Will by boys aged 9 and 11 enjoy MSC?

[earn]

I am finding it a little difficult to sourse info on the MSC Kids Club activities, and wondered if anyone out there can help. We have cruised Royal caribbean in the med and Mexican Riviera, and are thinking of doing a Caribbean cruise on MSC Poesia next April. The boys loved Ocean Adventure and our main issues was tryinr to convince them to leave to go ashore! Will they enjoy MSC?

 

We live in Scotland and some of our best holidays have been in ITaly, so we have no issue with food etc.

[sbhdmh]

We did MSC to the Baltic last summer with our 4 1/2 year old. Since we embarked in Dover there were a lot of English speaking passengers. I assume the Caribbean would be the same. All the Kids Club staff spoke English but one pretended not to, playing the "no English" game whenever a parent seemed unhappy or had a question about something. Again it may be different in the Caribbean but in Europe they brought the kids down to the show each evening and then to the disco for dancing afterwards. This may be different from what you experienced on Royal Caribbean. My dd loved it but of course a 4 year old girl is quite a bit different from 9 and 11 year old boys...

 

There was no casual alternative for dinner. My dd did pretty well but it got to be hard to keep her occupied for so long on an 11 night cruise. Apparently in the Caribbean they will keep the grill open a bit later but you won't have the same flexibility as on most other lines.

 

Hopefully some other parents can give you some more info on the Caribbean experience. Once thing I have discovered is that MSC alters a lot of things depending on the target market for a specific sailing. What I experienced with them Europe may or may not resemble what they do in the Caribbean.

 

Enjoy your trip whatever you decide.

[earn]

Thanks for the advice and info. Do the children have activities during the day or are they only at night? I imagine we will manage to persuade them to come ashore as it will be mostly beachy stuff, so may not be an issue, but we also quite like having at least one boat day when we are in port as the ship is usually quiet and you can enjoy it more.

 

Thanks again.

[sbhdmh]

They had Kids Club open during sea days. On those days I never got to see my DD - she wanted to be in KC every possible minute. I'm a SAHM so I had to go through withdrawal on those days! They were not open on embarkation days and unlike other lines passengers get on and off throughout the cruise, at least in Europe. Hopefully someone can give you more info about their policy in the Caribbean. One big selling point for us was the option to leave her in Kids Club while we went ashore. I wasn't sure I would do this but thought it could be a good option with such museum ladened ports as Amsterdam and St. Petersburg. This option was available only if you took ship's excursions, though, and we do everything independently. When KC was open during the day she always ate lunch with them and they had a few "dinner parties" later in the cruise too. Hope this helps - let me know if you need any more info.