Activities on Disney (Wonder) vs. Royal Caribbean

Just off of a wonderful cruise on Liberty of the Seas (RCCL) but thinking toward Disney for next time, despite the price jump. The main reason is that there is such a lack of family-oriented activities in the evenings on RCCL. I often felt like I needed to get the kids into the kids club or go to bed. The dive-in movies were NOT kid-appropriate. Only one night did they have a "Family Disco".The Dreamworks program is lame. I LOVED our cruise, but the family-friendly element could have been better. We have 4 kids and they're all under age 8.

Tell me about evening activities. What is offered? How late do they go?

Thanks!

Just off of a wonderful cruise on Liberty of the Seas (RCCL) but thinking toward Disney for next time, despite the price jump. The main reason is that there is such a lack of family-oriented activities in the evenings on RCCL. I often felt like I needed to get the kids into the kids club or go to bed. The dive-in movies were NOT kid-appropriate. Only one night did they have a "Family Disco".The Dreamworks program is lame. I LOVED our cruise, but the family-friendly element could have been better. We have 4 kids and they're all under age 8.

 

Tell me about evening activities. What is offered? How late do they go?

 

Thanks!

If you google disney cruise navigators, you'll get a hit for a blog that has the Navigator (daily activity paper) onboard the various ships. You can check those out for what activities are available.

The kid's clubs on DCL are open pretty much until 11:00pm/midnight every day.

on disney you won't be able to get them to bed! movies, shows, plus the kids club stuff. as a sample:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ylw7vqswsphawgb/Personal-Navigators-Magic-7N-Mediterranean-Day-3-Naples-Pompeii-20170911.pdf?dl=0

i get them all from the disney blog.

We love RCCL ships but agree the family programming on Disney is better. We also love that we can all stay in one stateroom (family of 5) which is really designed well for kids.

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We are platinum cruisers on Royal Caribbean and took our first Disney cruise last November aboard the Fantasy. We had second seating (no open time on Disney) which was less than desirable since our kids usually eat much earlier than that. But our typical night on Disney consisted of going to a main theater show (all great and family friendly) before dinner. After dinner (which usually ended close to 9:30-10:00pm) our kids were usually ready to call it a night. A few times they were up for the kids club for about an hour or so (and it was usually pretty packed even at that time of night).

But honestly, we didn’t consider the kid activities much more elaborate or different than what we’ve found on other cruise lines. Overall, we considered our Disney cruise to be excellent, but we are not rushing to book the next one. While I consider that the Disney product does command a premium price, I still think that it’s considerably overpriced. But many frequent Disney cruisers would most likely disagree with me since they gladly sail on nothing but Disney, no matter the price. In all fairness, we are not big Disney fans so understandably my views will differ from theirs.

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I have not cruised RCCL with kids, but one thing I find annoying on other lines besides DCL is these odd kids clubs hours. It seems like every 2 hours you have to go check the kids out! I'm not saying I want to leave the kids in all day, but it would be nice to not have to constantly worry about it. When we sailed NCL last year my 10 year old was not allowed to check himself out (he can and does on DCL). And, they didn't have wave phones like on DCL so they couldn't text me when he wanted to leave. So I had to just keep checking to see if he was bored - and he was. He went to the kids clubs once and never went back. On DCL when he was younger and I had to pick him up he would sigh and say, "oh no, can't I stay longer" and I would have to tell him it was midnight and they were closing!!

Finally, I love the DCL family activities - like in D lounge every night there is something. My kids also like grabbing a blanket and watching a movie on deck late at night - all of us together, eating pizza and chicken fingers and watching a family friendly movie!

The kids programs on Disney are not even comparable to other cruise lines, IMO. The ships devote almost an entire deck for the kids clubs. We cruised 5 times with our twins, starting at age 5, and ended at age 17, when they aged out of the clubs. For the most part, they outlasted us in the evenings. We found little to do on the ship for adults past midnight or so and the kids as teens were out doing activities with the teen club til 2am or so. My kids always had a blast and didn't want to spend much time with us, so we also got a much needed vacation and were able to enjoy ourselves as well.

I'm going to take to opposite view. We started on DCL, but have since explored other lines. What you get depends on which line you choose! Yes, there are lines where you regularly have to remove the kids...but there are other lines where you only need to check them out for dinner. Since we believe that vacation is "family time," we always did this on DCL anyhow; having to do it on another line didn't bother me at all.

On Princess, for example, you'll find a much more structured kid program. It isn't hundreds of kids in a space with scheduled activities if you want them but lots of time and space as free time. It is far more scheduled, although there are some free periods as well. Yes, DCL has a large amount of kid space, but they also have a large number of kids. I'm not sure that they exceed Princess in a "square foot of kid programming space per kid on board" calculation. We also honestly enjoyed not having hundreds of kids running around the ship! Again, I never allowed mine to run the ship unsupervised. But the shows on Princess are not nearly as good as on DCL and are not "family friendly." The G rated stuff is largely confined to kid programming and some daytime activities. In the evening, you don't know what you'll get from the variety performers and other activities. "Traditional Storytelling" on a cruise in Japan was very family friendly, while most comedians were not.

As to activities, on DCL you will find family activities between dinner and the show, regardless of which dinner time you have. And you'll typically have a show each night. ALL activities on DCL before 9pm are family friendly. After 9, the night clubs are "adult only" and the movies may not be PG rated. Up to 9pm, there are plenty of kid appropriate activities on DCL. After 9, the G rated activities are in the kid programming.

So, on DCL you have kid activities from 9am to midnight at no additional charge. You have "family" activities throughout the day and early evening. ALL family activities are G rated. After 9pm, you basically have the kid programming and sometimes movies.

There is no question that DCL excels in family friendly main stage entertainment.

Thanks for your answers! I am mostly interested in activities that we can do as a family- not so much just the kids clubs. Sure, we do like the kid's clubs, but I don't want to feel like I HAVE to put my kids there. On Liberty, there was hardly anything to do with our kids in the evenings. I want to spend time with them!

Mini golf, shuffle board, main stage shows, D lounge game shows, karaoke, bingo, variety acts, etc. There is plenty to do with them.

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When you look at the Navigator there are sections for different age groups. There is one "for everyone" that has family activities.