Camp carnival- how strict are the age breakdowns?

[bluejaygirl]

I will be sailing in December 2007 on Carnival Glory with my two daughters. This is my 2nd cruise, and first time with kids. Younger one, 6, outgoing, not a problem. She will make a dozen new best friends onboard and not think twice about not knowing anyone.

 

My older daughter will turn 12 in September. A friend of mine is sailing with her daughter, who will still be 11. Do you think I will have a hard time keeping my daughter in the 9-11 age group so our 2 girls can be together? Not only will she want to be with someone she knows, she is very shy and I think it would be harder for her to be in with all older kids.

 

I'm just wondering how strict the policy is.. certainly this must come up a lot.

 

Thanks for any insight!

[Cruisetrio]

I will be sailing in December 2007 on Carnival Glory with my two daughters. This is my 2nd cruise, and first time with kids. Younger one, 6, outgoing, not a problem. She will make a dozen new best friends onboard and not think twice about not knowing anyone.

 

My older daughter will turn 12 in September. A friend of mine is sailing with her daughter, who will still be 11. Do you think I will have a hard time keeping my daughter in the 9-11 age group so our 2 girls can be together? Not only will she want to be with someone she knows, she is very shy and I think it would be harder for her to be in with all older kids.

 

I'm just wondering how strict the policy is.. certainly this must come up a lot.

 

Thanks for any insight!

 

I doubt there will be an issue....my daughter (now 15) attended the 15-17 Club 02 last year when she was 14 with no problems. Honestly, they may not want the 9-11 age group, but rather the 12-14....and if they are together, then great. The 9-11 activities may be a bit too young for the 11-12 yr old tastes.

[laura1960]

Yes, it comes up often, and from reading these boards, and from my own experience, Carnival is either:

 

a) very, very strict; or

b) very reasonable.

 

They SAY they won't switch groups, but I think that if you explain the situation, they will be happy to keep your daughter in the 11-year-old group. As long as you are polite, it won't hurt to ask.

In my case, the counselors asked ME if they could move 5-year-old Christopher into the 6-8 group, along with his brother, who was 7 at the time. Fine with me! Chris didn't have a lot in common with the 2-5 year olds, and had a blast with the bigger kids.

This time (Jan. 1 sailing on Spirit) I'm sure the boys will be in separate groups - Chris in 6-8 and Michael in 9-11.

 

Laura

[bluejaygirl]

Thank you both so much for your replies! Its reassuring that there is a good chance I can work it out so they can be together. The 12-14 group together would be ideal but I'd bump my kid down a group if thats less trouble to work out.

 

No one wants to deal with a mopey tween!!!

[Mysticks1]

It all depends upon the number of children on the ship. I had the exact situation in November that you described. We had 2 cousins 9 and 11 and my DD who was 12. They refused to allow my 12 yr old to go down to be with the other 2 and stated that it was because of the number of kids on the ship. In my situation then none of them went. The three hung out together and with us. It was very disappointing for my daughter because she loved Camp Carnival so much the previous year but the other two were new to cruising and wanted to stay with her. I spoke with the director and explained the situation and she was quite rude. Needless to say Camp Carnival got comments from me on my card that cruise. Good Luck!

[mrdood]

It varies by the staff in charge and the number of kids.

[idec 102]

I've cruised 3 times before, bring 3 children along, every time they would let an older child move down, but would not allow a younger child move up, you should have no problem with your 12 year old moving down, have fun! My kids LOVE camp carnival. We will be on the Conquest in April, can't wait:D

[truecruiser]

it all depends on how packed the rosters are for a given group. if there's room, then moving down is easier than moving up, and if a birthdate is w/in 3 months of the age group switch that helps too, and room permitting, they may let the child move up if bday is close. there is a head (lead) counselor in charge. speak w/ that person.

[LHP]

In the incidences of allowing a change, 99.99% of the changes I have read was allowing children to go UP. Rarely have I read where they allowed a child to go DOWN . Generally if they are 3 months or less away from that next birthday.

 

Of course, the is always the exception. My son was an exception years ago, when they allowed him to stay in the lower age group, but that was because he is a special needs child.

 

After 16 Carnival cruises, we have never had a bad experience with Camp Carnival. But then, all our requests had been with realistic expectations.

[book-a-roo]

Do they already have a list of the childrens names and ages? Because I was thinking they must otherwise parents wouldn't have to try to gain their permission to switch groups. We are going to be asking in September because my 14 yr old will be very close to her birthday but she is also more mature for her age anyway(and she looks about 22 lol). She said she likes the activities for the 12-14 but not sure she would have much in common with that age group anymore.

[Mysticks1]

Do they already have a list of the childrens names and ages? Because I was thinking they must otherwise parents wouldn't have to try to gain their permission to switch groups. We are going to be asking in September because my 14 yr old will be very close to her birthday but she is also more mature for her age anyway(and she looks about 22 lol). She said she likes the activities for the 12-14 but not sure she would have much in common with that age group anymore.

 

Yes they have the children's roster with their correct birthdates that were verified by their birth certificates or passports.

[bluejaygirl]

Thanks again for all the replies! I will make sure to ask the lead counselor..since there is a celebrity charity event on board it may bring down the number of kids overall by a few, allowing some flexibility!

[lucigo]

I realize this wasn't the question, but for anyone who might care to know, we were told that special needs children can be placed in more developmentally appropriate groups. Ben is doing great in the 2-5yo group (he is 4), but on our last cruise we met a boy with autism who was 8, and his father told me they were given the option of allowing him into the younger group if he would be happier there. He tried it and ended up to his own age group. So there is some flexibility and they will work with individual needs.

[CNDKanga]

I know this is perhaps to specific of a questions but in terms of moving up...my daughter will turn 6 eight days after our cruise is over. I really want her in the 6-8 group with her older brother (who will be 8) as her younger sister (who will be 4) has a sensory processing disorder and it is quite a drain on the family, especially the middle daughter as she is only 20 months older then her sister, yet seems years older, so is often lumped in the same group as her. I would love for her to have some time away from her sister -- she and her brother are very close...I think due to their siblings special needs. I suppose our other alternative is to take the middle daughter out of the camp and we can do things together, she is a social girl though and would really love the camp...taking the younger one out isn't something I really want to consider as I need a break too (I'm counting down the days, weeks, months until we go)

[Figtree]

In the incidences of allowing a change, 99.99% of the changes I have read was allowing children to go UP. Rarely have I read where they allowed a child to go DOWN . Generally if they are 3 months or less away from that next birthday.

 

Of course, the is always the exception. My son was an exception years ago, when they allowed him to stay in the lower age group, but that was because he is a special needs child.

 

After 16 Carnival cruises, we have never had a bad experience with Camp Carnival. But then, all our requests had been with realistic expectations.

Hi Everyone,

We just returned from the Glory and my 15 year old son went with the 12-14 year olds and had a great time with the 14 year old boys. He's pretty outgoing but the Club02 kids seemed to just "hang out" and some did some underage drinking. He enjoyed Camp Carnival from the year before because the guys played cards a lot and hung out in the disco with the girls. We asked someone about it the very first day and she asked her surpervisor and they said it would be fine. He was 15 years, 4 months. He didn't do everything with Camp Carnival but he met some kids that were a lot like him and had some of the same interests. There were tons of kids in Camp Carnival last week, but he enjoyed it and there was only one time that one of the counselors kicked him out because she found out he was 15 and didn't bother to check the list where his name was written in. It embarrassed him terribly and when I went to check into it, I saw that his name was written in on the list along with several others that weren't automatically put in there. Camp Carnival gives the older kids at least a place to meet other kids, whether they stay with the group all week or not. We've loved it for both of our kids. Now Holland America was a different story...STRICT!!:confused:

[Peto]

they put me in the 12-14 yo group. I think I would have done better in the 15-17yo group. ;)

[Cruisetrio]

they put me in the 12-14 yo group. I think I would have done better in the 15-17yo group. ;)

 

What ship was that? ;)

[crews'n]

CNDKanga, when are you cruising? We are on Glory 1-12-08. My daughter will turn 6 three weeks later and will definitely want to be in the 6-8 group with her 6 year old cousin. If you cruise before us, I'd be interested to know how it works out for you.:)

 

Also, we cruised the week after this last year and there were very few kids that week so I'm assuming it will be the same this year. Does anyone know that with fewer kids, are the counselers more likely to let a child move up?

[cathy_kearns]

That's interesting that it is easier to move kids up. My daughter's weren't interested at all in the kids clubs on Carnival last week. When I asked my 17 year old why she said that she thought they allow kids to move up, and since she's off to college in a few weeks she really didn't feel like hanging out with kids fresh out of junior high. I thought she was exagerating, but apparently not. To me 15 to 17 seemed like a really narrow range.

[pakmount]

I can tell you from experience that it is the "luck of the draw".

 

We had a 11 year old that they let move up to the 12-14 yr old group.

We told them that they were cousins that never get to see each other. However, a few people in front of us were told no. I am not sure the story that they gave them. It may all be in the approach that you use.

We went to Camp Carnival a few hours before the large group meeting and introduced ourselves and made small talk with the counselors. Then when we went to sign them up and told them our story about the girls being together, they remembered us from earlier, and said that it would be ok.

 

Good Luck!

[Givemestuff]

I wonder what would happen if the TA made an errror in the kid's birth year :rolleyes: (1 year +or -). They would probably catch the error :rolleyes: during embarkment but you would think CC would already have the list of ages.

Just wondering so don't flame me:eek: but TA's do make errors :rolleyes: !!!!

[pakmount]

They do already have a list of each age group. They had to change their paperwork to move our 11 year old to the 12 year old group.

They have a list of their names, ages, cabin #'s, etc.

[carnival fan]

We will cruising the same time. My grandaugher will have turned 13 the first of the month and my grandson will be 12 in Feb. We're wanting them to be together also. We also have a grandughter that is will be 7. So our children may get to know each other. This is their first cruise, so they will have a lot to learn.