.

We did overnight pull-ups and brought along a couple goodnites disposable mattress pads for added peace of mind. We didn’t have any accidents fortunately but it would have been much easier to pull the disposable pad then have a mess for the steward.

We used the eMed proctored tests for our vax’d 8 & 11 year olds before our cruise in April. The whole process was easy and went smoothly. Recommend you set up your account ahead of time and you will need to add your children to your account as a connected profile. Each child will need to do their test with adult present the whole time and administering the test. Plan on the whole thing taking 20 mins per child and each will need to be done separately.