Good kid center hours and kid friendly activities? NCL Pearl was AWFUL.

[ladyjade3]

We JUST got back from a very disappointing cruise on NCL Pearl. I now realize this might be semi standard, but the kids center (we have a 4 and 6 yr old) closed sea days from 12-2 and 5-7. The second of only 2 sea days, they closed for most of the afternoon without notice. Because they are jerks and want to keep me sober and out of the casino, apparently.

 

This was our first cruise with kids, but not our first cruise. This policy turned out to be MUCH more of a pain than I thought it would be. I guess I assumed there would be something to do or a play area to go to while the kid center was closed, but NOT REALLY. And bored boys are awful little terror boys. This will not do. For the money I paid for a suite it is NORWEGIAN's JOB to entertain my monsters, er... boys for 5 days. NOT MINE.

 

For our next cruise I need for this to be better. I need PLAY AREAS for younger kids who are not strong swimmers yet, but not infants. I need activities that are kid friendly PARTICULARLY when the kid center is closed. Even better - a kid center that doesn't close twice midday. And I also need staff that knows and cares how to entertain kids and gives a darn so they don't act up in there and get behavior warnings. Yes, my boys are high energy. Entertain them and they are rapt little sponges. Bore them to tears and you will have problems.

 

So what cruise lines and ships are great for kids over age 2 and under age 13?

[cb at sea]

NO ship will take kids swimming...NONE. It's up to you, the parent, to supervise your child in a pool or at the beach.

 

There are cruise lines with better hours. But, in the end, they are YOUR kids...and it's up to you!

[ladyjade3]

NO ship will take kids swimming...NONE. It's up to you, the parent, to supervise your child in a pool or at the beach.

 

There are cruise lines with better hours. But, in the end, they are YOUR kids...and it's up to you!

 

No, I wouldn't want them to take my kids swimming. I would, however, like to have a pool they would enjoy that's not freezing and 5 foot deep. A *kids* pool, if you will. The Pearl did not have that.

 

And NO it should not be up to me to be cruise director and activities department. There should be SOMETHING for them to do. I am cruise director at HOME. On a cruise, I should have people for that.

[ladyjade3]

NO ship will take kids swimming...NONE. It's up to you, the parent, to supervise your child in a pool or at the beach.

 

There are cruise lines with better hours. But, in the end, they are YOUR kids...and it's up to you!

 

Really, how did you read in my post that I wanted anyone to take my kids to a pool? I didn't say that anywhere.... and if there are cruise lines with better hours, please elaborate. Which ones? That was my main question.

[kitkat343]

We had this exact same problem with NCL. Our son napped until the age of 4, so their hours were difficult. We previously cruised on HAL (but since HAL really isn't exactly the most kid friendly line in the world I wasn't as disappointed in their hours as NCL). HAL's kids clubs are closed on sea days from 11:30-1pm, and 4-7 pm. My son would wake up from a nap at 3:30, precisely a half hour before the HAL kids club would close, and be upset since he had to wait until 7 pm to be able to go to the kids clubs.

 

So when my son was 3.5, we considered cruising on NCL since the Breakaway was in our home port. But cruises leaving from NYC have a ton of sea days, and I thought this would be a miserable experience given the kids club hours. Ironically, this led to us booking a different NCL cruise since the Baltic cruise we booked has only 2 sea days. That worked out fairly well, since our son was a bit screwed up with the time change and we just let him nap on the 2nd sea day during the hours the kids club was closed. The problems with the two hour closure are: there are a lot of people on line precisely at 2 and 7 pm to drop off their kids the second the kids clubs reopen so that takes awhile. On the Star, the baby room with toys is close to the kids club and all the big kids run in there while the parents are on line to reenroll their kids. This wasn't the safest situation for the youngest kids. The Star is an older ship, so this may not be an issue on newer ships, but on the Star the kids pool areas were very crowded during the 4 hours the kids clubs were closed. And finally, we had to take our son to specialty restaurants since the kids clubs weren't open. He was mostly well behaved, but it would have been nice to have the threat of "if you aren't quiet we need to leave" and to have the ability to back that up by taking him out and bringing him to the kids club immediately.

 

I am fine with kids clubs closing for an hour for lunch and dinner, since there are parents who would leave their kids there all day long, which is not good for the children. A 4 hour closure is too long if you have kids who nap or kids who cannot play independently, and although my son really liked NCL (he thought their kids club was his favorite) I would be much more likely to sail Princess or Celebrity since their kids club hours are better. Disney is really expensive, but I believe their kids clubs do not close (however, they are very unstructured which works better for some children than others)

 

Also, it was really frustrating on HAL that they had family cooking classes that ran during the few hours their kids club was actually open. It would be helpful if the cruise lines scheduled those things during the hours the kids clubs are closed.

 

One option if you do book NCL is to see if they have a Teppayani restaurant. We took our son to that once. It wasn't the best (the chef kept dropping stuff) but the food was quite good and my son was entertained and it was how we got through one of the dinner breaks on one of the two sea days on our NCL cruise.

Edited January 23, 2017 by kitkat343

[ladyjade3]

OK so its not just me. Phew.

 

We did take the boys to Teppanyaki the first night and it was wonderful. Great chef, great food. And the cruise went downhill from there.

 

And you are SO RIGHT about family activities should be scheduled when kids club is closed, adults stuff when it is open. We missed out on several activities because of this disconnect. In fact, I left a note thanking the Splash Academy director for saving us money at the casino and spa by being closed and keeping us babysitting. Because I'm cheeky like that.

[Athankfulheart]

NO ship will take kids swimming...NONE. It's up to you, the parent, to supervise your child in a pool or at the beach.

 

There are cruise lines with better hours. But, in the end, they are YOUR kids...and it's up to you!

 

This is actually untrue. On carnival the camp forms ask you to give permission for swimming, but we never do so our kids have not gone. I don't want anyone but myself to supervise my child in a pool.

[ladyjade3]

This is actually untrue. On carnival the camp forms ask you to give permission for swimming, but we never do so our kids have not gone. I don't want anyone but myself to supervise my child in a pool.

 

I agree. At least until my kids are teens. I wouldn't WANT them to swim without me.

[Athankfulheart]

It has been a year since I have taken my children on a cruise, but if I remember correctly, Carnival Magic had better hours. They closed for an hour at lunch time but at dinner you could sign your child in at a special reserved section of the buffet. The were so organized and all the children ate together and then marched off to camp. They handled things like food allergies splendidly too. I don't think the kids could be at the camp location during this dinner time because staff was at the dinner. They also have fabulous late night programs and parties for the children. The kids dinner lasted an hour or less and had several choices.

 

We have only sailed once on NCL and it was "ok". We much prefer Carnival - especially when sailing with the kids. Carnival Magic is an amazing ship for kids and families.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Athankfulheart

[RSLeesburg]

RCI also closes the kids club from noon to 2pm and from 5-7pm on sea days so that parents feed their kids. Depending on the ship, they may have family activities during these times - family bingo, family trivia, family scavenger hunt, etc. Some may have movies during the afternoon break.

 

 

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[spookwife]

Disney. And you pay for them to be your child's full time babysitter in higher cruise prices

 

 

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[kitkat343]

Here are the hours for Carnival according to their website:

 

Sea days: 10:00am-1:00pm; 2:00pm-5:00pm; 7:00pm-10:00pm.

 

The reason Carnival doesn't start its kids club programs until 10 am is they offer care for children under 2 until then:

 

Sea Days: Under 2 time is scheduled from 8:00am-10:00am. During this time, parents have the option of leaving their child in the care of the Youth Staff (Fees Apply: $6.75 USD per hour plus a 15% gratuity, per child) – or - they can stay and use the Camp Carnival facilities at no charge. Please note that this time is designated for the use of Under 2’s and their parents only.

[6rugrats]

And NO it should not be up to me to be cruise director and activities department. There should be SOMETHING for them to do. I am cruise director at HOME. On a cruise, I should have people for that.

 

Perhaps consider hiring a nanny and bringing them on the cruise. You can even put them in a cabin with your boys so you would have someone else for everything.

 

Might be a good solution for you.

[maui07]

Is this thread a joke? The kid's club is open 12 out of 24 hours in the day, what more do you want? Incredible. Why bother bringing your kids?

[6rugrats]

Is this thread a joke? The kid's club is open 12 out of 24 hours in the day, what more do you want? Incredible. Why bother bringing your kids?

 

I actually thought the same thing.

[kitkat343]

Is this thread a joke? The kid's club is open 12 out of 24 hours in the day, what more do you want? Incredible. Why bother bringing your kids?

 

On our cruises, we have taken our son at the ages of 2 and 3 to visit cities of important historical and cultural destinations. My son has a ton of energy and he never stops moving, so it isn't the easiest thing in the world to travel with him. We took him on a Baltic cruise, and he saw everything on a standard tour of St. Petersburg - the Hermitage, Peterhof, Catherine's Palace, the Church of the Spilled Blood and St Isaac's. He had a wonderful time, and actually learned a lot of history, art and culture (he printed out different Renaissance art paintings to print out and sleep with for two months after we returned home). But a Baltic cruise under normal circumstances is exhausting, so the kids clubs were an important factor in making this trip manageable. We rested and recovered while he was in the kids club so we'd be able to start again the next day. Ideally, he'd have spent the two sea days on that cruise in the kids club and all 7 of the port days with us exploring Europe. We came fairly close to that except for the 4 hour lunch and dinner closure on sea days (which for our family a 2 hour closure would have been perfect since we wanted to take our son to lunch and dinner, otherwise he'd eat nothing but hot dogs and french fries).

[momto2js]

Cruising with kids is different then cruising without. The choice of boat makes a HUGE difference. Going with that means that you know the height and age restrictions for everything before making a decision. I really want to do Oasis, but my 10 year old is short and he doesn't weigh much so he couldn't do the zip line or flow rider, so we are not going on Oasis.

 

I understand the kids club being closed during dinner is a bummer. I think Royal will still come to the MDR at 6:15 and retrieve the kids. That is a nice service. However, worse than them being closed is when your kid looks at you and says "I'm not going there!!" At that point you had better hope you picked the right ship, because the sea days a long when you have shuffle board and mini golf as your best options.

 

Most of the bigger ships have splash areas and watersides with shallow water that are good for the in between kids.

 

Your kids will get older and the challenges will change. The up side of having a 8 and 10 year old was when they were done with dinner I could send them to the rockwall and ropes course while we finished. They were often the only ones there. However, I did deal with the consistent attitude and arguing that comes with double digit age. I have often thought that I would gladly travel with carseats and all the stuff again if I did not have to take the attitude with us!!

[kitkat343]

he choice of boat makes a HUGE difference. Going with that means that you know the height and age restrictions for everything before making a decision

 

That's a really good point. So far we've chosen cruises exclusively based upon the itinerary, which has led to us only sailing much older, smaller ships that quite frankly don't have many bells and whistles for kids. When our kids get older, we may need to rethink that plan. For now, my oldest son loved the kids club so it seemed fairly reasonable to choose a cruise based primarily upon the itinerary and leave him in the kids club when it is open during sea days.

[bplazo]

Wow, when I too a vacation with my daughter it was for us to spend time together and not put her in a camp. I would sometimes let her go for an hour but we enjoyed having her with us. I did not need anyone else to entertain her.

[bakingem]

We cruised on RCCL (Liberty of the Seas) this summer. We didn't take our kids this time, but I tried to pay attention to some of the kids stuff to make a decision about when to bring our littles. I'm not sure about the kids club hours, but the ship had a huge splashpad/kid zone that looked pretty amazing and my kids would have happily played there for hours day after day. I cannot imagine taking them on a cruise without a fun kid area like that as an option. This link to their website has one pic of the splash zone thing if you scroll to kids/families section so you can get an idea. Not sure they have it on all ships, but it looked like a great feature. http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/ships/class/ship/home.do?shipClassCode=FR&shipCode=LB&br=R

 

And for the record to all the "why even bring your kids??" people, I think the issue is not that you want to "get rid of your kids" the whole time, it's that when your kids take a nap from say 1-3, they are basically sleeping the entire time the kids' club is open in the afternoon and if they are still at nap-taking age, they probably go to bed by 8/8:30, so it's not like they're at the kid's club from 7-10, either. More to the OP's point is that when the kids' club IS closed it would be nice if there were kid friendly cruise activities that were planned as an option or a kid-friendly pool/splash pad for you to entertain your kids and let them have a special, fun vacation, too. Clearly, the OP was being tongue-in-cheek in her post, not actually saying that she doesn't want to see her kids the entire time. Give mama a break, y'all!!!

[ladyjade3]

Thank you! Yes, I think Royal Caribbean is next for us. We did a few RC cruises before kids and LOVED them. A splash pad like that would more than suffice for something for the kids to do. :)

[ladyjade3]

Perhaps consider hiring a nanny and bringing them on the cruise. You can even put them in a cabin with your boys so you would have someone else for everything.

 

Might be a good solution for you.

 

Yeah, cause we are made of money. Come on. You're just being mean.

 

I guess some people don't think families need to be cruising, or that everyone has a family or child care situation that would allow them to go on a cruise without... So I don't get to cruise for 14 more years. I'm sure the cruise industry does not want that. Clearly, from how they are designing the newer boats, they DO want me to be able to cruise and not let my lack of child care resources at home to stop me from giving them my monies.

 

You may not want me to get a break on my vacation, but they certainly want my money. I'm simply asking advice from the community on who I should give that money to. ;)

 

PS As a mom of two boys, I do not accept advice nor criticism from parents of one girl. As a general rule. LOL It's a different world, ya'll. It just is.

[HawksFan74]

Wife, 5 y.o. daughter, and I recently returned from a 7 day cruise aboard Ruby Princess. Our daughter was in the kids club most of the time when they were open, but they were also closed 12-2 and 5-7 on sea days. What kid-friendly activities are there to do during those times? I don't know...eat lunch? Eat dinner? If there was extra time after lunch, we either went swimming or just chilled in the cabin for a bit. It honestly didn't seem like there was that much time to kill.

[mjkacmom]

Yeah, cause we are made of money. Come on. You're just being mean.

 

I guess some people don't think families need to be cruising, or that everyone has a family or child care situation that would allow them to go on a cruise without... So I don't get to cruise for 14 more years. I'm sure the cruise industry does not want that. Clearly, from how they are designing the newer boats, they DO want me to be able to cruise and not let my lack of child care resources at home to stop me from giving them my monies.

 

You may not want me to get a break on my vacation, but they certainly want my money. I'm simply asking advice from the community on who I should give that money to. ;)

 

PS As a mom of two boys, I do not accept advice nor criticism from parents of one girl. As a general rule. LOL It's a different world, ya'll. It just is.

The bigger NCL ships have lots to do - splash pads, rock walls, ropes courses, mini golf, arcades, bowling...

 

As the mom of 2 boys (and 3 girls), I found the kids clubs to be quite good! We are booked on our 4th NCL cruise in May.

[A&Jfamily]

Yeah, cause we are made of money. Come on. You're just being mean.

 

I guess some people don't think families need to be cruising, or that everyone has a family or child care situation that would allow them to go on a cruise without... So I don't get to cruise for 14 more years. I'm sure the cruise industry does not want that. Clearly, from how they are designing the newer boats, they DO want me to be able to cruise and not let my lack of child care resources at home to stop me from giving them my monies.

 

You may not want me to get a break on my vacation, but they certainly want my money. I'm simply asking advice from the community on who I should give that money to. ;)

 

PS As a mom of two boys, I do not accept advice nor criticism from parents of one girl. As a general rule. LOL It's a different world, ya'll. It just is.

 

I don't think suggesting a nanny was mean - it was a practical solution. An older cousin perhaps? Babysitter? Someone to spend time with the kids and gets a free vacation to do so....costing only the cost of a 3rd person in an inside room.

 

I am a mom of 2 boys, but it is not my place to criticize you. But perhaps I can help you to realize that there are all range of views on here - from people that cruise to spend 100% of the time with their kids and never send them to camp, to people like me who think the hours are very generous, with only the hour break at lunch and 1-2 hours prior to dinner, to people like you who want availability all day.

 

From my perspective the hours that you have cited are consistent with both Carnival and Princess and you are probably going to find that to be the case across the board. I think the answer may lie in the fact that cruising is not the ideal vacation for your family and perhaps you would be better off considering a resort that does offer continuous child care.

 

In the alternative, if you wish to continue cruising, then perhaps either leave the kids with family to get a true break, or modify your expectations. We sent our boys for the morning and spent 3 delightful hours doing what we wish. We grabbed them for a family lunch around the pool, and then let them chose if they wanted to stay with us and swim, or return to camp (in your case, you would send them back to camp for another 3 hours). We then brought them back to the room at 4 pm for showers and movie time. We have always shared dinner with our boys, but knowing that they often begged to have camp dinner (and I would assume yours are the same), sent them back to camp from 6-10 pm. On a sea day, that's 10 hours of "down time" and probably far more than your get in real life. And IMHE probably as much as you can find on a cruise ship.

 

Good luck in whatever you chose.