Current NCL Kids Club Hours?

[Maryscooking]

Our friends will have a 7 and 9 yr old and will be first time cruisers. My daughter is 16, so my kids club info is just a little out of date.

 

What are the typical sea day open hours? Port day open hours? And can you still leave the kiddos on the ship in the club while you are in port (like to do an age restricted excursion)? It is a Western Caribbean itinerary if that matters.

 

Does anyone have daily programs I could show them as examples?

[mjkacmom]

You might want to post this on the NCL board, I believe currently it depends on the ship.

[kitkat343]

9 hours ago, mjkacmom said:

You might want to post this on the NCL board, I believe currently it depends on the ship.

This is correct, but even on the NCL board there is very little information available.  According to NCL's website under the FAQ section it says they have the right to modify the kids club hours.  I was told by NCL that each ship is currently setting its own kids club hours.  Your best best is to check the NCL forum, and also to check the roll calls for previous cruises and ask them if they could post the dailies or let you know the hours.  

 

According to the information on the NCL forum, some people are reporting the kids clubs are not available on some ships for drop off care on port days.   Someone else reported there are no kids club programs on the Spirit, but I'm not sure how they know that (they will be sailing to Alaska this summer).

 

I'm currently on the NCL Getaway (1/8 sailing).   Its been a difficult trip.  On December 20th they took away the Dominican Republic and replaced it with a sea day.  They also took away the morning in Antigua and that knocked out what I wanted to do that morning (there's an island that has tortoises but the boats to that island only run in the morning).   They claimed both changes were due to environmental reasons (NCL ran a ship aground last march in the DR, and has not been bringing large ships into Taino Bay since.  Amber cove is also in the DR, but owned by carnival and only has room for 2 megaships so anything more than that needs to be diverted.).  From December 20th until whenever they stopped selling our cruise in January, they continued to market the trip as visiting the DR and having a full day in Antigua.  They never told people booking after December 20th about the itinerary change.

 

My kids loved the kids club on RC, and after our cruise in August they kept asking for us to go on vacation so they could go back to the kids club.  My kids have stated that the NCL kids clubs don't do as much fun things as RC, and they haven't wanted to go.  

 

The kids club on the Getaway is open 9-12, 2-4 and 7-11.  It is closed on port days while the ship is in port, so you cannot do age restricted excursions (though you can check to see if they are available through independent vendors, which sometimes have different age restrictions).  On port days it is open 9-12 and 2-4 if there is a late port time.

 

 

Edited January 12, 2023 by kitkat343

[Maryscooking]

Thanks for that info! I am surprised that they aren't keeping the clubs open on port days, but then again, I guess not. It has been so long since we've thought about using that service. I think my daughter only stayed on the ship once in all of our trips. I will check the NCL boards, but I'm not sure how helpful it will be b/c I am pretty sure my friend told me the cruise is the first one after the ship returns from Europe. So who knows how things will apply.

 

Also, I have to say, in regards to the RC club experience. I was just on Wonder over Thanksgiving break, and they had grouped two of the younger age groups together. So it was a huge amount of kids and very hectic, and my cousin's son didn't enjoy it at all. He barely went. My daughter was similarly not impressed with way the teen club was being conducted, and it was not a great experience for her either - and she is a very social, make friends right away type of person.  idk, maybe this is just one more area that the ships are struggling with post-covid.

[kitkat343]

1 hour ago, Maryscooking said:

Thanks for that info! I am surprised that they aren't keeping the clubs open on port days, but then again, I guess not. It has been so long since we've thought about using that service. I think my daughter only stayed on the ship once in all of our trips. I will check the NCL boards, but I'm not sure how helpful it will be b/c I am pretty sure my friend told me the cruise is the first one after the ship returns from Europe. So who knows how things will apply.

 

Also, I have to say, in regards to the RC club experience. I was just on Wonder over Thanksgiving break, and they had grouped two of the younger age groups together. So it was a huge amount of kids and very hectic, and my cousin's son didn't enjoy it at all. He barely went. My daughter was similarly not impressed with way the teen club was being conducted, and it was not a great experience for her either - and she is a very social, make friends right away type of person.  idk, maybe this is just one more area that the ships are struggling with post-covid.

I'm surprised they grouped the kids together over thanksgiving - that's a perfectly reasonable choice on a cruise with very few kids (the 6 year old group and next oldest group are combined on my current cruise and that's a perfectly reasonable choice because there are only 100 kids on board).  On a sailing over thanksgiving, there are usually too many kids for this to work well.  So sorry about that.