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Screaming children on Regent


tripperva
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1 hour ago, Hambagahle said:

No one under 16 is supposed to be allowed in the spa!   A 12 yr old with or without a mask should have been told to go away.  

 

Who from management is going to "offend" a HVC who brings tens of thousands to Regent?

 

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I think that what we are dealing with in this thread is a pervasive feeling of entitlement if you spend enough money.   Regent is loathe to offend a high roller and high rollers are used to getting their way.  If kids scream or run around and no one steps in, then they are learning the same behavior.  Unfortunately, bad behavior is an epidemic now which we see in all levels of society.  I’ve been witness to some behavior on Regent by full grown adults that is beyond impolite.  (Yelling at destination staff, taking someone’s seat on a bus after an interim stop as it was more comfortable and then refusing to move when the original occupants returned, etc., etc).  So, the question is, what has happened to basic consideration of those who exist around you?  Why is it so difficult to be polite?  

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The problem of high spending customers is not confined to Regent - it is magnified when on a small ship, such as Seadream, when we have witnessed some appalling behaviour by teens in large families (also noting that the parents would be in a top suite, the 'kiddies' put next door to the poor plebs, kept awake by them making a racket at 3 a.m.}  Sadly, money talks, and some who have a lot of it are not nice people!

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3 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Who from management is going to "offend" a HVC who brings tens of thousands to Regent?

 

Well, I guess that knocks out the "everyone is treated the same" theory.  If a crew member sees something that needs correcting they should be able to do it on the spot with backup from the management. Wouldn't it be interesting if a smoker who was feeling "anxiety" from screaming  children got into the pool with snorkel kid and lit up? Should they send them both to a calming room with crayons and place mats and pictures of puppies and kittens? It is  insulting to people who buy a product and actually expect to get what they pay for. Can you imagine an emergency situation where the entitled bunch, of all ages, create havoc? This attitude is seen everywhere today. What ever happened to the word NO?

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On 1/15/2020 at 8:06 PM, westmount said:

I was just trying to make light from an impossible situation. There are three companies who basically control the entire cruise industry. If you want to go on a cruise that could conceivably have children under the age of ten, huffing and puffing at the kids or the parents isn't going to make your trip better for anyone, especially you guys. There were no kids at the pool on the 5th floor, nor any kids upstairs on the 12th floor deck. There were no kids at lunch inside at the Veranda Restaurant,  and there were no kids at the bars, the coffee shop nor the spa. 

  In any case, The Regent Explorer and soon Spendor are great ship for older conservative people agreed, but if you drop out on Crystal, Seabourn and Regent waiting for them to ban kids Christmas time etc, you might be waiting a long time, so check out those AirPods, and remember who recommended them to you. 

I’ve always wanted to go on a Regent cruise over New Years Eve but after reading this thread, I will avoid holiday cruises like the plague.  How long was this cruise?  I’m wondering if it was a 7 day cruise. 

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1 hour ago, rcandkc said:

I’ve always wanted to go on a Regent cruise over New Years Eve but after reading this thread, I will avoid holiday cruises like the plague.  How long was this cruise?  I’m wondering if it was a 7 day cruise. 

12 nights of pure fun

 

BTW you don't need to go into the spa to get to the aft pool on 5 - you can walk from the coffee connection  to the aft pool on the outside of the ship - and Mr Snorkel Mask had his mother firmly attached to his side the entire time to prevent anyone from saying anything  

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Given the options out there in the cruise business, I certainly would not plan a cruise with young children on Regent vs Disney. We were 20 family members booked and were "thrilled" to learn that our young neice and nephew were joining us three weeks prior to departure. That said, we tried very hard to make sure that the baby and four year old would not cause grief for the other passengers. I can't speak for the other families, but most of the parents did indeed seem to be taking care of their kids and I for one did not see wild kids screaming and yelling. 

 The Explorer is not a small ship though, and while there were a few kids "running" around, they didn't seem to bother most of the passengers, although I did hear about complaints about the kids in the pool apparently having fun, not exactly a crime of the century. 

   In the end, I'll leave it to the cruise line to determine if kids should be allowed on the luxury lines, but I have no problem  banning young kids from the specialty restaurants, or limiting pool hours  etc if that will appease those passengers who go on Regent to get away for a quieter vacation. 

  If i have little, noisy kids at the next table, I simply change tables before sitting down, or change chairs at the pool, as it just easier to do so than get upset and complain. 

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Reference the Puppy post:   

 

This is a generic admonition which has been applied at various venues, including hospitals.  A few years ago, my wife retired as a R.N. from Evergreen Hospital, Kirkland, WA.  Specialty:  Post Partum Center specifically related to breast feeding.   There was a tendency for some-some parents seeking assistance with the newborn to leave an older child in the waiting room area to wander-around, supposedly to be monitored and baby-sat by the Receptionist

 

Therefore, a sign--a prominent one: 

 

"Unaccompanied children will be provided with a free Starbucks and a cute puppy." 

 

I recall viewing that sign on occasions when meeting my wife at the end of the day's work.  Evinced a chuckle. 

 

GOARMY!

 

 

 

 

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You can choose your friends, you can’t choose your family. Everyone In our group on the cruise was over 25, save for the late coming newest members of the clan. It was nice to be all together from various parts of the world, but it’s not like We wanted to eat dinner with a crying baby or over active 4 years old. 
   We were lucky to have five aunts and a nanny to take care of the little ones, but my point was that Regent wants families when they can get them, and frankly, there is no age limit to misbehaving guest.

  My debating here, and taking the heat from posters was simply to say that outside of dropping off the families at the next port, once you realize that there are kids on your cruise, you have a choice to adjust your plans or suffer. 
planning your next cruise comes once you are back home, and going Viking type would seem the only solution. 
my kids were always well behaved, as they liked eating fine food ( and brought colouring books) just in case, although we didn’t take them on Regent etc at age three. 
    I guess if enough passengers refuse to book a cruise if kids are allowed on the ship, the lines will make that decision, but there were 800 people paying $8000plus, and only five posters here, not sure how many willing to go Viking simply to get away from 10 kids. 
good luck, I’m more on your side that you take me granted for . 

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Taking Children, especially young ones on a Regent cruise is just not a great idea from all sides. The only people that have a slight benefit is the parent. It's not fair to the other passengers or staff, but more importantly the children. What kid is going to have a great time on a Regent ship versus any number of other cruise lines which actually cater, in varying degrees, to the younger ones? The very young ones, IE: young enough that they wouldn't notice a cruise from a greyhound bus ride probably shouldn't be going to foreign ports anyhow due to their little immune systems still developing. Kids get bitten my mosquitoes, lick and suck on their fingers and get everything they touch in their mouth. It's just what they do. It's very selfish on the parents side.

 

I've been on Regent cruises were there were a couple of families and they generally were well behaved, but the kids would absolutely have been better occupied on a larger line/ship with facilities that they could enjoy. I made friends with one of the fathers and he said they only went on Regent because his folks (Grandma and Grandpa) were largely treating but the kids were excited at first but bored after a couple days.

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i Gather it’s incumbent on anyone booking a cruise to know the type of crowd you can expect to have on that trip, especially when dealing with holidays or summer vacation schedules, 

   As is obvious here, we had the issue of misbehaving passengers being mixed in with young passengers in the same breath, but it’s two separate issues. 
  If you don’t wants kids on your cruise, make sure the cruise doesn’t accept any, and if you want a cruise that you control the Behaviour of all of the passengers, find 12 wealthy friends and charter a private yacht. 

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So if Regent allows passengers of all ages and, in fact, occasionally runs promotions to increase the population of the young children on board ... why should the poster with kids in his group have known better than to bring the kids in his group? Granted, they sound like they were not always behaving in a considerate manner toward the other guests, but was that due to their age?
 

We sail on Regent and Viking, enjoy both, and have upcoming cruises booked on both. Viking doesn’t allow children and they have a more relaxed dress code. We prefer a more relaxed dress code, provided everyone is clean and neat; we happen to feel that one’s good grooming is not dependent on a particular fabric choice or style of collar. We don’t like loud or inconsiderate people of any age and don’t find that to be age dependent. The most annoying person on our last Regent cruise was a loud and rude older lady who treated the staff in such a contemptible fashion that I felt embarrassed. The kids on that particular sailing were adorable.

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I am not a big fan of children, but will have to agree with westmount and kjbacon.  Unless Regent decides that it is in their best interest to have an age limit on their cruises, complaining about them is irrelevant.  There might be kids and they might be annoying.  I try to choose my vacation time when kids would generally be in school to avoid them.

 

I have said before, in my younger days, I was a child on a cruise ship.  The trips we went on were not "child friendly" ships (Royal Viking Line mostly), but my brother and I loved the trips and were never bored.  Not all kids will be bored, just because the ship does not cater to children.  People just have to know their kids.

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In my mind, there's really nothing a kid on Regent could do that's worse than entitled, experienced older cruisers double dipping food when they don't think people are watching. You want to talk about selfish, it starts and stops right there. No one enjoys a screaming young child ( save for grandma) but they eventually grow up, what excuse do those guys have?  As its soon dinner time, i'll skip the details. 

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13 hours ago, westmount said:

once you realize that there are kids on your cruise, you have a choice to adjust your plans or suffer. 
 

Suffer? Why on earth should any passenger suffer because another person, the parent, is not looking after their children properly? Incredible. Just incredible. And there lies the problem........

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1 hour ago, auldlassie said:

Suffer? Why on earth should any passenger suffer because another person, the parent, is not looking after their children properly? Incredible. Just incredible. And there lies the problem........

 

It's all our fault, because we won't adapt and change OUR ways to fit the entitlement mentality of the few.

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I just don’t see the logic of torturing yourselves by expecting the cruise line or people you don’t know to change their habits to fit your expectations. You guys control what cruse line you take, when you take it, and how best to adapt to the surroundings. In any hotel, cruise, club or restaurant, there will always be 10% of the people who feel rules of decorum were made for others, 

 I am just suggesting blaming a mother because her kids are playing in the pool, or a baby crying is someone’s fault doesn’t really solve the problem. 
  I was on a Seabourn summer cruise with kids on the ship who could have been the Von Trapp family for all I know, touring Europe with their parents. Perfect behaviour, well manured, I’m not even sure that is normal either. 
  Bottom line is one should not book a cruise that could have noisy kids on board if you are not prepared to deal with the circumstances. 

  

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On 1/17/2020 at 6:11 PM, westmount said:

If i have little, noisy kids at the next table, I simply change tables before sitting down, or change chairs at the pool, as it just easier to do so than get upset and complain. 

I would be curious to know how you "simply" accomplish this when the noisy party arrives after you have already sat down and ordered your meal.

 

I understand your point that we have to deal with the reality that other passengers do not always behave the way we want.  But a child is more likely to be disruptive than an adult, on the average.  Just because we can't control that does not mean we can't complain about it.  And of course, choose our itinerary wisely to reduce the chance of having lots of kids on the cruise.  Sometimes the promotions to encourage kids start after many have already booked, though.  I cringe when I see that added to a segment I have already booked.

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Maybe more of you should take a look at Viking cruises, given how much you don’t like children. They don’t allow them and it’s also a very good product. We have 4 Regent cruises booked (one in just 2 weeks, yay!) and 1 Viking cruise booked so we do prefer Regent. We have much more issue with the Regent dress code than we do with kids onboard but we like kids and find that generalization rarely is true. Until we retired a year ago, my husband wore a suit and tie everyday and I wore a stuffy chefs coat everyday, we are over it already and prefer to dress in a more relaxed fashion. We are very well groomed and are frequently annoyed by the lack of good judgment in others who feel the need to dictate what others should wear. I’ve read about how someone wearing jeans looked like they could have been gardening so no one should ever wear jeans and that’s ridiculous. I’ve seen poorly groomed people in all fabrics and collars but so have the dress code police and they know it. It’s more of just being judgmental and I think too many people enjoy that very activity.

 

We do not think that kids tend to be more disruptive than adults. It’s more likely that adults who don’t like kids are looking at everything the kids do in a negative, judgmental manner. Personally, I think stubborn old people who refuse to wear hearing aids so they shout and demand everyone around them to shout is far more annoying than a pixie of a kid bubbling over with excitement! Smokers are more annoying than kids. People who don’t sanitize their hands heading into the buffet are more annoying than kids. Chair hogs, people who take more food than they know they can eat, people who drive their electric scooters into the crowd to get there first, people who speak harshly to the staff, and people who spend their evening entertaining themselves by checking that every man is wearing a proper collar are all more annoying the kids. Most of the time it’s the attitude of the observer than the observed that’s the real issue.

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8 hours ago, westmount said:


  I was on a Seabourn summer cruise with kids on the ship who could have been the Von Trapp family for all I know, touring Europe with their parents. Perfect behaviour, well manured

  

I would like to think so....even I might complain otherwise. Lol

sorry 

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For me - and I guess others - the things which are most irritating with young children, as opposed to unpleasant adults,  is sudden loud wailing or screaming near to you, and toddlers running around dangerously in the Verandah cafe, with poor waiters trying to dodge them.  The first problem is insoluble, it is normal for tiny children to suddenly cry loudly, but it can really make you  jump!  Also with older ones, running up and down corridors making a noise - however obnoxious they are, most old folks do not do this.

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