Adventure ocean groups and times

I just booked a cruise for July 2019 for our extended family including GD(3), GS(5), and GS (6). How would they be placed in Adventure Ocean groups and what are the times they could go? Also wondering about dinner as we want to do My Time but not sure they could last through dinner. What are the options we might have? First time taking them!

With regard to dinner, if you switch to early traditional, you can take advantage of My Family Time Dining, where the kids get fed within the first 45 minutes and the staff comes to the dining room and takes them to Adventure Ocean.

The 3 and 5 year old will be in the same class...the 6 year old will be in the next step up. They can go anytime the clubs are open and running!

With MTD, you can eat when it suits the kids....MTD can go much faster than traditional seating....just tell your waiter you want to move things along! It really isn't much longer than going to Applebee's or someplace like that!

Or, you could feed the kids at the buffet, drop them in AO for a couple hours and have a relaxing adult dinner!

We just got off the Anthem this morning, and our 3 year old took advantage of Adventure Ocean everyday, if not multiple times a day. They group kids 3-5, 6-8, 9-11, and everyone older is in a teen group. The different age groups are in separate rooms. The have morning, afternoon, and evening sessions, 9-12, 2-5, and 7-10. You can also sign up for your child to do meals (lunch or dinner) with the Adventure Ocean staff, although I think that fills up quickly. There were 200 three to five year olds on our cruise, and they only can take 30 per session, so you have to get in line about 15-30 min. prior to start of session to make sure your child gets a spot.

We just got off the Anthem this morning, and our 3 year old took advantage of Adventure Ocean everyday, if not multiple times a day. They group kids 3-5, 6-8, 9-11, and everyone older is in a teen group. The different age groups are in separate rooms. The have morning, afternoon, and evening sessions, 9-12, 2-5, and 7-10. You can also sign up for your child to do meals (lunch or dinner) with the Adventure Ocean staff, although I think that fills up quickly. There were 200 three to five year olds on our cruise, and they only can take 30 per session, so you have to get in line about 15-30 min. prior to start of session to make sure your child gets a spot.

Do you recall if they have the royal tots on this ship?

Our daughter was in the 2-5yr old group (a week ago at just under 5yrs and a while back at 3.5yrs). They are open 9-12, 2-5, and 7-10. Plus 10pm-2am for a fee. On port days they open early, I saw it open 7am one day but it might be dependent on time in port. I believe it was just tvs shows until 9am (we never tried but they listed it as cartoons viewing). They also stay open all day on port days bringing the kids for lunch.

Our daughter went daily for anywhere from 1hr-3hrs. She would have lived there had we let her. She did one supper with them, just for fun and she LOVED it. It's really not fancy they play from 5-6pm, walked to the windjammer (the closed section and are served either pizza or chicken nuggets) then walk back. They can stay through the 7pm-10pm session after. We went and peeked in on them during dinner (she didn't know). It was pretty calm, maybe 25 kids of all ages, 4 teachers. They were all seated, eating and chatting.

We did my time dining and it was not that long an hour, maybe a bit longer most nights. On our last cruise we did the early seating and sent her off to kids club 40minutes in. They would speed up her full meal while my husband and I had appetizers. Then we'd walk her to the lobby, sign her up and go back to our table. They would wait for the group to arrive, talk the elevator up to kids club. There only ever seemed to be maybe 5-8 kid doing this each evening.

On our Harmony cruise Feb 10-17 there were 170 kids ages 3-5. We were never turned away from kids club, there were regulars there that my daughter made good friends with and then random kids as well. But it never seemed that busy maybe 15 kids total when we picked up or dropped off. No idea if they filled up while we weren't there. I suspect the late evening option 10pm onwards might be popular for parents to be out having fun. We we are boring. Our daughter went to every show with us aside from the comedy show and Grease (didn't want to have to field all the teen pregnancy questions for months to come).

As a side note, our daughter hadn't napped since the spring but she slept 2hrs every afternoon then slept from 12midnight until 7:30am (when we woke her). This allowed us all to get in the most shows etc and prevent her from melting down. She was well rested the whole cruise and it was because of that mid-day nap. At home she sleeps 6pm-7am every night so she was working on a big sleep deficit but the naps kept her strong. I was more than happy to read books in the room/balcony each afternoon but really didn't want to be stuck in the room 13hrs every night!