Keeping an 11 and 13 year old together

[Family Cruiser 79]

This will be my first time my husband and I will be bringing our daughters along on a cruise.  I see that there are kid areas, but I will have one daughter in Camp Ocean, being 11, and the other in Circle C, being 13.  Looking at the deck plans, these two areas are not even on the same deck.  The younger daughter is the extrovert, so I would like to center around her when keeping them together.  However, they both prefer Circle C, with its close proximity to the arcade.  Will they likely be able to hang out there?  If not, will they both be accepted at Camp Ocean?  If they can't be together in either location, will they be allowed to take part in any shared kids activities?  Thanks in advance for your feedback. 

 

-To be more specific, we will be on the Carnival Breeze during the summer.

[cruisecraze96]

You can always ask when you get onboard if they will move your youngest up into the Circle C program but depending on how close she is to her birthday, the number of kids on the ship, and the director of the kids camp they might say no.

 

We had a similar situation this last summer on NCL when cruising to Alaska with girls in both programs and they would not allow the youngest to move up to be with her cousins.  So the girls ended up just hanging out together and not participating in the teen program that trip.  

 

On Carnival they get a sticker on their keycard the first time they check in, so the youngest won't be able to go into the Circle C area or participate any the activities for them without that sticker.  

 

Hope they have a great time, sadly with the older one being 13 I doubt they will allow her to move down so just ask about the moving up when getting not he ship.  

[Charm2018]

They didn't allow it on my last cruise in January.  You won't know the answer until you go to register on the first night of the cruise but I have heard more people say it wasn't allowed.

[Tapi]

On our last cruise, there was no interaction between Circle C and Camp Ocean. Activities overlapped and were sometimes held in the same room between the Sharks (9-11) and the Stingrays (6-8) which worked out fine since I had one kid in each group, but nothing with the teen groups. 

 

Ask. The worse thing they can say is no.

[ohhbother]

As an older sister who was always "stuck" with my kid sister, I'd advocate for letting them go their separate ways. It might be enjoyable for both of them to make friends their own age. Of course, I have no kids and may not know what I'm talking about. I just remember how much I resented my mom making me take my little sister when my friends and I were hanging out. 🙂

[BENHANDEL]

My 11 year old was 6 weeks from 12. They let her go with her older sister to Circle c. The older one is the introvert and I'm not sure she ever would have gone to her club if she wasn't nudged by the younger sister.  

 

 

[kctwinmommy]

Like others have said, you need to ask. Go to Circle C on the first night and find out. Being that it's during the summer, which is busier, it may not happen. We've usually cruised during early November, when there are way less kids. So we've seen kids moved up to Circle C. We didn't need to chance anything, just our son told us about it. But on our summer cruise to Alaska, they only moved 1 kid (up to Club O2 in this case) because he was the only one in his HS group that wasn't 15 yet. But they didn't let any others change that time.

[Jenjer]

Always worth the ask much better chance of getting the 11 YO moved up than the 13 moved down.

 

It totally depends on demographics and you will have no way of knowing that.

 

Your kids will have a amazing time no matter if they get to be together or not in club.

[Earthworm Jim]

If the younger on is an extrovert, is it that big of a problem for her to be in her own group? Sounds like she'd do fine there. And the older one isn't likely to benefit much from having having her extroverted little sister with her in a group of older kids.

 

But you of course know what's best for your kids more than I do.

[mdsgu]

They will usually allow it if there aren't very many kids on the ship (moving an older one to a younger group, but not the other way around).  In the summer, that is not likely to be the case.