teens?

[heybabeitsbrooke]

I'm going to be fourteen. I'm going on a cruise to the caribbean with my best friend on the norwegian jewel. i was just wondering what teens thought of it? and how late in the night/morning do teens usually hangout until? thankss <3

[cruizinwithkids]

My advice to you regarding being a teen cruising. Be sure to join the teen's group. My teens have cruised with and without friends. Sometimes the comment they make are that the teen's group is lame or boring or whatever. The end up having more fun if they meet up with other teens - even when they are with their friends.

 

Stay out of trouble and behavior yourself - spoken as a true mother.:D

[heybabeitsbrooke]

hahaa. ok did anyone else travel with teens? i rlyy want to knoww wat they thought of it.

[Cosmopolitan]

My friends (2 families) traveled with teens. Two 15 year old boys and a 14 year old boy. The boys did not want to join the teen group (lame).

 

The second day on the ship, they met several teens at the pool area. The teens suggested they join the teens club..which they did.

 

They had a great time. That was two years ago and they still email with one another. The boys all wanted to cruise again but it never worked into their families' schedules.

 

I don't know what time of year you are traveling but they were "off season", mid September as their high school was under construction so their summer vacation was extended.

 

I'm sure if you are going during school vacation time there will be even more teens on the ship.

 

Have a great cruise:)

[DMRick]

Check and see what group you would be in. Our grandkids were both 14..one year too young on Carnival to be in what they thought was the 'fun' group. Their age just met at places like the pizza area, the pool, etc. They didn't have a fun area just for them like the younger kids and the older kids, and felt 'funny' going up to the group in the outside meeting areas.

[rewob]

We went to the Carribbean with our kids last Christmas. They were 16 and 13 at the time. They both didn't want to join the teen club. They just hung out with us or by themselves. They both really enjoyed the cruise, and we are going on another one this March.

[musicgirl63]

My son is an only child and absolutely loves everything about cruising. He loves the food, the freedom and making friends. We rarely saw him on any of our past cruises. He was always in around 2am. He still keeps in contact with many of the friends he's made over the years.

 

Since he is "alone" when we travel, he goes to the teen activities to meet other teens. They usually do some of the scheduled activities, but not all of them. On past cruises he enjoyed the group games, especially things like the scavenger hunts done in teams, elimination games, boys verses girls activities.

 

Definitely get involved with the teen activities. This will be his last one in June before he "ages" out at 18.

[ohioNCLcruiser]

My friend is working with the teens this week and she said they say they are boring when they never say what they want to do. With the teen club they can offer a ton of stuff but mainly the teens just want to sit there and chill. Meet some friends and take advantage of the group! Have fun.

[randrea]

I'm going to be fourteen. I'm going on a cruise to the caribbean with my best friend on the norwegian jewel. i was just wondering what teens thought of it? and how late in the night/morning do teens usually hangout until? thankss <3

 

What date are you going?

I'm going on the Jewel with my 14yo daughter on Jan 18th. She is also nervous about having other teens there. We went on RCI Explorer 2 years ago and she had the time of her life. I had to force her to go to the teen club and she met about 20 kids there her age. She still keeps in contact with a lot of them. As far as how late to hang out, we did it progressively. The first couple of nights I made her come in at 10 or 11 and as the week went by and she proved responsible we let her stay out later. I think the latest we let her out (the last night) was 1-1:30. She had just turned 13 at the time and I thought that was plenty late enough.

[LindaandJeff]

Similar to most teens, we had to talk our 14 year old into going to the teen center the first day. She is used to hanging out with older kids and so she was a little scared they would make her hang out with the 12 - 14 year olds. Since she is 5'10 and looks about 19, they let her hang where ever she was comfortable. She immediately made friends with some 14 and 15 year olds that she hung out with all week. She had the time of her life and can't wait to go back. Sometimes they did stuff with the teen area, sometimes they just did stuff on their own. Curfew was always 15 minutes after the scheduled end of teen center activities. If she was out after 12:00, she had to be in the teen center and call our room to check in...love that caller ID...it makes it easy to see where they are really calling from. Never had any problems. We did have a serious talk about cruise ship safety on the flight there and despite much eye-rolling, she understood the importance. Also, our family rule was a minimum of one activity with us a day, it could be a meal or a show or whatever...her choice. Happy sailing!

[Arubamoose]

My two girls took their first cruise on the Splendor of the Seas in 2000. They were 13 1/2 and 16. The first night they were bored to tears...they hung out with us, did dinner and a show and refused to join the teen club the next day. Later that day they met some other kids by the pool and they convinced them to go to the teen club that evening. They were still skeptical because of the difference in their ages - they were put in different groups. They had dinner with us the second night and they went off. We went to bed early. At 11:30 they came in to pull the sheets off their beds because they were having a "toga" party and ran out the door. We hardly saw them again while we were on the ship - and we had a number of days at sea. They had a blast. They sat up front en masse at every show. It seemed that they made friends with every crew member. They did the talent shows and played every game on board with the group. They hardly came in earlier than 3 am! They had dinners with their new friends families and theirs with us. They still keep in touch with a quite a number of their fellow cruisers, mainly through Facebook. I know they had fun. Go for it!

 

We too had a long talk with them about ship safety. They were to spend days ashore with us - no discussion on that one (since we booked excursions) and had to do at least one family activity a day.