Help my teenagers are going to break me.

[idssms]

From an auditors perspective I would do the following:

 

Explain the situation to the children about the card and give them a daily amount to spend.

 

Each night I would go to the Pursers Desk, now called the Customer Service Deck and get a printout of the ship account-to-date. Go thru the reasonableness of each expenditure with them and discuss any suspect purchases.

 

Doing this every night or every other night will give you some insurance that the bill wont get out of hand and there will be no HEARTBURN on the last night of the cruise when the bill is slipped under the door.

 

Children need to know that they can be trusted and with a little monitoring and group effort, things will go fine,,, (I hope).

 

Doctor Spock

[johno95]

yes, this is good. "trust and verify." i like the discussion part. "discuss any suspect purchases." a two way discussion is good.

Children need to know that they can be trusted and with a little monitoring and group effort, things will go fine,,, (I hope).

[busybusybusy]

Last summer we took our 15 and 10 yo's on Princess, and we just told them to limit themselves to soda (the cards are only $20 there), and they could have 2 "special" drinks a day. Anything over that they were going to have to reimburse me for after the trip.My daughter had only 1 the entire cruise and I think my son had 4 or 5. My big concern was with the arcade - I know a 10 yo would lose track of games - but it took money, not the card. Both kids had their own spending money, and both came home with some left. I think you will be fine - have a wonderful trip!

 

 

:D

[FEMH]

We love to cruise with our teenagers! We discuss spending before we leave, mainly in the area of the onboard shops and the soft drinks. They usually spend their shopping allowance when they are in port with us, and will get a Coke when they have pizza. We've never had any trouble. Lay the rules out ahead of time.

[4 cruisers]

This is such a wonderful topic!!! I remember the first time our son found out that you could actually charge items in the gift shop with your room key!!! A friend from South Africa had bought BOXES of gum for all the "kids" on the Crown Odyssey back in 2000. Our son has since charged a bit of candy, but it's never been excessive...oh, you can run into problems when even though you have bought them a soda card, the kids with them don't have one and your well traveled "young person" "treats" them to drinks!! LOL! Great to be forwarned, parents!!! I was truly naive so I think this is so nice to warn "teen" parents out there! :o We do have to just say "NO!" to our kids sometimes! Learning limits is a great part of cruising for us all (YES??!). LOL!!!!!!!! ;)

[cruiseLMG]

We just returned from 11 day Summit Nov 15-26. We brought our teenagers (15 and 17). We told them that they could charge $100 each througout the cruise. We checked their accounts periodically on the tv in their room to make sure they were keeping things within their allotments. They spent their money very differently. My 15 year old bought lots of non alocholic drinks, while my 17 year old purchased a couple movies and trinkets from the on board shops. It worked great... and gave the kids some freedom while letting them know the boundries.

[katiel53]

The boarding form from Celebrity regarding cash etc. has a place for you to say others that may use your card. So, if your wife is to use your card, you can put her name there. I am sure there has to be a way for your kids to put up cash BEFORE the trip. There are ways to put cash/travelers checks before the cruise, so if the money is low, they will notify you. I would talk to the agents at check-in so you would know. Even if you put up the cash up front, they can't go over what's there. Good luck!

 

 

Katie