Best Kids Programs for 5 Yr. Old?

[bzv143]

Besides Disney, which cruise line offers the best Kids Programs for a 5 year old? Does Celebrity offer a good one (Eclipse?)?

[Keith1010]

Disney is clearly the best but there are others that do a very nice job. A couple that we think highly of are Princess and Celebrity, but certainly there are other cruise lines that offer nice programs for the kids including those in the age group you inquired about.

 

Keith

[NanciRDH]

We've done both Carnival and Royal Caribbean...our youngest dd is now 5, and she only remembers RCI, but we've found that they have the best kid's program for our family, even in their older, smaller ships. Given a choice, all of my children, no matter their age at the time, would choose Adventure Ocean on Royal Caribbean. We did both cruiselines, and my older kids said RCI was more fun. It's their vacation too, so we listened. :D

[knitdiva]

Last summer we did a B2B on Carnival Liberty with our DS5. He needs his fair share of time to warm up to knew surroundings and people (and his english is far from perfect since we live in Quebec and speak french at home). We looked at Camp Carnival schedule with him and he chose a few activities in the week. By day 3, he wanted to go to his "activities" all the time! By the second week, he didn't get off the ship once! Preferred Camp to walking.... Made many friends, his english got a good workout and improved quite a lot. We never expected him to even want to be out of our sight one minute. He even had dinner with his friends one evening. Even though he loved it we left him maybe 2 hours at a time at the most except one day in St-Thomas (4 hours). Asked to go back after dinner on that day! We have cruised RCL but he was barely 3 at the time and did not want to leave us. Sailed on NCL but did not really try the Kids Crew. Well we did but at that time DS has never been in daycare and is an only child so he was overwhelmed. I have to say we the parents are probably to blame on this one because he cried so much he fell asleep in the counsellors arm and I could not bring myself to try again the following morning.

Just one last thing about Camp Carnival. DS is allergic to peanuts. They were very good about that. His name tag was in red (others were black) which meant allergy and on the back was written what he's allergic to. They also lent us a cell phone ( works on the ship). The cell phones (or pagers) are for kids 5 and under or those with special needs). They also rent strollers (we didn't try them).

[cruiseman40]

All ships will basically have decent kids programs. I know some are better than others, but are you going for the itenirary/ship or for only the best kids programs. Have fun on your cruise!

[m1n1]

Last summer we did a B2B on Carnival Liberty with our DS5. He needs his fair share of time to warm up to knew surroundings and people (and his english is far from perfect since we live in Quebec and speak french at home). We looked at Camp Carnival schedule with him and he chose a few activities in the week. By day 3, he wanted to go to his "activities" all the time!

 

That was very usefull information, thank you!

 

We are in the same situation with our two kids DS5, DD2 who only speak French. I try to teach them english but with daycare and school all in french, I just have a hard time speaking to them ALWAYS in english and having them look at me like im an Alien from another planet.

 

We would love for them to have fun at Camp Carnival as I am sure they would both love it, but we are worried about the language barrier.

 

Edit: Cruising the Carnival Liberty on the 26th of Feb. 2011

[chipmaster]

What is your definition of "best." Sure for the price of the the family Disney better have a "better" amenities like all those special disney perks, but if you reflect is it really "best." My children have enjoyed Carnival, Princess and Disney. If you ask best in terms of memories factoring out the cost of some of mouse things I'd say my kids enjoyed this last one on Princess "best" and I doubt if I waited till 2011 for Disney sailing would I have said "best" Probably better in some respects but for the price I might have had to give up some of my spare no expenses port or the balcony, so what is best?

 

Besides Disney, which cruise line offers the best Kids Programs for a 5 year old? Does Celebrity offer a good one (Eclipse?)?

[RoadTripFanatic]

All ships will basically have decent kids programs. I know some are better than others, but are you going for the itenirary/ship or for only the best kids programs. Have fun on your cruise!

 

I agree with this. I've never had a "Bad" kids program on any of our cruises that we have taken with our DD. (If you look at my list below she started cruising in 2002 with us. Except for the Regal Empress that was a mommy/daddy only cruise.) I always pick my cruises based on where we are going. Most of the time I don't care about which has the best kids camp because I've never heard DD complain about any of them. She's loved them all. I want to go to new ports or ports of call that I love. :)

[knitdiva]

M1N1, Carnival Liberty is the ship we sailed for our B2B last summer. It was a great cruise. DS5 loved it.

[m1n1]

Yes I am sure we will love it!

 

Just hope my oldest catches on with English soon! Hahhaa