KIDS ON CRUISES AGAIN

[rabin1]

When are they permitted back on cruises? I am booked over Christmas and New Years. I am praying there are not a lot on board but being the holidays I am concerned about it a lot. I booked this cruise to relax and although I don't mind kids I believe it is the parents that don't control them running up and down halls, pushing people out of the way etc. I think some parents think leaving them to run amuck to them is like free babysitting as where are they going to go on a ship?

I purposely booked a CC cabin and praying I can get in the Sanctuary when I would like to.

Kathy

 

 

[jacpansea]

There won’t be any under the age of 5 because they’re unable to be vaccinated. Over 5 can come as long as they are vaccinated, from

my understanding.

[wcflats]

Completely agree with you…it’s not the kids but the parents.  Unfortunately the parents are not held accountable in a meaningful way.

[LACruiser88]

Our 7 year old granddaughter will be cruising with us over New Year's as she is now fully vaccinated.  And, she will be very well-behaved!

[capriccio]

If kids between 5 and 11 were vaccinated the first 2 weeks  or so of availability they can travel next week and/or the following.   Next week's cruise might not have very many because winter break for most US school districts doesn't start until the end of the week.  I expect there will be quite a few kids the week of Dec 26 to January 2 since it is school vacation week everywhere.  We've never had a problem with kids on our 27 Princess cruises including three 7 day Alaska cruises that had large numbers of kids and families.  Hope you have the same luck!

Edited December 13, 2021 by capriccio

[rabin1]

1 hour ago, capriccio said:

If kids between 5 and 11 were vaccinated the first 2 weeks  or so of availability they can travel next week and/or the following.   Next week's cruise might not have very many because winter break for most US school districts doesn't start until the end of the week.  I expect there will be quite a few kids the week of Dec 26 to January 2 since it is school vacation week everywhere.  We've never had a problem with kids on our 27 Princess cruises including three 7 day Alaska cruises that had large numbers of kids and families.  Hope you have the same luck!

But can they be added after final payment date?

 

I had two problems. Once on a Christmas cruise some brats took my magnetic door decorations and stole them. I did not know this but apparently there are cameras in the corridor. When I saw the captain one day I told him. Couple days later security called me told me they identified them. Said went to talk to the parents of those that did it. Told them any more incidents and they would be put off the ship.

Another time on another cruise this little kid I would say about 7 or 8 ran hard past my door every morning. I was bound and determined to catch him. Finally one day I did. I told him if he kept it up I was going to trip him and told him to go tell his parents what I said in the hopes they would come knocking on my door and I could have a conversation with them. Either he did  not tell them or they knew they were in the wrong but never heard from them. 

 

I go on these cruises to rest as I own my own business NOT to have some else's kids wake me up and steal my property.

[Ombud]

2 hours ago, rabin1 said:

can they be added after final payment date?

Yes someone can be added after final payment date, space available 

[kitkat343]

5 hours ago, rabin1 said:

But can they be added after final payment date?

 

I had two problems. Once on a Christmas cruise some brats took my magnetic door decorations and stole them. I did not know this but apparently there are cameras in the corridor. When I saw the captain one day I told him. Couple days later security called me told me they identified them. Said went to talk to the parents of those that did it. Told them any more incidents and they would be put off the ship.

Another time on another cruise this little kid I would say about 7 or 8 ran hard past my door every morning. I was bound and determined to catch him. Finally one day I did. I told him if he kept it up I was going to trip him and told him to go tell his parents what I said in the hopes they would come knocking on my door and I could have a conversation with them. Either he did  not tell them or they knew they were in the wrong but never heard from them. 

 

I go on these cruises to rest as I own my own business NOT to have some else's kids wake me up and steal my property.

We aren't sailing now because our youngest isn't eligible for a vaccine and the idea of being quarantined with 3 kids in a cabin on a cruise ship is my personal idea of hell (along with Disney over a major holiday), but our two oldest will be two weeks past their final dose tomorrow 12/14, and would be eligible to sail on Princess starting on that date.  

 

We always tried to sail on cruises in which there were very few children because all of our kids were very young pre-covid and it was a lot easier for them to participate in the kids clubs when the staff had time to help them when the clubs are empty.  We sailed the January 8th cruise Panama Canal cruise on Princess, and were told by the kids club staff how happy they were we picked this cruise.  There were 9 kids on our January 9th sailing, including my then 2 year old  and one other child under the age of 3.  The previous Panama Canal cruise that sailed on the exact same ship over the holidays had over 100 kids and they had absolutely no time to help any of the under 3 children, and had to keep the kids in rigidly structured activities, which not all of the children liked.  Princess allows children under 3 in the kids club (pre-covid) with parental supervision.  They had a lot of time to help my kids do activities, and my son loved the kids club.  Other cruises we took with fewer than 10 kids included a HAL cruise in January that was a one week cruise part of a longer 3 week cruise that went to Guatemala, and a cruise to Norway leaving from Southampton during May (in England parents are fined heavily for pulling kids out of school during the school year so there were fewer than 15 kids on that sailing on Cunard).  Princess is a great line, but much more geared towards families traditionally than HAL, plus there are a ton of other lines that don't allow kids if your schedule doesn't allow you to sail when there aren't a lot of kids.  

 

Is it too late to cancel your cruise and book on another line that doesn't allow children if you can't sail during the school year?  I also wonder if you call and ask politely if they might let you know the number of children are currently booked on your sailing so you can get a sense of how likely this will be a problem for you (no guarantee they will answer this question, but if you get a nice rep maybe they can help you?)  I also wonder what  the child-free Virgin line will be like, but won't be able to find out for a very long time since my kids are  now 3, 6 and 11.

Edited December 13, 2021 by kitkat343

[Coral]

1 hour ago, kitkat343 said:

Is it too late to cancel your cruise and book on another line that doesn't allow children if you can't sail during the school year?  I also wonder if you call and ask politely if they might let you know the number of children are currently booked on your sailing so you can get a sense of how likely this will be a problem for you (no guarantee they will answer this question, but if you get a nice rep maybe they can help you?)  I also wonder what  the child-free Virgin line will be like, but won't be able to find out for a very long time since my kids are  now 3, 6 and 11.

They used to tell you how many children when you called. I haven't asked for several years.

[capriccio]

7 hours ago, rabin1 said:

But can they be added after final payment date?

 

4 hours ago, Ombud said:

Yes someone can be added after final payment date, space available 

 

Plus since there is availability on all ships, many people (especially those that can drive to the port) are not booking until well after final payment.  DH and I  just booked the CB's January 2 cruise last week.

[rabin1]

Thank you all. As I said in my OP I don't mind children it is the children that are unsupervised and do the things like I said have been done to me that bother me. It is the children like LaCruisers88 I hope are there. As far as changing no I cannot and would not. I leave this Sunday and maybe I am stupid but I pay a fortune for these cruises and do not understand once again why my cruise has to be problematic with unruly kids as I said in my second post.

 

Anyway Hope Everyone have a Happy Holiday.

Kathy 

[MissP22]

😭

[skynight]

Don't think you will see many children. Anyone boarding, including children. Must be fully vaccinated.

[capriccio]

I remembered seeing something about kids on Geoherb's 'live from' last week

Post #117 gave numbers for kids on this week's cruise:

 

The big difference on the next cruise is the introduction of children under 12. They weren't eligible to sail on my cruise since they couldn't be fully vaccinated in time. Next week is the first cruise that they can sail on. One of the assistant cruise directors said there were 280 children scheduled to board tomorrow. I don't know if she was counting all of the under 18-year-olds. 

 

[rabin1]

There is a number you can call in Santa Clarita that is into the main office. I never posted it cause I knew too many would use it and then I would not be able not to be on hold.

Anyway I called and asked. On the first week of my B2B which is Christmas week there is 100 on the second week NYE week there are 210. Probably as someone said since they will be out of school.

Again thank you to all that kindly posted but not to the one person who found my troubles a laughing matter. I wish I could figure out why some people have to be that way oh well there problem not mine.  thanks again

Kathy

[Ferry_Watcher]

14 hours ago, rabin1 said:

some brats took my magnetic door decorations and stole them. I did not know this but apparently there are cameras in the corridor. When I saw the captain one day I told him. Couple days later security called me told me they identified them.

 

14 hours ago, rabin1 said:

Another time on another cruise this little kid I would say about 7 or 8 ran hard past my door every morning. I was bound and determined to catch him. Finally one day I did. I told him if he kept it up I was going to trip him

 

Those same corridor cameras that identified the young magnet thieves would also catch the assault (tripping) of a child. 

 

It's not normal that an adult would formulate a plan to lay in wait to either physically harm a child, or to play a sick mind game with them.  It would be advisable for someone with these types of thoughts to speak to their doctor in hopes of preventing an actual criminal offense from happening.

[deliver42]

I'm sure security would gladly put you off at the next port.

[kitkat343]

It was clear from your post that you didn't trip the 7 or 8 year old.  But you wrote, "I told him if he kept it up I was going to trip him and told him to go tell his parents what I said in the hopes they would come knocking on my door and I could have a conversation with them. Either he did  not tell them or they knew they were in the wrong but never heard from them. "

 

It is unlikely the security cameras record sound, but it is possible for your exchange to be reported to security by another passenger.  If another passenger stepped into the hallway and witnessed this exchange or a nearby passenger overheard you threatening to trip a 7 year old for running, it is possible that you yourself would be thrown off the ship.  Because if the kid tells his dad that you threatened to trip him with the wrong family (or on Carnival or a cruise sailing out of NY) there's a pretty good chance that this will quickly escalate to a security problem that the cruise lines don't want to deal with.   The child should not be running in the corridor but it is unlikely that security would find your statement to the child acceptable.  If this were a  totally unruly teenager who has been wreaking havoc all over the ship all week who started banging or yelling outside your door they probably would understand your frustration if you said something inappropriate to him, but just tell you to let them deal with the problem in the future.  A 7 year old being threatened to be tripped for running?  Not so much.  

 

If you cannot step back and let security handle the problems with the children like they did with the decorations you really need to consider sailing on a less child friendly line, or at least at times when there are very few children on board so it is unlikely there will be a problem, or if there is you might be able to move cabins to not be near any children.  I understand the problem is started by misbehaving children, but if you choose to sail at a time in which you are likely to experience problems you are taking an unnecessary risk that can be avoided by not sailing on Princess or not sailing over the holidays.

[kitkat343]

Also, does anyone know the hours/capacity of the kids clubs?  If there are 100-210 kids sailing and the kids clubs cannot hold them due to covid restrictions there could be a lot of unsupervised kids running around the ships over the holidays.

Edited December 14, 2021 by kitkat343

[pms4104]

Nothing makes up for proper parenting.

[Reader0108598]

Was not rich enough to take our selves or our son on a cruise then. If he had misbehaved i would have tanned his hide.We now call him sarg of the mass state police and thank him for his 8 years overseas in the airforce. yep he is a Vet 911. You do not let your kids get away with crap only hurts them

 

 

Edited December 14, 2021 by Reader0108598

[rabin1]

2 hours ago, Reader0108598 said:

Was not rich enough to take our selves or our son on a cruise then. If he had misbehaved i would have tanned his hide.We now call him sarg of the mass state police and thank him for his 8 years overseas in the airforce. yep he is a Vet 911. You do not let your kids get away with crap only hurts them

 

 

Please thank your son for his service and for keeping us safe. God Bless all the soldiers

Kathy