have you ever lost your kid on the ship?

[happyshelly]

I havent lost mine on a ship but when my son was about 3 we moved to a new house. One day he went outside to play and i was getting my coat on, well by the time i got outside he was gone. We have on lived i that house for about a week and i totally freaked. I searched high and low while taking my daughter with me who was about 5 months old. After calling my husband and the police i noticed footprints in the snow and i followed them. I finally found him in the neighborhood behind ours, The older couple that found him also called the police and we actually foudn him at the same time.

So i know the feeling of helplessness and frustration that you felt and the shame and guilt of it happening. My son is not 21 and remembers everything he did that day.

 

Michele

[benvan2]

My 13 ds stayed out all night on our last cruise. He was staying in my dad's room and at 6 am in the morning on debarkation day my dad banged on our our door and said he and his cousin weren't in their beds. I panicked and then remembered our cell phones were working, called him and he said they just hung out all night. I was super mad. I know it is up to us parents to keep track of our kids, but I think there should be some kind of curfew for kids on the ship. Also one thing I think you should teach your children is if you are alone not to get on an elevator with just one person on it. I saw a lot of young girls get on elevators with just 1 boy/man in it. It always worried me. You just never know. Kids should always be in pairs and never go anywhere alone. Just my two cents.

[halos]

LOL..no flames. I'm sure no one will beat you up more than you have yourself!! :) I'm so sorry that you had that experience. I had it once, in the supermarket while only looking after ONE kid! *shakes head*

You lost one out of four. I think you did good. ;) ;)

[stinkysmom]

I saw a little boy maybe 3 years old today who was lost at debarkation. Talk about scarey.

[schwpaul]

How about a view from the other side? I was the kid who disappeared. It was 1980 and I was on my first cruise on NCL's Skyward for a Christmas cruise. I was ten years old and I had wandered off to explore the ship and to play "elevator operator". Anyway, I found a nice swinging chair in a bar all the way at the top of the ship. I fell sound asleep until the crew found me. Apparently I had created quite a stir. I had a great time even though I gave my great grandparents quite a scare. It was an experience that I will never forget. All I can say now is that my great grandparents created quite the little cruise monster out of me and I thank them for it.

[kdr69]

Our first cruise on RCCL Serenade my wife went to the spa right after boarding and looked away for a second and our 4 yr old was gone. Staff was great and everyone started looking real quick. Found him within 5 minutes by the pool down to his underwear getting ready for a swim:eek:. Fortunately pool was still covered. Guess he wanted to get a head start on his vacation. Four cruises later and havent had any other problems. Helps though that he is getting more and more cruise experienced I guess lol:D.

[tbogie]

Our son was 9 on our last cruise on NCL Star. We had balcony aft cabins and you have to walk through the mexican restuarant from the mid elevators aft. Of course there are 2 hallways to choose from. We took one hallway and our son took the other. He "beat" us to the cabin, but decided not to go into the cabin, but go looking for us. I freaked when we got to cabin, probably 30 seconds after him and he wasn't there. I took off looking for him and stopped every cabin steward I could find. One had said they saw him and I ended up finding him at the mid elevators we had gotten off of. I know it was only 2-3 minutes, but it seemed like hours. We did let him go to certain places on the ship by himself, but I always "followed" him to make sure he was there.

[jayesouthworth]

http://www.*****************/Pacific_Dawn_Pedophile_Arrest_December_30_2007.html

[tiffytutu99]

its still not working,could it be because of the **** in the link?

[truchattycathy]

My kidiots are 25, 22 and 18 and my how I have tried to lose them, they just keep finding their way back home (with tag-a-longs).

 

Seriously, you are not a bad mom and you did nothing wrong, you did everything right, including putting a little fear in your kidiot. Mine will tell you they knew to behave because they were afraid not to. ;)

[Tbay-eh]

this may have been addressed - but did you say a 4 and 6 year old were in their own room with two teenagers - that is what I got from your thread. I know that this probably has nothing to do with him getting lost but I don't know how this was allowed in the first place. My kids were at the very least 16 before they had their own room.

[jayesouthworth]

I use Firefox as my browser, and CC here isn't friendly with Firefox so therefore, my links won't work. So, if you do a google for "pedophiles on cruise ships", you will find several stories.

[Sherrybaby412]

The links won't work because you are posting another cruising site link IMO. I was able to find it by googling it. :)

[jayesouthworth]

The links won't work because you are posting another cruising site link IMO. I was able to find it by googling it. :)

 

okay...thanks.....I was having some issues here with FireFox and IE. The mods said it was because of Firefox....so I'll take your words for it. :cool:

[ILov2cruise]

I did!! Earlier this year on the Valor, I had side by side rooms, my husband and I in one and two teenagers and my 4 and 6 yo in the next room. They were not adjoining rooms. Well, we were all going into the rooms getting ready to go play ping pong and long story short, everyone got confused as to which room the 6 yo went into. It only took a minute or two to figure out he was missing but by the time we did he was LONG gone!!! A guest passing by said she noticed a boy around six matching our child's description walking with an adult onto the elevator. So naturally, I am starting to freak out...! The teenagers went to search and my husband and I went to the purser's desk to ask them to call security which they did. After a few minutes with no results I ask them to page him, maybe this adult is trying to help him find us and is not some evil predator? THEY WOULDN'T!!!!! I asked, and begged, but they just looked at me and stalled and stammered... and made excuses. I started crying, then I got pissed. They didn't page him until it was clear to them that I was ready to jump over the counter and wring their necks unless they did... Shortly after they paged, they got called by a staff member saying that the teenage girls had located him on the lido deck with another staff member! Apparently he thought I had gone up to the ping pong table and took it upon himself to come after me. So I ran up to the Lido deck and lit into him. Not one of my finer moments. I was so happy to find him but so upset at him for leaving by himself! I could see other guests looking at me like I was a bad mom because he started crying... I felt bad for making him cry but hopefully it made an impression on him not to ever do that again! I am happy that a Carnival staff member stayed with him until he was found, but not happy that he did not call someone to let them know he found a small child wandering the ship and definitely NOT happy with the pursers desk for refusing to page him.

 

I'm sure I'll get flamed because its a high probability when posting a thread but before you do consider this: I had four kids to look after and we were right near an elevator. I'm not a bad mom, I'm protective, they don't normally get separated from me, my son is a good kid who normally doesn't wander off and I usually don't jump down his throat but I was extremely scared and over-emotional over losing him like that. You can only know what that feels like if you've been there. Needless to say, this cruise coming up we have just our two kids who are now 5 and 7 and they are in OUR room and we'll probably do it that way until they are teenagers!!

 

Guess this is a flame.

Consider this: I had four kids to look after.... and....

You are protective.... if you really were the 4 and 6 yo would have been in your cabin.

They don't normally get separated from me.... you just separate yourself from them by putting 2 babies in a different cabin.

Everyone got confused as to which room the 6 yo went into....who was watching him.

 

You're not happy with the Carnival staff........the only ones you should be unhappy with are the parents, one of you should have had an eye on him.

 

Sorry,

[5waldos]

I "lost" my then 14 year old on the first morning out and essentially didn't find him until we went to go off on a shore excursion 2 days later. I'd see someone who looked familiar on the other side of the ship but he would disappear. The bed was obviously slept in every night so I knew he was around. He had a marvelous time and I got to relax and read to my heart's content. But he wasn't 6 either- very very scary and I would have responded in the same way.

 

As far as using radios to keep track- I found them to be virtually useless- I didn't hear him paging me, nor he me. But he knew not to follow anyone to any cabins, stay where there were always a lot of people, and all was fine. And he certainly couldn't go far as long as we were at sea.

[ShedQueen77]

okay...thanks.....I was having some issues here with FireFox and IE. The mods said it was because of Firefox....so I'll take your words for it. :cool:

 

She's right. I know which site that leads to. ;) It has nothing to do with FireFox. Any time you try to post another cruising website, the **** will break up the URL. It also does that with words like v-i-a-g-r-a...although I'm not sure why. See? ******! lol

[sandi1967]

It happens to everyone.....we took our 5 kids on the Glory this past July and "lost" our 6 year old for a few minutes. It is a scary feeling.......we were poolside and I could not find him.....low-n-behold he was at the ice cream machine.

 

Take care

sandi

[IHATESNOW]

I tried to but they kept finding us!

[MrPete]

DD was 4 on her first cruise. We had simply gone from out pool chair to the ice cream machine, and somehow I lost her. In those few steps she was gone. And I assumed she went "THAT WAY" when she went "THIS WAY" when I started looking for her. 30 seconds I never want to repeat.

 

She's now 10, completed her 9th or something cruise, and although she thinks she's walking to the cabin alone, I'm still watching her. I can only imagine what the security cameras look like for my escapades.

[arpie05]

I agree that cruise ships need a better system to locate lost kids or even lost parents. My son was in the kids club on NCL (age 12) and became sea sick. Well even though we had walkie talkies (didn't work) - they couldn't find me on the ship. They looked for me in the shopping excursion lecture - why they didn't make an annoucement to see if I was in there, I don't know. (I WAS in there!) He had to hang out in the front desk security area for over an hour - he enjoyed the adult time, making friends with them but I was very irritated that I was in a public area and not paged over an intercom system.

[toby #1]

Not on a cruise but in London. My then 16 year old boy was gone all night and I was frantic. He ran into some girls and they took him sightseeing and then to their flat ( their parents were there ), he thought it was so cool having girls show him London in their car at night. I can imagine what a parent of a six year old was going through with a missing child.

[Minoushka]

On our first cruise on Destiny my son was 5 years old .We were on Lido deck having a snack .He wanted more pizza ,he knew where it was .He took too long to come back .I sent his brother to look for him .He could not find him .I started to walk around and call his name rather loudly -lots of people stared I DID NOT CARE .you have to know Destiny is a huge ship.A lady hearing me asked me if I was looking for a blond little boy .he was taken by a crew member to the purser's desk. I ran to the phone =not easy to find they said he was on his way .I FLEW down -he was not there we could not find the crew member .Ran to the cabin where my son was locked in BAWling his eyes out .He told them I was on Lido deck .Why di d they take him away /Why not page me I was right there?I was VERY upset the way they did that .The crew member should have stayed on Lido deck and find us .To say I was frantic is to put it mildly

 

This year we thought he was lost -HE IS NOW 13-as he was not in bed at 1 am .We went looking for him IN buffet and all over .Went to pursers .She offered to stop the shipand have a search .WE FREAKED!!!We told her he went to teenagers club .She called .Activities had just finished .We called our cabin he was there.We found out on this ship Teenage activities went till 1am .After that we DEMANDED he call us regularly to let us know where he was ..We did check kids activity centre to make sure he was safe ,He was..it was very well organized

 

2 scares ..but all good

[kiraryker]

This is just what we are afraid of! We will be cruising for the first time with our kids and our nieces & nephews. I am going to purchase some walkie talkies and hope that everyone stays in contact -How scary that would be!!

[Joaljoe]

I'm not flaming because I'm not that kind of person and I know this happens to many people BUT I would not have let the 2 younger ones stay with the teenagers. I know you now know better and probably wouldn't do that again. So lesson learned!

 

I am a very paranoid person....I get made fun of by family ALL the time, I have an almost 8 year old and an almost 6 year old. I would NEVER consider putting them in a separate room...even if it was a joining room. I don't care if they wake me up at 6am or that I could't have sex for a week....my kids would be in my room right next to me where I can hear them breathing at night and know they are safe with me. Sure, your teens could be responsible but whos to say that your younger one would not wake up at night and wonder out of the room in the middle of the night? If teens are heavy sleepers and you are in another room no one would ever know. Scary thought!

 

I'm glad you found him and that he was okay. :)