MSC Kids Club

[hbe]

For those that have sailed NCL as well, I was wondering how the 2 clubs compare, thanks

[Matsurida]

Our kids preferred NCL's Kids' Club by a mile. They just found the activities more interesting. From a parent's point of view, I also found NCL better organised. Drop-off/pick-up was always chaotic on MSC. Several times we found the Kids' Club locked up with no indication of where they might be or what time they would be expected back. Our biggest bugbear on NCL was that it's more geared towards southern Mediterranean families: they have a set dinner-time at something like 8pm (which is normal for Italian/Spanish families but very late for our kids) so if you have the early dinner seating or prefer to eat earlier as a family, the kids have no evening activities aside from going to dinner again with the Kids' Club. This meant that our kids were very reluctant to join KC in the evenings at all. "Family disco" sounded promising but ended up being 15 minutes of pre-schoolers jumping around to Barney-like songs. Nothing for slightly older "cool" kids at all.

[hbe]

Thank you for your input. I was really hoping they would be the same. I will be sailing the Seaside in Feb without them and will check out the ship.

[mickeyhereicome]

Our kids preferred NCL's Kids' Club by a mile. They just found the activities more interesting. From a parent's point of view, I also found NCL better organised. Drop-off/pick-up was always chaotic on MSC. Several times we found the Kids' Club locked up with no indication of where they might be or what time they would be expected back. Our biggest bugbear on NCL was that it's more geared towards southern Mediterranean families: they have a set dinner-time at something like 8pm (which is normal for Italian/Spanish families but very late for our kids) so if you have the early dinner seating or prefer to eat earlier as a family, the kids have no evening activities aside from going to dinner again with the Kids' Club. This meant that our kids were very reluctant to join KC in the evenings at all. "Family disco" sounded promising but ended up being 15 minutes of pre-schoolers jumping around to Barney-like songs. Nothing for slightly older "cool" kids at all.

 

Sorry can you clarify for me. NCL was geared more towards Southern Med families or did you mean MSC?

[Matsurida]

Hi. I meant that MSC was more geared towards Southern Mediterranean families. That said, we've just gotten off the MSC Magnifica after a two week cruise, one which was sold as catering more for the British as it was sailing from Southampton, and the timetable in the Kids' Club was different to what we experienced last year. This time there were no late dinners, for example. I can say that the staff were all lovely but our two kids still weren't thrilled about going there. There were some pretty cool activities but those were few and far between and a lot of the time kids are expected to do their own thing, colour in, watch TV, etc. I have a vague memory of NCL's kids' club being altogether more active, with a lot of sport, rather than being designed just to keep the kids vaguely amused and out of their parents' hair. And everything was much too childish for our 10 year old who was at the upper limit of the pirates group (age 7-11), which was definitely still geared towards the seven year olds and was often clumped together with the younger 3-6 group anyway.

[Tapi]

My kids are 6 and 8 years old and have taken 9 cruises across 5 different cruise lines.

 

Our only experience with the kids club on MSC has been aboard the Divina, and my kids absolutely loved it. Let me start by saying that the facilities paled in comparison to what we have experienced on other cruise lines (they were small, somewhat basic, and very low tech).

 

But my kids begged to go to the club everyday. I was a bit dumbfounded about why they wanted to go so bad when I perceived this club to be far inferior to what I’d seen before, so I started asking questions. My kids said that they loved the activities. MSC kept them very physically active and moving around the ship. They spent very little time sitting still or in front of a computer or video game. They would also take them to other venues of the ship for activities. They were constantly on the move. If they were having dinner at the kids club, they were taken to a dedicated section of the buffet set up for children. They even performed at the main theater of the ship at a talent show during our last day at sea in front of the general audience.

 

For some reason that’s still beyond my understanding, my kids loved Doremi, MSC’s mascot, and they kept singing Doremi’s theme song for weeks after we returned home from that cruise. I couldn’t get it out of my head. [emoji23]

 

Overall, we were very satisfied with our experience. We learned that our children didn’t need the most state of the art facilities or latest technology to have fun. They are exposed to enough technology back home so I’m guessing that what MSC offered was a welcome and fresh change for them. In particular they were fascinated about meeting and playing with kids that spoke other languages. They said that it was so much fun for them to figure out each other’s name, where they were from, what language they spoke, and to come up with a way to play together, even if they didn’t speak each other’s language.

 

They even said that they enjoyed MSC more than Disney, which SHOCKED me considering that Disney’s focus IS children, and their kids club are mind-boggling, enormous, technologically advanced, themed facilities, with nonstop activities. I mean, they even have a Star Wars’ Millenium Falcon simulator! But even though my kids thoroughly enjoyed what Disney had to offer (and my son was glued to that simulator every time I picked my kids up) apparently it wasn’t enough to rank Disney above MSC. Go figure! But good for me since our Disney cruise was almost 5 times more expensive than our MSC cruise! I won’t have to spend that kind of money again!

 

But I guess there’s something for everyone, and the same things don’t necessarily appease all kids. While my kids loved MSC, I saw plenty of kids throwing a tantrum as their parents attempted to check them in and while forcing them to stay. What my kids loved were things that other kids hated. I remember one little boy telling his mom in tears “but mom, nobody speaks English”.

 

We are now booked on the MSC Meraviglia in a few months sailing in the Mediterranean, and from what I’ve read and seen, the kids club experience will be considerably different than what we experienced on the Divina. The facilities are much bigger, modern, and more state of the art so we’ll see how my kids respond to that. But I believe that as long as the essence of what we experienced on the Divina is still present on the Meraviglia, they will enjoy it!

 

 

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Edited August 31, 2018 by Tapi

[Matsurida]

Just to add a little in reaction to the last post:

That's right– for lunch on port days the kids are taken with the Kids' Club to a specially designated area of the buffet. But that didn't suit our kids at all because they are adventurous eaters and they weren't allowed to stray from the kids's area of the buffet, which offered only the standard kiddy fare of fries, fish fingers, mashed potato, mini pizza, burger, etc... day in, day out.

It's not that our kids HATED the MSC Kids' Club: they just didn't find it particularly appealing. There were some stand out events such as cooking class or t-shirt making but, as I said, I think our older daughter was just to mature for a lot of the activities: there were regular parades round the ship with the kids all chanting, photo shoots with Doremi, family discos with "baby music" as she called it and a lot of games were the two groups were clubbed together so that she was up against 4 year olds. The whole thing may well appeal more to younger kids. Talking to other parents, there have been issues in the past with language barriers, and even on our recent cruise which was heavily marketed to a British clientele, the vast majority of kids in the clubs were non-English speaking. Our kids are multilingual so it has never been an issue but I have spoken to other parents who say their kids don't want to go in there because "nobody speaks English" which ends up exacerbating the problem!

[Tapi]

That's right– for lunch on port days the kids are taken with the Kids' Club to a specially designated area of the buffet. But that didn't suit our kids at all because they are adventurous eaters and they weren't allowed to stray from the kids's area of the buffet, which offered only the standard kiddy fare of fries, fish fingers, mashed potato, mini pizza, burger, etc... day in, day out!

That’s unfortunate that they wouldn’t let your children try other things outside of the children’s buffet, but your experience is somewhat different than what we experienced.

 

My daughter can live off chicken nuggets, but my son never orders from the kids menu anywhere we go (he’ll order things that I’m not brave enough to order). On the MSC Divina, he would ask a kids club staff member if they could get him a specific item from the adult side of the buffet and they would oblige every time. They wouldn’t let him wander off on his own to the other side of the buffet (thankfully!) but they would get the requested items for him.

 

I guess that the reason why my kids enjoyed being taken to the buffet was because they could get out of the club and actually choose something, even if the selection was heavy on kid favorites, something that they’d never experienced on any other cruise line that they’ve sailed on. For comparison purposes, on Disney they would bring a tray of cheese sandwiches to the club during meal hours. So not only were they not moving from the club, but they had to either eat the cheese sandwich or not eat at all. Needless to say, on that cruise they ate almost every meal with us.

 

Talking to other parents, there have been issues in the past with language barriers, and even on our recent cruise which was heavily marketed to a British clientele, the vast majority of kids in the clubs were non-English speaking. Our kids are multilingual so it has never been an issue but I have spoken to other parents who say their kids don't want to go in there because "nobody speaks English" which ends up exacerbating the problem!

 

The issue concerning language barriers is something that parents should definitely be aware of before choosing MSC, and they should prepare their kids for it in advance. We are also a multi-lingual, multi-cultural family, so my kids are used to and thrive on that environment. But I can see how kids who only speak one language, or who may have never traveled outside of their country or interacted with other cultures could find the language and culture differences intimidating and something conducive to a negative experience.

 

As mentioned before, I witnessed it on our Divina cruise, and that seems to be a recurring complain about MSC in the USA, where American cruisers expect everything to be in English and to cater heavily to American tastes and way of doing things. Several fellow cruisers would even act insulted and make disparaging comments about a cruise line sailing from a US port that would do things in multiple languages and not just English, even if it’s a European cruise line heavily catering to an international clientele.

 

 

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[Matsurida]

:D" American cruisers expect everything to be in English and to cater heavily to American tastes and way of doing things. Several fellow cruisers would even act insulted and make disparaging comments about a cruise line sailing from a US port that would do things in multiple languages and not just English, even if it’s a European cruise line heavily catering to an international clientele."

 

 

Haha, tell me about it. I passed one old British couple on the last cruise complaining to customer services about the number of "foreigners" on board!