Help...first time cruising with 3 kids!

[greengre]

Hi

 

We are due to sail on the Independence of the Seas in July. We have never done a cruise before so please forgive the millions of questions I will probably ask :D

 

so heres a few questions, there will be a 6 & 3 year old plus an 18 mth old:

 

what are the kids clubs like

do you have to pre book

do they have kids entertainment on at night?

do Royal Caribbean operate a no towel/coat reserving policy?

 

Thanks in advance x:p

[MNfamilycruiser]

Hi

 

We are due to sail on the Independence of the Seas in July. We have never done a cruise before so please forgive the millions of questions I will probably ask :D

 

so heres a few questions, there will be a 6 & 3 year old plus an 18 mth old:

 

what are the kids clubs like

do you have to pre book

do they have kids entertainment on at night?

do Royal Caribbean operate a no towel/coat reserving policy?

 

Thanks in advance x:p

 

There is also a board under the "special interest" cruising specifically for asking questions about cruising with kids: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=49

 

Now on to your questions:

the kids clubs are great, they are one of the reasons we have stuck with RC after having tried out several different lines. They will each go into a kids club specifically for their age group. I don't know about the 18 month old, when I cruised with a toddler we were with a big family group and I never had them in the kids club on that cruise.

 

The first day/evening you sign them up for the kids club, they get a wristband that they must wear at all times. Then whenever they want to go you go with them, sign them in, and sign them out when they are done. Yes - they especially operate the kids clubs on sea days and in the evenings - so that you may enjoy your own entertainment.

 

My kids are teens now - so it has been a while since they have done the younger kids clubs - my information may be a bit dated - I am sure other can correct any mistakes I made :D

 

I am not sure exactly what you are asking about with the towels/coats?

[Nikmav]

I just sailed on Indy last week with my three kids for the first time. They are 10,8,6. For the kids club your go to the open house the first day and get them registered. They will give the kids a lanyard for their seapass so they can keep it handy. The session hours are 9-12am, 2-5pm, and 6-10pm. You don't have to have them there the whole time for a session. You can bring them late or pick them up early if you want to.

 

I think the program is pretty good but my kids didn't enjoy it. But I think it is becasue they have grown up in day care and just didn't think it was that big of a deal. They are a bit older than your kids too so I am sure yours will love it. Mine wanted to stay and play in the pool and at the H2O zone so that is what they did most of the time.

 

I am not sure how it works for the 18 month old though. THey do have a nursery now but I am not sure if it is part of the regular kids club and if it is free.

 

As for evening entertainment, they have an evening session so you can put them in there at that time and go to the shows yourself. We took our kids to the shows and they really liked them. But since yours are younger, they may not enjoy it as much. I will say that the new Once Upon a Time show is fabulous and your would most likely enjoy it.

 

Good luck! Enjoy your trip!

[gerif]

The nursery for the 18 month old comes with a fee and you must reserve times in advance. The 3 year old must be fully potty trained as they will not help at all in this regard.

[purplethorn]

I guess its very subjective and it might vary from ship to ship and cruise to cruise ... but i will just mention my observation

 

We were just on the Liberty of the seas which is almost identical with the Indy (is what i read)

 

We traveled with our 2.5 yr old - not fully potty trained so no-no in the H2O zone. The nursery where non potty trained children go was so tiny and dingy that I decided not to register my DD there. Not to mention there were not other children there she would have probably cried.

 

We checked the 3-5 yr old room one evening and there were a lot of children there - some laying on the floor , the rest were hypnotized in front of a tiny TV (that's a no-no in my book). There were no activities going on no playing together etc ... I also didn't see any print outs of what activities are offered

 

In general the ship and the programs are geared mainly toward older children. While we (the adults) had a blast (because grandma was with us as well) my DD was bored I can totally see it

Maybe we should have made more trips to the nursery so she can see there are other children , but I just did not like the space

 

No shows (that i could see) with the exception of the Dreamworks parade in the Promenade is suitable for toddlers

 

If you are asking about the chair hogging around the pools , that is going on full force even though RCI requests that their guests don't do that

 

I am sure you will have a great time!

[Nikmav]

Purplethorn - I agree on the comment about kids watching TV like zombies. But I figured it was just something they were doing during the main drop off time until the group settled in. Maybe that's why kids like to go there so much because they have parents that restrict TV and then they get to watch a ton of it on the ship. I will say that my oldest(10) was annoyed by the program because they never did was was on the schedule for the session. She went for one session because it listed that they would do some art and science stuff and they never ended up doing it. She made a very wise comment that she thinks they just put those things on the schedule to make it look good so people will come and then they never do them. I felt bad for her becasue she was excited about it. Such a let down.

[DCPIV]

Here's a link to some information. I only glanced at it, so I apologize if I contradict anything: http://www.royalcaribbean.com/contentSitelet.do?cS=NAVBAR&pnav=1&snav=4&pagename=main_family

 

As long as the 3-year-old is potty trained, s/he can join on in. Our sons always enjoyed the kid's club. They run a bit of a program in there for kids that age, and they certainly seem to have a lot of fun.

 

I believe those session times stated above are only for days at sea. The last time I looked into it, they held the kid's club open for all hours that the ship is in port, so you don't have to worry about getting back to the ship. I believe that still is the case. We only left one of our boys on board once, and he enjoyed it. After 10pm, they can keep the kids for a "group babysitting" fee that I don't recall being particularly stiff.

 

The crew always have been great with kids, and I do not just mean those crew whose job it is to work with the kids. Of course, some are better than others, but I cannot recall any complaints we may have had.

 

It looks like the nursery does have a fee, so you may want to use that sparingly for your toddler. Even if that does not work out, we never had any trouble taking a toddler around the ship. There is plenty for them to look at, and we always managed to find a quiet, empty spot where he could run around and get the "wiggles" out.

 

You're going to have a great time!

 

 

D

[ummgood]

We haven't cruised on RCCL yet so I am watching this thread to see what the recommendations are. We are scheduled to be on the Navigator for our anniversary without the kids and we plan on checking out how RCCL does kids activities.

 

With that said we have cruised 2 times with our 3 kids on Disney. Our kids were 9, 3, and 3mo the first time and 10, 4, and 2yo this last December. Disney is getting too expensive for us so we are going to try out RCCL. I will recommend that you do not have too high of expectations cruising with kids. We absolutely love it but we do not have the expectation that the ship will entertain our kids to their satisfaction. We have found that the younger kids do not do too well in the clubs even on Disney.

 

Our older daughter absolutely loves clubs. She can handle being in a large group with multiple kids doing organized activities. She never wants to leave the club! Our middle daughter needs more one/one time with people so she just stands there wondering what to do. Since our kids are split she doesn't have her sister to guide her or bug (they need time apart). She will go into the clubs and enjoy it sometimes but most of the time is ready to leave and often we are called to come get her before we were ready (we had a couple times we had scheduled adult dining etc...) My 2yo son really has trouble with the nursery. Part of the reason is there is a lot of sympathy crying. If one child is crying a lot start crying. It was a great program on Disney but he really disliked going. We managed to figure out that if we took him at nap time he would nap in there but if he was awake he wasn't having it.

 

While the RCCL clubs might be different I would recommend that you go with the flow with your kids being in clubs. Some kids like it and some don't and it just depends on the child. We still love cruising but we know what to expect and do put our kids in but we limit the time for the ones that don't like it. That way we still get some time to ourselves but we know not to expect a lot of that alone time :)

 

The reason we love cruising with kids has so many reasons but mainly it is still relaxing and the kids have a great time. As the man of the house I appreciate not being a pack mule because we can leave stuff in the room and not have to pack/unpack for each day like we would if we were on a land vacation. Plus on Disney we get hot meals because the servers cut up our kids food for them so we can just eat. That to me is super nice!

[purplethorn]

Purplethorn - I agree on the comment about kids watching TV like zombies. But I figured it was just something they were doing during the main drop off time until the group settled in. Maybe that's why kids like to go there so much because they have parents that restrict TV and then they get to watch a ton of it on the ship. I will say that my oldest(10) was annoyed by the program because they never did was was on the schedule for the session. She went for one session because it listed that they would do some art and science stuff and they never ended up doing it. She made a very wise comment that she thinks they just put those things on the schedule to make it look good so people will come and then they never do them. I felt bad for her becasue she was excited about it. Such a let down.

 

 

She was probably right. I wouldn't be surprised if some activities are just added on to look attractive to the parents so they would book the cruise .. and then once on board things change :).

 

It looks like the nursery does have a fee, so you may want to use that sparingly for your toddler. Even if that does not work out, we never had any trouble taking a toddler around the ship. There is plenty for them to look at, and we always managed to find a quiet, empty spot where he could run around and get the "wiggles" out.

This is true that there are other places for toddler to run around (and that the nursery has $6/hr fee), we had DD with us almost always (with exception of couple of nights when they went to bed with Grandma ) and we visited the heli pad quite often so she can run around , she enjoyed the promenade, deck 4 outside (away from the smokers lol)

 

She seemed to be missing company of other kids. She would approach some ,but mostly would get ignored lol poor child. That is why i really wanted to like the nursery , but 1st it was tiny 2nd there were no kids at the time we went and 3rd she does enjoy the company of older kids, but at the time of the cruise she was somewhat in the middle between the nursery and the 3-5 yr olds.

 

But she did have a blast in Labadee playing in the water and sand all day long - that alone made my cruise

 

I think I want to try the Oasis class with DD and then decide if we should wait until she is a bit older to cruise again or just stick to Disney until she is old enough (and yes Disney is too expensive for us as well :/ ) ... which will be sad because i am kinda addicted to cruising now lol

[DCPIV]

The above-poster's comment about being a "pack mule" both made me chuckle knowingly and reminded me of something we've done with our boys since they were around the age of the OP's children.

 

We let them pick out backpacks that became "theirs." They carried around their own books and other entertainment with them everywhere we went (and I do mean everywhere, on and off the ship). They loved it. They would pick out what they wanted each morning, and they carried that stuff all day. I will grant that my wife or I would need to give them a brief break on a long day, but those truly were rare. It also was fair, since we managed to get them to start carrying much of our stuff, too. :)

 

[CruisinW8]

All of my kids enjoyed the AO on Freedom last October. The kids were always doing something when we dropped ours off or picked them up, although I'm sure they're were down times - we just seemed to miss them. We had two in the 3-5yo range and they had a ball just running around, listening to stories, coloring or whatever. We were pleasantly surprised, and I'm hoping it's the same when we sail on Indy this December.

[greengre]

Thank you so much for you replies :) im sure the older two will have a super time in the kids clubs :0 we went away last year and we had to que up at certain times each day (sometimes twice a day) to get your childs name down for the session.. and was not always successfull! so RCI doesnt operate like that?:D

 

I noticed one post mentioned no non-potty trainned children in the H2O zone?! even if they wear swim nappies?? so can the 18mth old not use any of the pools?? i didnt know any of this!

 

Thanks again guys x:)

[greengre]

oh sorry; one more thing about the kids club i cant see anywhere; are they specific times or all day?

 

thank x

[gjc1111]

Thank you so much for you replies :) im sure the older two will have a super time in the kids clubs :0 we went away last year and we had to que up at certain times each day (sometimes twice a day) to get your childs name down for the session.. and was not always successfull! so RCI doesnt operate like that?:D

 

I noticed one post mentioned no non-potty trainned children in the H2O zone?! even if they wear swim nappies?? so can the 18mth old not use any of the pools?? i didnt know any of this!

 

Thanks again guys x:)

 

Only fully potty trained (i.e., no swim diapers) kids are permitted in the pools. This is true fleet-wide. Indy does have a Baby Splash Zone where they can play though.

 

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/customersupport/faq/details.do?pagename=frequently_asked_questions&pnav=5&pnav=2&faqType=faq&faqSubjectId=333&faqSubjectName=Onboard+Policies&faqId=3100

[purplethorn]

The non potty trained kids with swim diapers can use this small (unblurred) section of the H2O zone ... if you try to use the rest they will kick you out ...speaking from experience :D

 

[gerif]

oh sorry; one more thing about the kids club i cant see anywhere; are they specific times or all day?

 

thank x

 

I believe sea days are 9-12, 2-5 and 7-10 - after 10, there is a fee. Port days start 1/2 hour prior to the first excursion.

[greengre]

haha that will be fun keeping him apart from his older brother and sister! :eek:

 

thanks guys x

[greengre]

I believe sea days are 9-12, 2-5 and 7-10 - after 10, there is a fee. Port days start 1/2 hour prior to the first excursion.

 

:D thanks x

[boulders]

Thank you so much for you replies :) im sure the older two will have a super time in the kids clubs :0 we went away last year and we had to que up at certain times each day (sometimes twice a day) to get your childs name down for the session.. and was not always successfull! so RCI doesnt operate like that?:D

 

No, they know how many kids are onboard and increase staffing levels as necessary. No one is turned away. The kids can go as they (or mom or dad) please. They don't need to be there for the whole session. They can arrive late and/or leave early if you want. Sometimes activities might take them out of the kids club, so you might have to track them down if they're in the middle of the session.

[birky_27]

We were on the Indy this past December with our 22 month old. Like someone else mentioned there is an open house on departure day. Go to them! Especially for the nursery. They will give you all the information you need and answer all your questions, we had tons because this was our first cruise with a child. This also gives your child time to meet some of the staff, other kids, and get to know the space. There is a fee for the nursery and it does go up a few dollars for later in the evening. Overall, I thought the fees were reasonable. I think they may have been $6/hr during the day and $8/hr during he evening but I can't remember exactly. I felt comfortable leaving our son there and was confident that the staff were well trained plus they give you a phone that they can call if there are any issues and they don't hesitate to call! Our son woke up from a nap there and was really upset, they called, and my husband went right up to check on him. The toys and play area were clean which I was worried that they wouldn't be. Even though our son didn't send tons of time in the nursery he did enjoy the time he spent playing with others there, except for the whole nap situation.

There are also play group times where you can take your child to play with others that are the same age.

They are located in different areas around the ship at different times during the day. You can get a schedule of these playgroups from the nursery during the open house. A parent does need to stay with the child during the playgroups but there is a staff member there to help the children play and interact together. We found that all these staff members were warm and welcoming and made our son feel welcomed and at ease. The only thing that disappointed me was the fact that the playgroups were on the schedule as things like farm play or zoo play and we went to the ones we thought our son would like only to find out that there weren't really any themes, just toys without a theme. I'm not sure if any of this has changed since RCCL and Little People aren't working together anymore.

 

As far as the baby splash area, our son loved it. He had a blast even though it wasn't deep plus there were Fisher Price toys in the water that RC put in for kids to play with. I will tell you that I did see numerous parents with their diapered children in the other "restricted" areas and lots of older kids would make their way into the baby section from time to time. One little girl around the age of 6 came in to the baby area and would take toys from the younger kids. But we don't let small things like that ruin our fun.

 

We did take him with us to several shows and he did just fine. There wasn't anything vulgar that I would have been worried about him seeing and he is pretty well behaved. Most times he would nap during the shows because of the dimmed lights and music, we used this to our advantage!

 

Have a wonderful cruise!

 

 

 

 

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[birky_27]

One more thing that I forgot. You do have to book ahead at the nursery. It can fill up but there is always a possibility that they could have openings later on but not guaranteed.

 

 

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[LeesSummitCruiser1]

My now 10 year old daughter loved adventure ocean until she was 8 then it became boring. From age 3 until 7 we could not drag her out of there even at the late night when they charged. She loved going to dinner there on formal nights. Even now on each cruise she has a special bond with one of the adventure ocean staff. The morning and afternoon schedules typically follow what ever is in cruise compass. The even schedule is a little more fluid because of a lot of in and out and kids that went ashore are just flat out exhausted and tend to crash early.