Kids Club - RCI Mariner

[dthogue]

We are considering cruising on RCI's Mariner next Thanksgiving. Can you share with me the in's and out's of RCI Kid's clubs?

 

I know the hours are restricted and there is a charge after 10pm. Do we register for the club on day one? Are the kids given id? Bracelet or Name tag? Do you receive a pager to be notified if your child wants to be picked up? What are the procedures for signing the kids in and out of the club? I am specifically looking for info on the 6-8 age group.

 

Where can I find a copy of the Children's Compass for the Mariner's 7-day Western?

 

Thanks for all the help!

 

Tammy

[flower power]

Tammy,

 

On the 8/29 Western Mariner, our son was given a bracelet when we boarded. A counselor was near the entry - the bracelet only had his muster station on it. In case of emergency, the kids are brought to the muster station and all parents are supposed to meet the kids at their muster station. I do not recall seeing any pagers.

 

I had posted the kids compasses from the cruise which turned out to be a 9 day cruise due to Hurricane Frances. Days 1-6 should be the same as a typical Western sailiing.

 

http://members2.clubphoto.com/flower905746/owner-45b5-1.phtml

[dad son team]

There are no other bracelets/beepers other than the muster station one. There is an open house the first afternoon on board, then a welcome show that evening in studio B. After the show, you go up to Adventure Ocean and do the registration. After that, you just sign then in and out each time they participate. Other than for registration/open house, the program is not open the first day.

[dthogue]

Now I am concerned - how do they get ahold of the parents if there is an emergency or if the child wants to leave?

 

Tammy

[girlzillla]

My kids didn't want to leave the kids club! You could give your child a two way radio to keep with them so they can contact you if they want to leave.

 

When we were on Mariner, my 12 year old hurt his knee (he cut it open on a table, his fault) and we had told him prior to him going that we would be at the pool and that's where they found us, actually, I think his 9 year old sister came and found us.

[FunCruiser56]

Flower Power,

I would love to look at the 9-11 kids activities but I am unable to open the album, would you consider emailing me them? kbogli@aol.com

 

Thanks so much

[STEPANDERIC98]

:o We just returned from the sept 28th sailing (yes 2 days late:mad:). the camp was great for us but did have its problems. First when booking the ta's say that RCI requests children to be at the first dining seating......well camp does not begin until 7pm and dinner at 6pm. You can imagine the amount of squirming that went on for that hour each time they were in the dining room. they do have johnny rocket's dinners for the kids 3 times during the week (free). The camp does not actually start until the next day (in our case wednesday) so count out the first night. the charge for the late night party zone is $5 per hour charged to your sea pass in half-hour increments starting at 10:15. the pagers are for the younger kids (3-5) but if I could have thrown it overboard I would have. (2x vomiting and 1 time for fall/cut that required stitches $383:eek:). The camp is open all day while you are off the boat (I give them an a+ on this). Overall very happy with the camp and will use it next october (hopefully for a while week:o.

[Sailfish]

Thanks for the input. It's very helpful.

[brn2crz]

Why does Mariner not have pagers...??

[Tenntrace]

The pagers are only given to the parents of of the 3-5 year olds.

 

On our last cruise, we had early seating and a few nights our oldest daughter would bring clothes to change into and she would leave before dessert and check herself in to Adventure Ocean. After dinner we would then take the youngest (she wasn't willing to give up dessert :) )

[flower power]

Kgobli, I sent you an email.

[dthogue]

Flower Power - I was able to open the link, but couldn't read the Compasses - could you email them to me as well? dthogue@att.net

[nrunnion]

Flower Power - could you email me as well. I could not read them either. Nancy.runnion@hmw.com

thanks

[christie629]

Flower Power -- I also couldn't read.. could you please e-mail to cwoodard@prsguitars.com

 

Thank you.

[Candleonwater]

When does the kids club eat at JR's? Is this new?

 

On our cruise last spring the only dinner option the kids had was 2x (I think it was 2x, might have been 3) eating in the Windjammer...

[redwings1958]

On voyager class ships the kids can eat at JRs twice instead of the dining room;

I think it is during both formal nights

[nreilly]

The Mariner had three nights that the kids can eat in JR's. You have to sign up earlier in the day. Both formal nights and the night of the party with the Crown and Anchor group.

[imkimpossible]

I was just on Mariner 12/5-12/12 Western and we absolutely loved the kids programs! I had a son (7) in 6-8 age group and a daughter(11) in the 9-11 group. I kept all the compasses and plan to scan them and post, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

My daughter had already decided that she wasn't going to like being the oldest in the kids club, and turned out NEVER wanting to leave and making many friends there. They did lots of fun stuff (sports night, survivor night, scavenger hunt, etc). In the 9-11 group you have the option of letting your children sign themselves in and out (we did NOT opt for this, but we were surprisingly the minority) They play games, and are able to get online and use playstation during club hours.

 

My son LOVED, repeat LOVED the program. We picked him up early one night and he cried (and he is not a cryer) For this group, they don't use pagers, but you can always call the room (the numbers are posted on the compasses) and check on your child if you are concerned. Mine never wanted to leave so this wasn't a problem. The Krooz Komics helped them put on a mini-circus in the promenade one day, and they dressed as pirates and "took over" the ship another night. They also had sports night and survivor night as well, with age appropriate activities. On port days AO was open all day. The normal hours were 9:00 am -12:00 noon; 2-5 pm; 7-10 pm (although there were some differences on different days)

 

We wished that we had signed up for late seating, so we could take the kids to Windjammer then enjoy our "grown up" dinner in the main dining room. We did take the kids to dinner and they were very well behaved and enjoyed the experience, but as posted they only wanted to get to AO at 7:00. We signed them up for all Johnny Rockets dinners (which are at 6:00) and they go straight to AO afterwards with the counselors. For this you just sign up by 4:00 on the day you want them to eat with the staff.

 

When you sign your kids in, you list who is authorized to sign your children out. In the beginning they checked our sea pass cards, but we got to know the counselors by the end of the week and they knew us. Overall, I give Adventure Ocean an A+++ Absolutely wonderful experience with great staff!

 

Kim

[maggieworkman]

Hmmm. We are sailing on the Sovereign in June. I have a 13 & 10 y.o. Right now we are signed up for late seating, but I was reading some compasses and looking at the fact that the kids clubs meet from 7 - 10 and I was thinking of switching to early seating so the kids could eat with us. You would have rather had the late seating???

 

 

Maggie

[imkimpossible]

That is the only thing that we wish had been different. We were in a table with 3 sets of grandparents (and there didn't seem to be many young families in first seating as I thought) but I digress. Our tablemates were wonderful (2 couples from England and one couple from Scotland) and loved seeing the kids at dinner. They just ended up loving AO so much that they were itching to get there at 7:00 (which meant packing a backpack of a change of clothes and one of us leaving to take and sign them into the club) That was just our experience, you may have a different one. I also saw a lot of the teens eating together at windjammer and hanging out in Fuel--the teen area. We did have them eat with us on the first Formal night and had pictures taken, etc. We also found that we had to rush back from port days to have all of us ready by 6:00 (and we didn't even leave Cozumel until 7:00) so we actually missed the Dining room a few nights, when DH and I would have preferred to eat there.

[lorimay]

The first cruise we took with our kids we had early seating. It worked out really well for us - we ate dinner with the kids and then spent "couple time" at the show or the casino. The kids were small (3 and 5) so we would pick them up at 10 and didn't use the after hours service.

 

Our second cruise we decided that we would do late seating thinking that we could feed the kids and have them go into the club before we ate. However, they were 6 and 8 at that time and while they liked the club, they wanted to be with us so they ended up coming to dinner most of the time anyway. Plus, with late seating many of the shows are before dinner and the kids didn't want to go so we missed quite a few. By the time we got done with dinner, the kids had little time in the club before we had to start paying for after hours and we aren't late night people anyway.

 

We are going again in January and we chose early seating again. It just makes more sense if you want to have time together unless you are absolutely sure your kids will want to spend time in the club while you're at dinner. I don't really like eating that early, but it works out well for us. You need to think about your kids and their schedule and what they will do the ship.

 

BTW - Adventure Ocean is awesome. I tell all my friends we like cruising so much because not only do we have fun, but our kids feel so special. These people are paid to make your kids happy and they do a great job at it. It's not like you're sticking your kids away some place to get rid of them - they almost have a better time then we do!