Celebrity Summit with Toddler & 10 yr old

[dynamo33l]

(***Please keep in mind this is only information and opinion based on my own experience. It is not meant to criticize or offer absolute advice!)

 

While researching the Celebrity Summit cruise my family and I were about to go on, I found very little info from parents who had actually brought their children onto the refurbished ship and many entries with complaints about children running about and disturbing adult passengers. I recently returned from the cruise and wanted to share my findings on both of these topics. Keep in mind that my kids are 21 months and 10 years, so I cannot speak for any other age groups.

 

First, the wild and crazy children running about with no parental supervision…pushing elevator buttons and causing major disturbances (this from threads I came across in my research). The age group my 10 year old falls into were allowed to sign themselves in and out of the Fun Factory, without adult supervision. As a parent, we could indicate in our form on the 1st day that our child was only allowed to be signed in or out by an adult (we chose to sign him in and out ourselves). So here you have children going to and from the Fun Factory without supervision from their parents. Second, the kids were sent out into the ship for scavenger hunts while they were checked into the Fun Factory. They were given lists of items to go find on the ship, or questions to go and ask other passengers. The groups were not supervised while they were doing this, by a parent, or by a staff member. Now my son normally has great manners, around me…but I imagine him, with a group of 4 other 10 year old boys, given free rein on the ship and what kind of trouble he could get into. And I’m sure there are other passengers on the June 10th sailing who would LOVE to let me know what he was really doing! Saying all this, I can sympathize with all the parents that were defending themselves, claiming they would never let them act that way. But we don’t always know what our kids are doing when we aren’t around (It sooo bothers me to say that, but it’s true). I did run into him and another boy in the theatre during the Captain’s lecture on navigation, and they both had the giggles while trying to take pictures of the Captain. I told them to quiet down, which they did, and they left after they got their picture.

 

 

As far as enjoyment, my son could not wait to get to the Fun Factory in the morning, and wanted to stay there until bedtime. We really only saw him for meals and when we were in port. He loved it, and the staff up there was fantastic.

 

 

Second, the 21 month old…I honestly don’t know exactly how I feel about this one. It was difficult the first couple of days. I was feeling a bit seasick and wondered if he was too. I ended up taking some Dramamine and gave the “less than recommended” dosage to him also. His behavior improved greatly after this. I did hear a couple of nasty comments from other passengers about him (one when he wasn’t even crying or being loud). But mostly the other passengers were very entertained by him and said very nice things.

 

 

The crew was AMAZING with him! They went out of their way to talk to him or give him high-5’s. The waiters were making him mice out of napkins and teaching him how to make bird calls. It was very cool. I found that many of them had babies at home, and they must miss them terribly being on the ship for 6 months. That is a long time to be away from your kids, especially when they grow so fast.

 

 

There is not much for a baby to do on the ship. They do have the toddler times (during lunch on sea days), and they have a nice selection of toys up there. I only made it up there with him once because his naptimes were so erratic. And they only allow one parent in there at a time, which made it difficult to have “family time”. They allow you to check out a bag of small toys and books to take to your room for the week. I wish I had known they would provide beach toys like shovels and molds, I wouldn’t have brought our own!

 

 

We did bring the blow up bath tub to use by the pool, and that interested him for about 10 minutes. The water was way too cold, and that was the first day when he was still crabby. We actually didn’t even go back to the pool after that.

 

 

Meals were also difficult, we couldn’t get him to eat anything except fruit and the breadsticks for the first few days. His appetite improved by the end…he really enjoyed the chicken breast (without sauce) and the fried porkchop in the MDR. This was just him being fussy … there really is a lot of food to choose from for a toddler. We made sure to have the iPad at meals to keep him occupied so others would not be disturbed. It worked most of the time. To be honest, the MDR was pretty loud so I have no idea if others (except those sitting right next to us) could even hear him.

 

 

He loved the musicians and the theatre shows. We usually just stood in the back in case we needed to duck out, but he would dance and sway to the music…especially to the Spanish guitar player, who was very talented.

 

 

He slept like a rock on the ship, which was great for us. He also slept in much later than normal in the morning. This even though he was in a Pack n’ Play (provided by Celebrity), which don’t have the greatest mattresses.

 

 

I think it was a good experience overall…no, he won’t remember this trip, but it did help build his comfort and endurance with non-home environments, so I do think it was beneficial for him. It also helped us learn patience and new tricks on how to keep an almost 2 year old occupied and happy! A negative side effect was he ended up with Hand, Foot & Mouth disease shortly after returning. We are pretty sure he got this on the ship, since he is not around other children at home (he stays with Grandparents). He had a high fever and then developed an itchy rash.

 

Please ask me questions if you are planning on going on the summit with kids! I’m sure I can provide more info, but this seems to be getting a bit winded!!

[Keith1010]

Excellent post.

 

It's good that you took the time to post your experience.

 

 

Keith