FAM NEWS: Disney getting rid of age groups in club and lab

[crusinmama06]

Disney is sending a letter out to upcoming cruisers with kids informing them of the changes to the Disney kids club. The changes take place first on Wonder, then will follow to Magic (in Jan)

No more age groups in Disney Oceaneer Club and Lab....here is the letter they are sending out...

 

[crusinmama06]

Now that I posted the facts, I'll add opinion. ;) Personally, I don't think this would work for us. I like knowing that my youngest is with other kids her own age.

 

I don't need her hanging out with her older sister and her friends. And they like having their own groups. They have no need to be joined at the hip. :)

 

It will be interesting to see the first few reviews coming back after this change takes palce.

[reallyitsmema]

It sounds like a logistical nightmare to me. How is it going to work checking kids in and out if they are free to move about to different areas? What about the younger kids? Structure is much better for the little ones. It will be interesting to here people's experiences after the first cruises.

[beachchick]

How are they going to work activities that are clearly not appropriate for all ages? If a 3-y/o wants to do a cooking class designed for 12-y/o's will the entire group have to be tailored to the youngest child's abilities, size/age, maturity, experience, etc.? Hardly seems fair. And I completely agree about allowing, for example, 11-y/o's to hang out with 17-y/o's. Many parents are not going to be the least bit happy about this and may just decide to pull their children from the programs. We certainly wouldn't have allowed our DD to be hanging around with teenagers when she was 9 or so! Dumb move, IMO. I wonder though if has anything to do with the number of parents who want to know "how strict are the age limits for..." and who always seem to have "extremely mature" younger children who simply "have to" be allowed into an older group because they will practically die (or throw tantrums or hate it or whatever) otherwise.

 

beachchick

[mmcruise]

At first, I was pretty excited because my very verbal 7 year old will definitely not want to play with 3 year olds and I was concerned about him being bored when we sail on Wonder in Feb.

 

On the other hand, not sure I want him hanging out with 12 year olds either...

 

Hmm...will report back after our February cruise - though I hope to hear other reports before then.

[Onessa]

And how many 9-12YOs are going to be turned off of the entire youth program due to having "little kids" hanging around?

 

A similar situation - My DD (just 14YO) and two friends (both 13YO) she met last cruise on X avoided the teen club because they let several 10 and 11YO "move up" from the FunFactory program. Almost all of the teens avoided the teen club because they found these little kids "obnoxious".

How much was due to predujice on the older kids' parts? How much was due to the particular 10-11YOs in question? I don't know, but I do know that the teens avoided the teen club and found other venues (mostly appropriate -- there were a couple of older teen boys who loitered in areas that may not have been the best spots for them but these situations were appropriately dealt with by ship's staff :) )

[crazy4themouse]

I wish I could describe the face my now-13 year old son made when I told him about this. It wasn't pretty, that's for sure. "Big kids" don't want little kids hanging around, and parents of little kids don't want them hanging around the big kids. I know that my son was 12 different kinds of thrilled when he finally moved up to the Lab, and didn't have to hang out with "the babies" in the Club.

 

Bad idea, DCL!

 

 

-gina-

[imsulin]

Don't think this is a good idea at all. Re-thinking booking a Disney cruise next year. We've actually been looking at Beaches T&C.

[stinesheri]

My 7 year old is very mature, but there is no way I would want her hanging around older children and teens. There are many things to worry about, but I would be especially worried about older children who prey on younger to children to bully or worse.

 

If a cruise I wanted to go on did away with the age limits, I would seriously reconsider it, or even consider cancelling.

[chipmaster]

I think Disney will quickly discover this isn't such a good idea and / or it isn't what it appears to be.

 

Wonder what brilliant marketing monkey or bean counter came up with this to solve what problem ? I suspect they are looking to reduce the number of crew and this was an easy way to reduce some staff.

[mmcruise]

We were scheduled for late dining (no availability in early dining), and I'd called last week to get wait listed for early.

 

Now with this change, decided we'd have an afternoon snack and stick with late seating for this cruise. Not as interested in having him in the kids' club for extended periods with older kids there. We'll check out the kids' club and if we're ok with what we see, we can take advantage of the "Dine and Play" program where they pick up the kids early from dinner, and have him visit the club for a limited time each night. If we don't like the kids' club or have heard bad things, we'll just finish dinner together (hopefully they'll serve us quickly anyway) and enjoy the ship, and skip the club altogether.

 

After 4 cruises, he may be bummed...he's always loved the kids' programs. We'll probably go back to RCCL after this cruise for sure, though.

[lsmommy]

I think people should wait and see how this plays out. My kids were always in day care and I just cannot imagine anyone looking after kids wanting a free for all, as it would not work out, and create more work for the staff.

 

Maybe they are going to have one activity and then break it down into smaller groups of similar aged kids, ie make flubber in one room but on one side of the room kids 3-6 and on the other side 7-9.

[larronry]

Wow. Well I can see their point in that the kids are able to choose what interests them but wouldn't it be better to allow a mix in certain activities instead of across the board. I know that I couldn't let my son have that much freedom and lack of structure as it would be harder for him to deal with and there for less fun for him and so he would probably end up spending less time in the program then he would otherwise have been.

[Julienatul]

wow, really great idea. I think its almost time for us to take a Disney cruise. if only I could afford it. Im starting to save up now!!!

[crzgrl66]

Cruisinmama thanks for posting. I'm all for the idea if it is only for specific activites. Assuming that the kids would be divided into groups for flubber or cooking with Remy etc. I can understand that it would make parents happy if all of their children could attend the cooking class if they wanted.

 

I would hope that for freeplay, they would not mix the groups. It would be impossible for the CM's to monitor. Like others said, the big kids wouldn't want to be with the babies and the younger kids would be overwhelmed with the bigger kids. It will be interesting to hear exactly how many mixed activities are available.

 

Disney's kid programs are so outstanding that they must have thought this new program through and hopefully it is not just a free for all.

[vichastwins]

Am I the only one that wishes RCI would also do this? I have a disney cruise booked, and received a notice about ths, and I swore it said "in response to guest feedback", which would not surprise me at all. It's not that everyone needs to be together all of the time, but some flexibility in allowing siblings and/or friends separated by a few months to stay together seems to me to be step in the RIGHT direction...just my 2 cents....

[Onessa]

Am I the only one that wishes RCI would also do this? I have a disney cruise booked, and received a notice about ths, and I swore it said "in response to guest feedback", which would not surprise me at all. It's not that everyone needs to be together all of the time, but some flexibility in allowing siblings and/or friends separated by a few months to stay together seems to me to be step in the RIGHT direction...just my 2 cents....

 

We've had experiences where there have been fewer kids on board and the age groups mingled. The older kids get frustrated with the little ones and the little kids tend to get overwhelmed by the older ones.

 

As others indicated, perhaps for specific activities (which RCCI does do fairly limited basis now) it may work, but an across the board free-for-all would be very disappointing.

[tcv cruiser]

We were planning to book at Alaska cruise on Disney for next year but I think we'll wait now to see if they reverse this decision. Having a 3 year old in a program with older children is simply not acceptable to us, particularly as the staff to child ratio will not enable the staff to keep track of what is going on. If older children are treating younger children innapapropriately this may go unnoticed and there is too much potential of younger children wandering off when participating in older children's activities. I can also see that the older children will not be keen to have the younger ones around. I'm not sure who came up with this but I think it is a terrible idea. It is very disappointing. Disney appealed for many reasons including the fact that 3 and 4 year olds were in a group separate from older children.

[Julienatul]

We experienced it recently on the Wonder and its not good for younger kids. My DD almost 5 felt too overwhelmed.There are just tons of kids of all ages all running around with multiple activities going on all in the same room. It was too much for her and we usually cant keep her out of the kids programs. She maybe went twice the entire 4 days. There was no organization whatsoever to it. I am not a fan.

[boulders]

My 4 year old loved the setup on our cruise on the Magic last month. He spent most of his time in the Lab playing on the computer games. In general, the kids in the Club tended to be the very little kids, maybe aged 3-6 and the Lab appealed to the older kids plus some of the younger boys, who played the computer games and Wii.

 

They staggered the hours slightly, with either the Club or Lab opening first in the morning for about the first hour.

 

Earlier in this thread, there is some misinformation about how the age groupings work now. On the Magic, the Club and Lab are for 3-10 year olds. The 11-13 year olds are in Ocean Quest and the 14-17 year olds are in the Stack. There is no mixing of kids aged 11 and up with the 3-10 year olds. The 3-10 age group remains in the Club and Lab areas (which are connected) and do not leave the secure area, even for dinner. Dinner or lunch is brought in for kids who are there at the time. Ocean Quest and the Stack are in completely separate areas of the ship. Kids in those groups may move about the ship for their activities.

 

Disney Wonder will be setting up a new area, called Edge, for the 11-13 year olds. This change will happen around December, 2010. Currently, the Club and Lab serve kids up to age 12 on the Wonder.