Could anyone give me advice on Camp Carnival?

[MOMoftwinboys+princess]

We are going to travel on Carnival Fascination. We have always had our kids by our side every moment of our travel in the past. But we are considering letting them partake in some Camp Carnival activities to let us have a little alone time. Can anyone let me know of their experience with Camp Carnival aboard the Fascination? Our kids are ages 7, 7, and 5.

Thank you for your time!

[GatorMomInNC]

I was on the Fascination last October with my 2 boys, then ages 3 and 6. It seemed great, but unfortunately my older child was suffering from separation anxiety and it was very difficult to get him to go (my younger child was fine with the clubs). The first night they have a dance party which you go to with the kids, and they get to know the counselors and get trophies, etc. My son loved it and was all excited about going, but then when he realized I wasn't allowed with him he didn't want to go. I did make him go for about an hour a day because I needed time to do laundry, email, etc. At first I sat in a lounge chair right outside the club windows so he could see me, then moved onto leaving him alone in there for short periods of time.

 

I thought the clubs looked like they were run great and the counselors were really good and tried hard to engage him, but again, more just the particular quirkiness of my son at the time. They had activities, which are spelled out in their calendar, every half hour or so. Of course some of them cost money, like their version of build a bear, but most of them don't. On our next cruise (again with Carnival) he was better and we were able to leave them at dinner a couple times, which was really nice because they did tend to get bored towards the end of a long dinner.

 

We are going to travel on Carnival Fascination. We have always had our kids by our side every moment of our travel in the past. But we are considering letting them partake in some Camp Carnival activities to let us have a little alone time. Can anyone let me know of their experience with Camp Carnival aboard the Fascination? Our kids are ages 7, 7, and 5.

Thank you for your time!

[MOMoftwinboys+princess]

Thank you GatorMominNC --- we live in NC as well!

[lglancy]

We are going to travel on Carnival Fascination. We have always had our kids by our side every moment of our travel in the past. But we are considering letting them partake in some Camp Carnival activities to let us have a little alone time. Can anyone let me know of their experience with Camp Carnival aboard the Fascination? Our kids are ages 7, 7, and 5.

Thank you for your time!

 

We enrolled our 4 year old in CC last May. It was her first experience with being away from us, and being around other kids. She absolutely loved it. She could not wait to go back each time camp opened, and actually cried when we had to pick her up, or when she had to spend time with us. All she wanted to do was play at camp. I would highly recommend giving it a try. When you sign your children up for camp, you will be given a pager, so worst case scenario is you drop them off for a little while, then get paged to pick them up if they're unhappy. I really think you all will love it. It's been almost a year and a half ago for us, and our daughter still talks about meeting Funship Freddy, and playing "Don't Eat Tommy". Also, we didn't realize until late in the week that the camp will take the kids to dinner in the Lido, so they don't have to endure the 2 hour dining room dinner. We LOVED that once we discovered it. Our daughter actually sat down and ate when she was with her friends instead of fussing and picking with us.

I really encourage you to give it a try!

[MentalVacation]

will they take even the youngest (2-5) to dinner? We don't want to dine w/o them every night, but we would like the option at least once.

[Wavesprite]

Yes, they will take them to dinner. I can't remember if they offered the option every night to go to dinner, but at least 2 times during a 7 day cruise. If your child LOVES camp, but your nervous abuot the dinner thing, what you can do is take the children to the buffet and feed them, then take them to camp, then go to dinner with your husband/wife. We did this when our kids were younger.

 

We sailed Carnival last October with a 9 and 5 year old. The 2-5's did so many fun things, and really had a great time. My daughter, who is adopted from China, and has som seperation issues, LOVED it! They did lots of crafts and decorated t-shirts and gift bags and had pirate and princess day. It was all well run and very cute. This was on the Splendor.

[crusinmama06]

will they take even the youngest (2-5) to dinner? We don't want to dine w/o them every night, but we would like the option at least once.

 

Yes, they will take them to dinner :) It seems to be every night except for the first night. Check out some of the club pages here. They are pages from the parents here at the family board and are only suggestions of what you may experience onboard ;)

 

http://s204.photobucket.com/albums/bb196/cruisinmama06/Camp%20Carnival%20Capers/?start=all

[macfin]

All I have to say is we were very impressed with camp carnival. We cruised miracle. Last may with our 6 and 4 yo....at first they were nervous by the next daythe woke up asking to go..what made it nice is each kid had there own delegate club with seperate activities for there age group ....they would take them to dinner if you wanted, the older group was even taken to all the shows and treated like vip's...they give you a ship cell phone so yup can keep in contact with the kids clubs...it came in handy and it let us have our own vacation and the kids to have there own vacation.... counciler was great and always madexsure kids where comfortable....

[Tggrtoes]

We cruised Fascination last May.... DS (then almost 3) loved it. It was a great experience... DS loved having dinner "at camp" and mommy and daddy enjoyed a couple hours of calm and quiet. :p

[jam82]

will they take even the youngest (2-5) to dinner? We don't want to dine w/o them every night, but we would like the option at least once.

 

Yes, they will take them to dinner. However, we usually feed our son early from the buffet or room service and then take to him camp. That way we know how much he eats and that his hands are clean. He LOVES room service. It's one of his favorite parts of cruising.