Adventure Ocean and Teen Club - Allure of the Seas - Covid rules

[abpplh]

We are on the 12/23 Allure sailing.  Our 11 1/2 yr old daughter is sailing us and will be considered fully vaxxed at cruise time (2nd shot on 11/20).  From what I have read, Teen club most likely won't let her in.  Anyone know what the AO rules are these days?  Do they separate the vaxxed from non vaxxed?

 

I just read a post from @RCCL Fan where his kiddos in AO had to stay on the same circle on the floor in AO....  Anyone have other experiences during COVID sailings?  Not interested in hearing pre-covid as we know those rules from prior sailings.

 

Thanks!

[smokeybandit]

Adventure Ocean is a royal mess right now for all the extremely strict and unnecessary rules the CDC makes them follow. The CDC rules are basically from March 2020.

[sharktums]

Try to get your kid moved up since they're vaxxed.  My daughter had the BEST time in teen club on Mariner last week! They were doing all the normal activities and having a blast. 

[abpplh]

38 minutes ago, sharktums said:

Try to get your kid moved up since they're vaxxed.  My daughter had the BEST time in teen club on Mariner last week! They were doing all the normal activities and having a blast. 

How old is your daughter?

[theLCC1]

We are also interested in hearing how AO is handling fully vaxxed vs. unvaxxed - sailing with a 6 yo who is fully vaxxed and wondering if AO keeps the younger groups (vaxxed vs. unvaxxed) separate. 

[RCCL Fan]

Check out my review.  It was not good.

 

The opened reservations at noon on the first day, and they went on a first come, first serve basis. I was there when they opened and unlocked the door.

 

There were parents doing back to back cruises who skipped past us newbies who were filling out the forms,  they didn't have to fill them out again and they were grabbing all the times.

 

AO told us there was a max of five hours AO time the entire week and we needed to schedule it all right then. 

 

I told them we didn't have show reservations/dinners confirmed yet, as the concierge was working on them for us and nothing was showing up yet on our app.

 

We were told sorry.  Pick your times now or you won't get any.

 

We did, without having any clue what show times we were getting.

 

We had one kid who was a few weeks away from her birthday and would have been moved up to the next level. We asked considering she was just weeks away if they would move her up so she could be with the other kids in our family.  We were refused.  Told it was impossible.

 

I've done this before previously, and asked if I could at least speak to the AO manager about it, they gave the manager the message but told me she was not willing to speak to me.

 

So all that was just reservations.

 

When the time for AO came....   we dropped the kids off as normal.   Only when we picked them up did the kids tell us they were given circles to sit on and they had to stay on those circles and not interact with anyone else.   We sailed with friends.  Our kids and their kids, we all were together all week.  The kids asked if the travel group could play together, since we all came together. The kids said they were refused and had to remain on their circles for the entire time we were gone.  WHich was 3 hours.

 

I almost didn't believe them, but other kids being picked up were recanting same situation to their parents.

 

Our kids refused to go back. 

 

It really changed the dynamic of our cruise.

 

We were not allowed to bring the kids in any lounge/bar/restaurant at all.  They were all vax only. 

 

At least one night there were no activities for unvax families. 

 

We saw one family that sat in the pub, but their kid had a chair in the promenade.... like pushed right up to the pub table.  Technically they were in and he was out. 

 

They said it was all they could do, because there was no where else they could all be.

 

It was really truly disappointing.

 

Fortunately my daughter had her second shot today and is now fully vaccinated, but let me tell you if we had to sail again under those conditions we had on Allure last week, I wouldn't do it.  I would rather wait it out until protocols change.

 

Now.... that all the complaining is over let me say this...

 

Is this RCI's fault, no, I know the CDC has them under a lot of pressure.  However, they needed to make some changes.

 

I'm sure they thought, "We want everyone vax. and so unvax passengers lose the full experience.  But they didn't consider that many of us were families of 9- 10 people with just one or two kids too young to get the vaccine.  

 

We sailed on a holiday week when kids were out of school.  They said it was the highest passenger count they had and the most kids they've had post pandemic. 

 

If this is the case, shouldn't someone have said, "With so many families on board, maybe we should make sure there is at least one lounge families can go to and listen to live music. "   or  "We need to make sure there is at least two post dinner activities for families each night, especially since AO is so limited"

 

I don't think anyone looked at the manifest for us and did any critical thinking.   They just treated the week like any other and it didn't work.

 

Yes we chose to go with our kids.  

 

We booked this cruise in 2018 for 2020  So it's been a 3 year wait, and we didn't want to push it off another year.   We also sailed Adventure this past summer from the Bahamas and the experience was nothing like this.    Adventure was actually my favorite cruise in YEARS, maybe even ever. 

 

So we didn't expect this one to be so drastically different for families.

 

If you're not sailing a holiday week, or you have a more experienced cruise director than we did, maybe your experience will be better.

 

I'm the biggest RCI cheerleader, love the company, but AO just didn't work for us last week.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by RCCL Fan

[LGW59]

11 minutes ago, RCCL Fan said:

Check out my review.  It was not good.

 

The opened reservations at noon on the first day, and they went on a first come, first serve basis. I was there when they opened and unlocked the door.

 

There were parents doing back to back cruises who skipped past us newbies who were filling out the forms,  they didn't have to fill them out again and they were grabbing all the times.

 

AO told us there was a max of five hours AO time the entire week and we needed to schedule it all right then. 

 

I told them we didn't have show reservations/dinners confirmed yet, as the concierge was working on them for us and nothing was showing up yet on our app.

 

We were told sorry.  Pick your times now or you won't get any.

 

We did, without having any clue what show times we were getting.

 

We had one kid who was a few weeks away from her birthday and would have been moved up to the next level. We asked considering she was just weeks away if they would move her up so she could be with the other kids in our family.  We were refused.  Told it was impossible.

 

I've done this before previously, and asked if I could at least speak to the AO manager about it, they gave the manager the message but told me she was not willing to speak to me.

 

So all that was just reservations.

 

When the time for AO came....   we dropped the kids off as normal.   Only when we picked them up did the kids tell us they were given circles to sit on and they had to stay on those circles and not interact with anyone else.   We sailed with friends.  Our kids and their kids, we all were together all week.  The kids asked if the travel group could play together, since we all came together. The kids said they were refused and had to remain on their circles for the entire time we were gone.  WHich was 3 hours.

 

I almost didn't believe them, but other kids being picked up were recanting same situation to their parents.

 

Our kids refused to go back. 

 

It really changed the dynamic of our cruise.

 

We were not allowed to bring the kids in any lounge/bar/restaurant at all.  They were all vax only. 

 

At least one night there were no activities for unvax families. 

 

We saw one family that sat in the pub, but their kid had a chair in the promenade.... like pushed right up to the pub table.  Technically they were in and he was out. 

 

They said it was all they could do, because there was no where else they could all be.

 

It was really truly disappointing.

 

Fortunately my daughter had her second shot today and is now fully vaccinated, but let me tell you if we had to sail again under those conditions we had on Allure last week, I wouldn't do it.  I would rather wait it out until protocols change.

 

Now.... that all the complaining is over let me say this...

 

Is this RCI's fault, no, I know the CDC has them under a lot of pressure.  However, they needed to make some changes.

 

I'm sure they thought, "We want everyone vax. and so unvax passengers lose the full experience.  But they didn't consider that many of us were families of 9- 10 people with just one or two kids too young to get the vaccine.  

 

We sailed on a holiday week when kids were out of school.  They said it was the highest passenger count they had and the most kids they've had post pandemic. 

 

If this is the case, shouldn't someone have said, "With so many families on board, maybe we should make sure there is at least one lounge families can go to and listen to live music. "   or  "We need to make sure there is at least two post dinner activities for families each night, especially since AO is so limited"

 

I don't think anyone looked at the manifest for us and did any critical thinking.   They just treated the week like any other and it didn't work.

 

Yes we chose to go with our kids.  

 

We booked this cruise in 2018 for 2020  So it's been a 3 year wait, and we didn't want to push it off another year.   We also sailed Adventure this past summer from the Bahamas and the experience was nothing like this.    Adventure was actually my favorite cruise in YEARS, maybe even ever. 

 

So we didn't expect this one to be so drastically different for families.

 

If you're not sailing a holiday week, or you have a more experienced cruise director than we did, maybe your experience will be better.

 

I'm the biggest RCI cheerleader, love the company, but AO just didn't work for us last week.

 

 

 

 

Seems you knew the vax v unvax before you boarded.  If they made an exception for your child, why would they not then have to for all the others?  You were clearly very anxious to cruise again, understandably so, we all are.  Just sounds like from what you’ve posted, more homework would have been beneficial.

[RCCL Fan]

36 minutes ago, LGW59 said:

Seems you knew the vax v unvax before you boarded.  If they made an exception for your child, why would they not then have to for all the others?  You were clearly very anxious to cruise again, understandably so, we all are.  Just sounds like from what you’ve posted, more homework would have been beneficial.

 

Not sure what you mean. 

 

Can you explain a bit more?

[smplybcause]

12 hours ago, theLCC1 said:

We are also interested in hearing how AO is handling fully vaxxed vs. unvaxxed - sailing with a 6 yo who is fully vaxxed and wondering if AO keeps the younger groups (vaxxed vs. unvaxxed) separate. 

 

So from my limited experience of the tours - they don't have the space to separate the kid groups into further groups. Probably not the man power either. I think this is where royal will cause problems for itself. Parents not wanting their vax kids with unvax. Unvax kids not wanting to wear masks if the unvax kids around them aren't. Vax kids not being happy if the rule is all masks in AO. And as ship capacity increases if they stay with lower capacity to be able to include unvax kids in the program they'll have to decrease the hours you get even more or maybe a lot won't get any hours at all. 

 

Technically it's not until sometime next week that younger kids could even be fully vax (unless they were in the trial) so you might have to wait until the week after to get actual responses. 

[LGW59]

12 minutes ago, smplybcause said:

 

So from my limited experience of the tours - they don't have the space to separate the kid groups into further groups. Probably not the man power either. I think this is where royal will cause problems for itself. Parents not wanting their vax kids with unvax. Unvax kids not wanting to wear masks if the unvax kids around them aren't. Vax kids not being happy if the rule is all masks in AO. And as ship capacity increases if they stay with lower capacity to be able to include unvax kids in the program they'll have to decrease the hours you get even more or maybe a lot won't get any hours at all. 

 

Technically it's not until sometime next week that younger kids could even be fully vax (unless they were in the trial) so you might have to wait until the week after to get actual responses. 

In the scenarios you describe here, these parents did their children a disservice by taking them on a cruise under these circumstances.  

[mjkacmom]

In normal times it was unusual to be able to move age groups if it was crowded, which it sounds like it was. I don’t think they make acceptions for younger kids moving into the teen group for insurance reasons. 

[bajathree]

With all the rules and restrictions and reading this...I have to say....if I was a family with any unvax'd kids.....I definatly wouldn't be cruising.

[seabeew]

RCCL Fan, 

 

From your very helpful post above, you indicated you couldn’t go to any restaurants with unvaccinated children in your group. This concerns me greatly because we are going on the Oasis next week with our grandson who is too young to be vaccinated. We also have specialty dining. Our plan was for him was to go to adventure ocean instead of dinner. Adventure Ocean won’t work for us under the scenario you described.

 

From my recent research, when protocols are listed on the website or recently compasses, almost all speciality restaurants are listed as for everyone . I was even on the Allure in October by myself and the compass listed most restaurants as available to everyone.

 

is this not the case anymore?

 

And before anyone says you know what you we’re getting into, here’s the thing. The website protocols don’t tell you that tested kids have to sit alone in a circle in Adventure Ocean or that passengers on back to backs can gobble up all the time slots by virtue of not having to register for the program again. 

[Gatordad815]

15 hours ago, RCCL Fan said:

Check out my review.  It was not good.

 

The opened reservations at noon on the first day, and they went on a first come, first serve basis. I was there when they opened and unlocked the door.

 

There were parents doing back to back cruises who skipped past us newbies who were filling out the forms,  they didn't have to fill them out again and they were grabbing all the times.

 

AO told us there was a max of five hours AO time the entire week and we needed to schedule it all right then. 

 

I told them we didn't have show reservations/dinners confirmed yet, as the concierge was working on them for us and nothing was showing up yet on our app.

 

We were told sorry.  Pick your times now or you won't get any.

 

We did, without having any clue what show times we were getting.

 

We had one kid who was a few weeks away from her birthday and would have been moved up to the next level. We asked considering she was just weeks away if they would move her up so she could be with the other kids in our family.  We were refused.  Told it was impossible.

 

I've done this before previously, and asked if I could at least speak to the AO manager about it, they gave the manager the message but told me she was not willing to speak to me.

 

So all that was just reservations.

 

When the time for AO came....   we dropped the kids off as normal.   Only when we picked them up did the kids tell us they were given circles to sit on and they had to stay on those circles and not interact with anyone else.   We sailed with friends.  Our kids and their kids, we all were together all week.  The kids asked if the travel group could play together, since we all came together. The kids said they were refused and had to remain on their circles for the entire time we were gone.  WHich was 3 hours.

 

I almost didn't believe them, but other kids being picked up were recanting same situation to their parents.

 

Our kids refused to go back. 

 

It really changed the dynamic of our cruise.

 

We were not allowed to bring the kids in any lounge/bar/restaurant at all.  They were all vax only. 

 

At least one night there were no activities for unvax families. 

 

We saw one family that sat in the pub, but their kid had a chair in the promenade.... like pushed right up to the pub table.  Technically they were in and he was out. 

 

They said it was all they could do, because there was no where else they could all be.

 

It was really truly disappointing.

 

Fortunately my daughter had her second shot today and is now fully vaccinated, but let me tell you if we had to sail again under those conditions we had on Allure last week, I wouldn't do it.  I would rather wait it out until protocols change.

 

Now.... that all the complaining is over let me say this...

 

Is this RCI's fault, no, I know the CDC has them under a lot of pressure.  However, they needed to make some changes.

 

I'm sure they thought, "We want everyone vax. and so unvax passengers lose the full experience.  But they didn't consider that many of us were families of 9- 10 people with just one or two kids too young to get the vaccine.  

 

We sailed on a holiday week when kids were out of school.  They said it was the highest passenger count they had and the most kids they've had post pandemic. 

 

If this is the case, shouldn't someone have said, "With so many families on board, maybe we should make sure there is at least one lounge families can go to and listen to live music. "   or  "We need to make sure there is at least two post dinner activities for families each night, especially since AO is so limited"

 

I don't think anyone looked at the manifest for us and did any critical thinking.   They just treated the week like any other and it didn't work.

 

Yes we chose to go with our kids.  

 

We booked this cruise in 2018 for 2020  So it's been a 3 year wait, and we didn't want to push it off another year.   We also sailed Adventure this past summer from the Bahamas and the experience was nothing like this.    Adventure was actually my favorite cruise in YEARS, maybe even ever. 

 

So we didn't expect this one to be so drastically different for families.

 

If you're not sailing a holiday week, or you have a more experienced cruise director than we did, maybe your experience will be better.

 

I'm the biggest RCI cheerleader, love the company, but AO just didn't work for us last week.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing this. We have a family cruise booked on Harmony for spring break. I really hope by then the procedures are different, but your experience is helpful to read because I now know I need to pay closer attention to reviews as it gets closer. Fortunately for us by the time spring break comes both of our children will have had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated, so hopefully that will improve the experience for them. Bummer for your kids that due to the timing this wasn’t even an option for your family…

 

Thanks again for sharing this experience in detail….it’s quite helpful for families considering cruises on RC in the near future!

 

[jean87510]

15 hours ago, RCCL Fan said:

Check out my review.  It was not good.

 

The opened reservations at noon on the first day, and they went on a first come, first serve basis. I was there when they opened and unlocked the door.

 

There were parents doing back to back cruises who skipped past us newbies who were filling out the forms,  they didn't have to fill them out again and they were grabbing all the times.

 

AO told us there was a max of five hours AO time the entire week and we needed to schedule it all right then. 

 

I told them we didn't have show reservations/dinners confirmed yet, as the concierge was working on them for us and nothing was showing up yet on our app.

 

We were told sorry.  Pick your times now or you won't get any.

 

We did, without having any clue what show times we were getting.

 

We had one kid who was a few weeks away from her birthday and would have been moved up to the next level. We asked considering she was just weeks away if they would move her up so she could be with the other kids in our family.  We were refused.  Told it was impossible.

 

I've done this before previously, and asked if I could at least speak to the AO manager about it, they gave the manager the message but told me she was not willing to speak to me.

 

So all that was just reservations.

 

When the time for AO came....   we dropped the kids off as normal.   Only when we picked them up did the kids tell us they were given circles to sit on and they had to stay on those circles and not interact with anyone else.   We sailed with friends.  Our kids and their kids, we all were together all week.  The kids asked if the travel group could play together, since we all came together. The kids said they were refused and had to remain on their circles for the entire time we were gone.  WHich was 3 hours.

 

I almost didn't believe them, but other kids being picked up were recanting same situation to their parents.

 

Our kids refused to go back. 

 

It really changed the dynamic of our cruise.

 

We were not allowed to bring the kids in any lounge/bar/restaurant at all.  They were all vax only. 

 

At least one night there were no activities for unvax families. 

 

We saw one family that sat in the pub, but their kid had a chair in the promenade.... like pushed right up to the pub table.  Technically they were in and he was out. 

 

They said it was all they could do, because there was no where else they could all be.

 

It was really truly disappointing.

 

Fortunately my daughter had her second shot today and is now fully vaccinated, but let me tell you if we had to sail again under those conditions we had on Allure last week, I wouldn't do it.  I would rather wait it out until protocols change.

 

Now.... that all the complaining is over let me say this...

 

Is this RCI's fault, no, I know the CDC has them under a lot of pressure.  However, they needed to make some changes.

 

I'm sure they thought, "We want everyone vax. and so unvax passengers lose the full experience.  But they didn't consider that many of us were families of 9- 10 people with just one or two kids too young to get the vaccine.  

 

We sailed on a holiday week when kids were out of school.  They said it was the highest passenger count they had and the most kids they've had post pandemic. 

 

If this is the case, shouldn't someone have said, "With so many families on board, maybe we should make sure there is at least one lounge families can go to and listen to live music. "   or  "We need to make sure there is at least two post dinner activities for families each night, especially since AO is so limited"

 

I don't think anyone looked at the manifest for us and did any critical thinking.   They just treated the week like any other and it didn't work.

 

Yes we chose to go with our kids.  

 

We booked this cruise in 2018 for 2020  So it's been a 3 year wait, and we didn't want to push it off another year.   We also sailed Adventure this past summer from the Bahamas and the experience was nothing like this.    Adventure was actually my favorite cruise in YEARS, maybe even ever. 

 

So we didn't expect this one to be so drastically different for families.

 

If you're not sailing a holiday week, or you have a more experienced cruise director than we did, maybe your experience will be better.

 

I'm the biggest RCI cheerleader, love the company, but AO just didn't work for us last week.

 

 

 

 

absolutely sadistic to keep kids on a circle for 3 hours in a mask.  No parent would expect this type of vacation.

[Ashland]

Our extended family that will have one vaxed 8 year old and one unvaxxed 4 year old will be cruising on Harmony in late April 2022. The scenario for AO has me very concerned as we too have had this booked for a very long time do to an RCI cancelled cruise and then a L/S. Hoping things change by the time we sail. I'm also concerned because we have always had MTD booked....and fingers crossed the WJ will be open for dinner by then too.

[RCCL Fan]

15 hours ago, seabeew said:

RCCL Fan, 

 

From your very helpful post above, you indicated you couldn’t go to any restaurants with unvaccinated children in your group. This concerns me greatly because we are going on the Oasis next week with our grandson who is too young to be vaccinated. We also have specialty dining. Our plan was for him was to go to adventure ocean instead of dinner. Adventure Ocean won’t work for us under the scenario you described.

 

From my recent research, when protocols are listed on the website or recently compasses, almost all speciality restaurants are listed as for everyone . I was even on the Allure in October by myself and the compass listed most restaurants as available to everyone.

 

is this not the case anymore?

 

And before anyone says you know what you we’re getting into, here’s the thing. The website protocols don’t tell you that tested kids have to sit alone in a circle in Adventure Ocean or that passengers on back to backs can gobble up all the time slots by virtue of not having to register for the program again. 

 

Let me clarify, we didn't try to take the kids into the specialty restaurants.   They may have been able to go.   In fact, I'm pretty sure I saw a kid in chops dining with his parents.

 

Our plan was specialty restaurants would be nights we fed the kids in the room and then send them to AO.    But as you mentioned the circle sitting ruled that out for us.   I had no idea that's how the kids would be spending their time.

 

We sailed Thanksgiving week so there were a lot more kids, whether this was just a practice our week or if it was every week, I have no idea.

 

But I won't be planning on our kids going to AO at all anymore until things return to normal.

[seabeew]

Thanks for clarifying, RCCL. Our grandson is three, and we won’t be taking him to Adventure Ocean under the circumstances you describe. I think he would think he was in time out and being punished.
 

We were on the Odyssey with him in September and that was not the scenario. Of course there was never more than one other child with him at a time. 

[Ashland]

RCI needs to rethink their AO policy. How it's set up now is ridiculous "Family Friendly"...I think NOT !

Most of these kids go to daycare/preschool/school and with wearing masks inside these schools have worked it out...why not RCI !!!!