Royal Caribbean Aqua Tots??

[NoelsCat]

In January, our family (consisting of five families) is taking a cruise on the Jewel of the Seas. Two of us have children under 3 and are interested in the Aqua Tots program. My son will be newly two years old and the other baby will be 11 months old.

 

My questions are:

 

1. What exactly IS aqua tots? Is it fun -- what kinds of things are done?

2. What time is this typically run? Is it super early? (I hope not...)

3. Does it have to be a parent who accompanies or can a grandparent go too?

4. Is there a playroom/area that our toddlers can use (with our supervision, of course!) outside of the "Aqua Tots" program?

 

TIA!

[ski ninja]

I'm sure I'm not the best to reply as I don't have kids but I have seen one and my sister briefly told be about the program on the ship she took. (I'll see if I can get her to post a better answer to your questions)

When she went with her 18 month old it was at 10am. It is usually in one of the lounges and they crew set up a corner with some fisher price toys for the kids to play with. I think they had some stories and sang some songs. I don't think it matters who takes the child. In the 4 RCCL cruises that I have done I haven't seen any special play areas outside of the set times that have toys outside of the kids program area.

 

I hope you get better answers to your questions, but I hope this helped.

[ski ninja]

oops

[hooked-on-travel]

Hi, I'm ski ninja's sister and we took our 20 month old on the Rhapsody last May. I think the Fisher Price sponsored programs (Aqua Babies and Aqua Tots) are a newer thing, though I admit I don't know since I wasn't looking for kids programs before our last cruise.

 

1. What exactly IS aqua tots? Is it fun -- what kinds of things are done?

 

It starts and ends with a song, includes free play time and a story. On the last day they handed out a cd of Little People travel-themed songs. ("Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, Please shine down on me...") There were times the youth staff leader could see the tots were clearly more interested in the toys than a story, so she skipped it. The group met in an out-of-the-way lounge.

 

2. What time is this typically run? Is it super early? (I hope not...)

 

I don't know if it varies per ship/sailing, but ours was something like 9:30 for babies (under 18 mos) and 10:30 for tots (over 18 mos). I tried showing up early one day to use the under 18 mos toys (having a 20 month old...it was close I thought) and they politely encouraged me to come back at the right time. Having kids on both sides of the 18 mos cut-off, you might be able to swing a deal. I just took the hint and didn't try it again more than 15 min. early. However, some days no babies showed up, so when we got there early, we got to play with toys right away. They had a program of a different kind of toy every day, so if you liked the Little People farm yesterday...too bad, today it's Pop-Onz. You know, kind of like Fisher Price is trying to introduce you to all the different kind of toys you should buy your kid. A note: it was at the same time every day, even port days. I don't know if anyone went when we were in port, but we sure didn't. We were on a cruise to go to the beach...not play with Little People.

 

3. Does it have to be a parent who accompanies or can a grandparent go too?

 

There was a grandma who came with one. I'm betting an aunt could do it, too. (Hint, hint ski ninja! Think Hawaii)

 

4. Is there a playroom/area that our toddlers can use (with our supervision, of course!) outside of the "Aqua Tots" program?

 

We weren't allowed to on the Rhapsody, but a different ship maybe, depending on numbers of kids perhaps. We were allowed to borrow books. I knew we wouldn't be able to carry enough books for our book worm for a whole week (she was in a real "NEW BOOK!" phase at the time), so I had gone to the library only to find no kid books. So, someone suggested I ask at the Adventure Ocean room. And we did. The staff acted like, "Um, sure, I guess. Nobody ever asked that before." So, we borrowed three books at a time and traded them in every day and a half.