How Late do your Kids Stay Up on Cruise?

[LuCruise]

Our dining and show reservations have opened up on our cruise and so I have booked everything. We have a great schedule, but I do wonder how our kids will be with some late nights.

 

Our kids will be almost 11 years and 6.5 years (closer to 7) when we cruise in April. At home, our older one goes to bed at 9pm and our younger one at 8pm.

 

Our cruise schedule is such that:

• Day 1 - Bed around 10pm
  
• Day 2 - Up early for excursion but nothing planned after dinner
  
• Day 3 - Later dinner so bed around 9:30pm
  
• Day 4 - Bed around 10pm
  
• Day 5 - Possibly up early (if book excursion). Bed around 10pm
  
• Day 6 - Nothing planned after dinner
  
• Day 7 - Up early for character breakfast. Nothing planned after dinner.
  

 

The bed times are estimated times based on when shows/dinner completes and we get back to our stateroom, they get changed, brush teeth and in bed.

 

So overall we have 4 late nights planned. Of course, if it's too much then we can skip our plans.

 

How about others? How many late nights do your kids manage? (And how old are they?)

Edited November 19, 2015 by LuCruise

[cb at sea]

It's a vacation...assuming that they aren't totally cranky the next day, I'd just play it by ear...when we vacationed with our kids, our daily schedule went out the window.....and they were fine!

[Kerry's Girls]

With my kids, the absolute worst things that can happen to make us all miserable during a trip are if they get tired or they get hungry. Mine don't need less sleep during a trip, they need more if anything. I make them lay down before getting ready for dinner. They have to "rest", but with the blackout curtains and quiet, they usually drop to sleep for awhile, especially after a busy day. The nap makes them refreshed and ready for a fun evening.

 

Best,

Mia

[LuCruise]

It's a vacation...assuming that they aren't totally cranky the next day, I'd just play it by ear...when we vacationed with our kids, our daily schedule went out the window.....and they were fine!

 

Totally. DH and I are happy to have them stay up, and we've scheduled things as above so that this is "the plan". But just wondering about other families with kids...if their kids do manage to stay up, or if there are some/all early nights.

 

With my kids' date=' the absolute worst things that can happen to make us all miserable during a trip are if they get tired or they get hungry. Mine don't need less sleep during a trip, they need more if anything. I make them lay down before getting ready for dinner. They have to "rest", but with the blackout curtains and quiet, they usually drop to sleep for awhile, especially after a busy day. The nap makes them refreshed and ready for a fun evening.

 

Best,

Mia[/quote']

 

Our kids way past the nap stage (unfortunately they stopped that at 1 or 2 years). But definitely good if they can.

[Kerry's Girls]

 

Our kids way past the nap stage (unfortunately they stopped that at 1 or 2 years). But definitely good if they can.

 

Yes, mine are way past the napping stage too - but for us on vacation a siesta makes for a great evening (for mom too)! If your kids can go on less sleep and not get cranky, you've got much more even-keeled kids than mine :)

[ladygal4.4]

9-10 is the latest we let ours stay up. Sure, they could do much later but who wants a cranky kid?

 

 

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[LuCruise]

Agree with the cranky thing. We've done it before at Disney, but that was maybe only one really late night, and a couple a bit later than normal. Guess we'll just play it by year. At least the higher priority events for staying up are at the start of the cruise.

[mikesteg]

Yes' date=' mine are way past the napping stage too - but for us on vacation a siesta makes for a great evening (for mom too)! If your kids can go on less sleep and not get cranky, you've got much more even-keeled kids than mine :)[/quote']

 

Same here. Our twins are 6 and will rarely nap at home, even under unusual conditions. On the ship, it is much less of an issue. They may not agree to nap, but they'll lay down and fall asleep anyway. :D

 

We do not worry about specific bed times on vacation, though sleep is clearly important. Our kids tend to do fine if they lose a couple of hours for one night, but we try to make it up. They will not do fine if they being to lose sleep for multiple nights, so we plan to avoid that, but still without specific bedtimes on specific days. Just subtle time management.

 

Our kids really enjoy the shows, so they tend to get to bed much later than their 7pm bedtime at home pretty much every day. But, they will sleep in most days, which they usually won't do at home. Wake up at home is 6am (usually even on the weekends!), so sleeping in to 7:30 or 8am is sufficient to accommodate most ship mornings.

 

We did Alaska this summer and on a couple of night they were up until the equivalent of 1am at home. That was 9pm ship time, so there is really no avoiding it without sacrificing some of the most enjoyable parts of the cruise ship experience. The kids slept in, took naps, and they did fine.

[jinglesmountjoy]

We will play it by ear. No set times though midnight would likely be the late point. The nice thing is, if they are cranky the next day, we'll just head to the adults only area! :D

[LuCruise]

Same here. Our twins are 6 and will rarely nap at home, even under unusual conditions. On the ship, it is much less of an issue. They may not agree to nap, but they'll lay down and fall asleep anyway. :D

 

We do not worry about specific bed times on vacation, though sleep is clearly important. Our kids tend to do fine if they lose a couple of hours for one night, but we try to make it up. They will not do fine if they being to lose sleep for multiple nights, so we plan to avoid that, but still without specific bedtimes on specific days. Just subtle time management.

 

Our kids really enjoy the shows, so they tend to get to bed much later than their 7pm bedtime at home pretty much every day. But, they will sleep in most days, which they usually won't do at home. Wake up at home is 6am (usually even on the weekends!), so sleeping in to 7:30 or 8am is sufficient to accommodate most ship mornings.

 

We did Alaska this summer and on a couple of night they were up until the equivalent of 1am at home. That was 9pm ship time, so there is really no avoiding it without sacrificing some of the most enjoyable parts of the cruise ship experience. The kids slept in, took naps, and they did fine.

 

Yeah, I tried not to have back to back of saying up late and up early next morning, but we do have that once because of an exursion. Or similarly, two late nights in a row.

 

That's why I put "Possibly up early (if book excursion)". I really want to book Bernard's Tour when in St Maarten that day as people rave about it on here. My main hesitation is that we'd have to be up early not sure if the 'go go go' schedule would be too much.

[Vs1023]

I have a 10 and 4 year old. The 10 year old has stayed up as late as midnight some nights. On the cruise though my husband and I take turns so we can go enjoy stuff as the 4 year old is not a fan of the kids club still so usually I will get my youngest ready for bed and off to sleep once we drop off the oldest at the kids club and my husband goes to the casino. My youngest went to bed by 9pm most nights of the cruise except for a show one evening where the show time was 9:30pm so he went to bed closer to 11. No naps either. They did fine. We did a cruise last year and had a similar schedule.

[LuCruise]

I have a 10 and 4 year old. The 10 year old has stayed up as late as midnight some nights. On the cruise though my husband and I take turns so we can go enjoy stuff as the 4 year old is not a fan of the kids club still so usually I will get my youngest ready for bed and off to sleep once we drop off the oldest at the kids club and my husband goes to the casino. My youngest went to bed by 9pm most nights of the cruise except for a show one evening where the show time was 9:30pm so he went to bed closer to 11. No naps either. They did fine. We did a cruise last year and had a similar schedule.

 

Yeah...often with kids, one stays behind with them at bedtime and one can go out. I'm not a night owl, so will probably just be me on those nights and DH can enjoy the casino.

That's pretty good if your 4 year old was able to make it to 9 or 9:30pm. I've tried to arrange it so that there are no "late" shows but some don't start until 9pm. I'm hoping the excitement will keep them going as I know they won't want to go to bed.

[katiedidthat]

We're the odd ones out when it comes to this, it seems. Our littles are 1.5 and 3, and at home, they go to bed around 930pm and wake at 830am. On our last cruise, my oldest was 13 months and he napped 3-5 every day, then fell asleep during the evening shows (830-930/10) and was up until 1am in kids club nearly every night. We've been adjusting nap and bed times at home since mid summer and they can now both go from 9am to 330pm, nap til 5, and go again until 1130pm or 12am, so I'm expecting a decent number of late nights on our upcoming cruise. We are a go-go-go family at home as well though, so you just have to gauge your kids reactions and adjust.

[Vs1023]

Yeah...often with kids, one stays behind with them at bedtime and one can go out. I'm not a night owl, so will probably just be me on those nights and DH can enjoy the casino.

That's pretty good if your 4 year old was able to make it to 9 or 9:30pm. I've tried to arrange it so that there are no "late" shows but some don't start until 9pm. I'm hoping the excitement will keep them going as I know they won't want to go to bed.

 

Unfortunately if the weather isn't great the Aqua show will be re-scheduled which happened to us and so the night we were supposed to have it they said yes it's on so we made the MDR rush us through dinner only to arrive at the theater and it was cancelled so we chose a 930 rescheduled show. I think our original time was 730. I agree with not doing too many late night shows too. Fortunately my little guy hates sleep..LOL :)

[Keith1010]

I think you have the right approach and as you said you can make adjustments.

 

Keith

[Bellyflopchamp]

When we were on the Allure a little over a week ago there were plenty of kids that were up late, like past 11 late. Our little one did not want to nap (she is 21 months) at all unless we were holding her and even that only lasted 30 minutes. She also did not sleep well in the beginning and lost a good amount of sleep right off the bat. From day 3 on she went to bed around 9:30 or 10 and woke up around 8am.

 

I would also say that it depends on where you are from. If you live on the east coast they may go to bed around the same time as normal, but if you are from a different time zone that could impact when they go to sleep as well. For example if you they are on PST and normally go to sleep around 9pm that might shift to midnight for them at least for the first couple of nights.

 

The last night of the cruise we saw a lot of kids awake at midnight and i assume it was to get them back on schedule.

[LuCruise]

When we were on the Allure a little over a week ago there were plenty of kids that were up late, like past 11 late. Our little one did not want to nap (she is 21 months) at all unless we were holding her and even that only lasted 30 minutes. She also did not sleep well in the beginning and lost a good amount of sleep right off the bat. From day 3 on she went to bed around 9:30 or 10 and woke up around 8am.

 

I would also say that it depends on where you are from. If you live on the east coast they may go to bed around the same time as normal, but if you are from a different time zone that could impact when they go to sleep as well. For example if you they are on PST and normally go to sleep around 9pm that might shift to midnight for them at least for the first couple of nights.

 

The last night of the cruise we saw a lot of kids awake at midnight and i assume it was to get them back on schedule.

 

Your little one did quite well to be able to stay until 9:30pm or 10pm. And then you didn't miss too much in terms of evening activities or shows. Guess there was just too much excitement around her to sleep. :)

 

Yeah, good point about the timezone. We are the same as the ship so at least no complications there.

Edited November 24, 2015 by LuCruise

[Bellyflopchamp]

Your little one did quite well to be able to stay until 9:30pm or 10pm. And then you didn't miss too much in terms of evening activities or shows. Guess there was just too much excitement around her to sleep. :)

 

Yeah, good point about the timezone. We are the same as the ship so at least no complications there.

 

We only brought her to the Aqua show and the Ice show. The Aqua show was a rescheduled show and was at 5:30 or around that and the Ice show was at 3:30. She actually was pretty good throughout most of the trip, but you could tell that it was wearing her down as she started to have more frequent melt downs on the last two days.

[Lerin]

We play it by ear.

Sometimes as early as 7pm other times they may be up past midnight. This is especially true if we have to account for time zone changes and once daylight savings time.

All of us will usually take an afternoon siesta to re-charge as well.

[bubba83]

Totally. DH and I are happy to have them stay up, and we've scheduled things as above so that this is "the plan". But just wondering about other families with kids...if their kids do manage to stay up, or if there are some/all early nights.

 

 

 

Our kids way past the nap stage (unfortunately they stopped that at 1 or 2 years). But definitely good if they can.

 

 

You would be surprised at how tired they will get on vacation and could mostly relax or nap for even 30 minutes...heck cruising as an adult I am ready for a nap around 3 :)

 

Our kiddos will be 3 and 5.5 when they take their first cruise in April...they already are talking about going tot eh kids club and swimming...we have the early seating for dinner...so my sea days I am thinking it will be this

-breakfast

-they go to kids club

-lunch

-swimming for a few hrs

-nap/relaxation time in room

-showers and get ready for dinner

-dinner and they will go to kids club so they aren't in the dinning room for more than an hour

- and then they can either stay there until bed time or they can go to the shows with us if they are appropriate....

 

my youngest still takes a nap pretty much every day for like an hour or 2...my oldest doesn't nap hardly ever....and if we let them stay up until 10 or 11 when on vacation they seem to adjust but the naps/relaxation time are shown to keep them happy throughout the evening!

[mjmalino]

Our first couple cruises, our kids' bedtime was 8. (They were between the ages of 7 and 9) and loved the kids programs, we would pick them up by 9, giving them the extra hour. We started getting flack that they wanted to stay until 10 as they would miss movies and such, so, we tried it and it worked well. Now, well, they will be 18 and 17 on our next cruise and they are up later than we are.

[A&Jfamily]

I think this comes down to "knowing your kid.'

 

My "baby" is now almost 12 and has been cruising since 2. His brother is 6 years older. A 10 min power nap and the "baby" is golden. We always had them back in the room by 430 for an hour of down time (watch a movie) and a shower before dinner. He would stay up until 10 at the kids club and go straight to sleep. The latest we ever woke him was 8 am for breakfast - and he is always in a good mood because he is a morning person. He's a 9-10 hr min kid.

 

My older son now stays out as long as he likes - some of the teen activities go until 2 or 3 in the morning. They have their own room across the hall, so no disturbing mom and dad when he comes in. And he is old enough to plan his time and knows that we will be waking him for shore excursions, so he will often nap in the afternoon. He's ADHD so daytime sleep used to elude him. He is not a morning person, but can run on much less sleep than his brother. He's a 6-7 hour min. kid.

 

So, really evaluate what your kids need. Make sure they get that - and whenever possible, add in down time for resting. If they are tired, they will do the kid thing and crash.

[Rob_Jen]

Our kids go and go all day and night basically. The older one (10) like to take a nap poolside or on the beach but the 8 year old does not stop. They stay up in the camps as long as they are not tired. Usually picking them up around midnight. it their vacation - they can have as much fun as they choose.