Kids club

[ozzysdad]

Travelling on Azura next Easter with our 12 year old and have a question or two.

 

If we drop our son off at the club how do we maintain contact if he needs something or wants to leave the club?

 

Do the kids eat together or do kids tend to eat with their families before returning to the club?

 

Any other info would be appreciated.

[john watson]

Travelling on Azura next Easter with our 12 year old and have a question or two.

 

If we drop our son off at the club how do we maintain contact if he needs something or wants to leave the club?

 

The rules on self-signing in/out for children at the clubs even at this age. Children can no longer sign in/out the club and parent's or people authorised by the parents as signatories have to deliver and collect them (possibly a difference with entering the club). Basically you need to look in every so often and give them a wave and they can tell you they want to stay. There is a pager system for the night nursery and you could ask for one. Not sure what response you will get but with experience you will see how long attendance sessions are best.

 

Do the kids eat together or do kids tend to eat with their families before returning to the club?

 

They do not feed the children meals at the club. There is a children's early tea each night which is nothing to do with the club. Mainly for younger ones who would not endure long meals in the MDR particularly at shared tables. On rare occasions the club runs a Pizza Night etc. and they are escorted to/from the appropriate restaurant where a special reserved areas has been arranged

 

 

The general run of the clubs in The Reef is age splits; 2-4,5-8, 9-12. Programmed age related activities are run through the days of the cruise and published in a Reef Newsletter delivered to your cabin. Through the day the different age clubs are separate. However later on in the evening often they amalgamate and watch a suitable DVD in a big group with the lights dimmed many nod off a bit.

 

Any other info would be appreciated.

 

Any other questions on anything specific?

 

Regards John

[Selbourne]

Travelling on Azura next Easter with our 12 year old and have a question or two.

 

If we drop our son off at the club how do we maintain contact if he needs something or wants to leave the club?

 

Do the kids eat together or do kids tend to eat with their families before returning to the club?

 

Any other info would be appreciated.

 

Children using the kids Club usually do one of two things, either staying in their age specific Club to participate in organised activities or, once they have met a group of similar age new friends, using it simply as a meeting point to then wander off around the ship. Some do a combination. Our kids tended to do the latter.

 

The great thing about cruising with children is that the ship is a completely safe and secure environment. You can relax in the knowledge that no harm can come to them in a way that you can't with a land based holiday.

 

There is no specific way to contact each other, but the system that we used was to tell them what time we were going for meals and where (and when) they should meet us if they wanted to join us. The other method was leaving notes in the cabin. Kids should have their own key cards so that they always have a 'base' they can go to if their friends have to head back to their parents.

 

When our kids were your sons age we saw them for most (but not all) meals, but at no other time!

[ozzysdad]

Thanks very much for the replies your answers have covered most of our reservations and we will try not to worry too much before we've even got there.

[john watson]

Oh, I forgot. Last cruise my daughter met another girl who was a bit more up on tech. You can leave messages on your phone by phoning your own cabin from a service phone or another cabin phone and leave messages on the ansaphone's voice box. When you're in the cabin you will notice the phone unit has a flashing red light displayed.

 

May help with keeping in touch for certain situations. I get texted from work in the med so that may work on a payg but contract phone costs may run out of control unnoticed. Younger people are far more savvy on tech than me and my Nokia which people laugh at.

 

Regards John

[mandylennon]

My son was 14 on his first cruise. They did have nights where pizza got delivered to the kids club and also he asked if he could eat in the buffet with his new friends, which he did a couple of evenings. The problem we had was getting him out of the club, even at that age it went on till 12 midnight, which we thought was a little too late if we had to get up early next morning for an excursion. This was a few years ago before you had to collect your children, but he seemed to find us when he needed us. The cabin steward was also very helpful as he would tell us what our son was doing and whenever he had come back to the cabin.