Kids & Kids' Club on Transatlantic (Allure)

[the_dylaness]

Hello,

In my roll call one of the posters shared that on their Symphony TA there were only 12 children under the age of 16.

Obviously we are bringing our kids (they will be 5 and 9 upon sailing) because we like them and want to spend time with them, but they really liked their experiences in the Celebrity kids club and we are looking forward to utilizing the Allure kids club for their own entertainment (and our sanity!)

 

Is the club going to be operating on reduced staff or hours?  I would not think it should be since that is a major service for the kids (who are NOT 3rd/4th pax- they are full fare).  

 

 

[Biker19]

3 hours ago, the_dylaness said:

Is the club going to be operating on reduced staff or hours?

They may modify some things depending on the numbers, but basic services should be normal.

 

Biker, who was surprised by the high number of kids on the Ovation TP.

[John&LaLa]

22 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

They may modify some things depending on the numbers, but basic services should be normal.

 

Biker, who was surprised by the high number of kids on the Ovation TP.

 

There were only 16 or so on the Serenade TA

[ChollaChick]

The only TA I have done so far had very few kids.  I think there were less than 20 kids total on the ship.  

 

What TA are you doing?  If it's the 3/1/2020 you should come join our roll call.  

 

 

[taglovestocruise]

7 hours ago, the_dylaness said:

Hello,

In my roll call one of the posters shared that on their Symphony TA there were only 12 children under the age of 16.

Obviously we are bringing our kids (they will be 5 and 9 upon sailing) because we like them and want to spend time with them, but they really liked their experiences in the Celebrity kids club and we are looking forward to utilizing the Allure kids club for their own entertainment (and our sanity!)

 

Is the club going to be operating on reduced staff or hours?  I would not think it should be since that is a major service for the kids (who are NOT 3rd/4th pax- they are full fare).  

 

 

That was me. We were up checking out the puzzle break center which shares the entrance to the nursery and adventure ocean. Both were open and staffed with a few kids inside.  Your kids should have no problem using the flow rider and Rock wall.  I can honestly say that there were days I saw not a single child. A small group of kids were out with the kids club staff trick or treating at a few of the shops.  This TA will miss Halloween night which has been awesome in the past.  sea you onboard.

[grammawa]

5 hours ago, Biker19 said:

They may modify some things depending on the numbers, but basic services should be normal.

 

Biker, who was surprised by the high number of kids on the Ovation TP.

That cruise was over run with kids.  Had parents paid attention and stopped them from running everywhere, it would have been safer.  

On previous TA there was 1 child and NO kid services.  Felt sorry for the parents. 

[rimmit]

We’ve done 3 TAs and one repo with our two kids ranging from ages of sailing of 13 months to 7 years old.   The hours are the same.  The groups sometimes are combined as there are often only 20 kids or so max.

 

they still have adventure time dining and my family time dining so that’s good.   Overall my kids love it as they really get to know the counselors well.

[the_dylaness]

Glad to hear it sounds like the basic services will still be offered. I’m on the November 2020 TA. My youngest will be turning six on the cruise so I’m glad to hear that he may combine the age groups because then he can be with his sister. Not sure how she’ll feel about that though 🙂

[the_dylaness]

27 minutes ago, rimmit said:

We’ve done 3 TAs and one repo with our two kids ranging from ages of sailing of 13 months to 7 years old.   The hours are the same.  The groups sometimes are combined as there are often only 20 kids or so max.

 

they still have adventure time dining and my family time dining so that’s good.   Overall my kids love it as they really get to know the counselors well.

 

Wow you are very experienced at taking longer cruises for kids. Any tips on how to deal with all those sea days in a row? Schoolwork handling? Any other thoughts that you wish you had known? We definitely take the kids on cruises but no longer than seven days and have been port intensive.

[DrivesLikeMario]

Some of the very BEST times my kids had were when there were less than 20-25 kids onboard!  They got to do a lot more and it was wonderful in the kids' program with much less noise and chaos.  Our kids' favorite RCI cruise was when there were only 9 in their group and on some days, even less than that.  It's just a bit more civilized and they have so much more room to move around which was great for when they played games like dodgeball.

[rimmit]

11 hours ago, the_dylaness said:

 

Wow you are very experienced at taking longer cruises for kids. Any tips on how to deal with all those sea days in a row? Schoolwork handling? Any other thoughts that you wish you had known? We definitely take the kids on cruises but no longer than seven days and have been port intensive.

 

We have a lot of tips on our blog http://www.thesmallworldfamily.com

hasnt been updated in sometime as it was just too time intensive to keep up.  It is non monetized with no TA links or advertisements.

 

We were homeschooling for a short bit so we could travel more,  but for the times we go and have not been homeschooling, we do a lot of work on the road (we sometimes have to drive quite a bit to a cruise port) or on the plane and finish the rest on sea days when there isn’t much on the schedule.

 

Probably the main piece of advice is to make use of the nursery and kids club.  With so few kids it’s very personalized and the counselors really grow attached to the kids and vice versa.  Not as important as a cruise with more kids,  but make sure your kids go on the first day as that’s when everyone is new and when cliques form.  

 

With the nursery you won’t be fighting for nursery hours as there are typically very few babies.   The nursery becomes your own private baby sitting service.

 

Some ships are obviously more kid friendly than others so it helps to pick a ship with more amenities, but not essential.   The kids club is excellent at keeping them occupied.

 

A TA is one of the easiest vacations imo, as unlike port intensive cruises there isn’t a Lot morning where you are rushing to get them fed and off the boat so it’s pretty relaxing.  

 

The only advice I’d have is to just develop a routine.  When you hit the streak of 7 sea days or something like that you can get a routine real fast as all the activities you enjoy doing tend to be around the same time every day.  We love trivia and we’d have a routine revolving around that.

 

if you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.  We are booked on the 15 nrt brilliance arctic TA leaving Sept 2, 2020 that stops in Iceland, Norway and Greenland as the next TA that we do.  Did it in 2014 when it did Iceland, France, Ireland, England and the Faroe Islands.  It was a great time and this route looks even better.

[Thorben-Hendrik]

On 5/17/2019 at 12:19 PM, the_dylaness said:

Hello,

In my roll call one of the posters shared that on their Symphony TA there were only 12 children under the age of 16.

Obviously we are bringing our kids (they will be 5 and 9 upon sailing) because we like them and want to spend time with them, but they really liked their experiences in the Celebrity kids club and we are looking forward to utilizing the Allure kids club for their own entertainment (and our sanity!)

 

Is the club going to be operating on reduced staff or hours?  I would not think it should be since that is a major service for the kids (who are NOT 3rd/4th pax- they are full fare).  

 

 

Never more than 20 kids on ANY of the many TA's we had....👍👍👍

Edited May 18, 2019 by Thorben-Hendrik

[Laznoza]

There were 400 children on the Ovation TP. Apparently 1300 on the cruise prior to that. 

[jallison8378]

We recently returned from the Serenade TA with our kids: 4, 7 and 9. They were three of only 17 kids on board. It was great! Kids club hours were definitely not limited. Club was open 9-12, 2-5 and 7-10 on sea days. 10pm+ for additional charge. Three or four days they offered an "Adventure Dining" dinner session (free) for kids in the the club from 5-7, I believe. On port days the club was open all day continuously, beginning with an "Early Bird" session at 6am.(!) My kids spent a ton of time in the club and never complained about there not being many other kids around. Often they were the only ones there, but the counselors kept them busy with games and crafts and they had a ball. I suspect there will be more kids on a TA crossing on a big ship like Allure. Serenade lacks all the bells and whistles but it was enough to keep my crew entertained. They had the water slide and rock wall all to themselves 99% of the time; we felt like we owned the place! 😀

[taglovestocruise]

40 minutes ago, jallison8378 said:

We recently returned from the Serenade TA with our kids: 4, 7 and 9. They were three of only 17 kids on board. It was great! Kids club hours were definitely not limited. Club was open 9-12, 2-5 and 7-10 on sea days. 10pm+ for additional charge. Three or four days they offered an "Adventure Dining" dinner session (free) for kids in the the club from 5-7, I believe. On port days the club was open all day continuously, beginning with an "Early Bird" session at 6am.(!) My kids spent a ton of time in the club and never complained about there not being many other kids around. Often they were the only ones there, but the counselors kept them busy with games and crafts and they had a ball. I suspect there will be more kids on a TA crossing on a big ship like Allure. Serenade lacks all the bells and whistles but it was enough to keep my crew entertained. They had the water slide and rock wall all to themselves 99% of the time; we felt like we owned the place! 😀

We have done three transatlantics on Oasis class.  Our last on Symphony there were 12 under 16 years old, that has been about what we find each time.  The westbound TA'S are heavily loaded with Brits and Germans, European countries have a totally different view of taking kids out of school.  This Memorial weekend we are taking our 14 year old granddaughter to a 3 day girls fastpitch softball tournament in Las Vegas.  She will miss Friday at school for the sole reason that I will not drive from San Diego to Las Vegas on a  Friday starting a holiday weekend.  That would be a unheard of reason in Europe.  Oasis class ships are awesome when they sail with 1500 fewer kids. 

[DrivesLikeMario]

1 hour ago, jallison8378 said:

We recently returned from the Serenade TA with our kids: 4, 7 and 9....Serenade lacks all the bells and whistles but it was enough to keep my crew entertained. They had the water slide and rock wall all to themselves 99% of the time; we felt like we owned the place! 😀

That is exactly how our kids felt on the Radiance!  The counselors were playing with them on the water slide and dropping down key chains.  If they caught them, they could keep them.  I think we came home with 20 of them on that cruise.  They were so energetic and fun.  Our kids have cruised a lot (21 cruises by the time our youngest was 21) but RCI was always their favorite especially when there were very few kids onboard.  Great experience for them!

[the_dylaness]

Sounds great!  I am happy to hear we'll have normal kids club services on Allure.