cruising with children

[14 months and counting]

My DH and I will be sailing the Caribbean on the Eurodam in November with our nine year old granddaughter. We have never cruised with children before and would welcome any advice from all of you. What kind of activities does Club Hal offer? Their policy is to let children over eight come and go as they please. How does that work out? How do you communicate with them onboard ship? We are not comfortable letting a nine year old roam around the ship on her own. Thanks for your help.

[doclove]

We just finished cruising with our 4 kids. 2 were in the younger Club HAL and 2 were in the 8-12 group. Here are some of the activities that they had for the older group: dodgeball, Wii Tournament, XBox, Scavenger Hunts, Movie Nights, a few crafts, tag, and other games. For the older group it seemed that the activities were mostly scavenger hunts or adventure challenges. For the days that you are in port they have Club HAL open, but there are no scheduled activities. They can go and do crafts or play video games.

 

The older group are allowed to check themselves out. When they check out they report where their next location is going to be. For us we allowed our oldest 2 to check themselves out at the end of the planned activities as long as they were together and came straight to the room. They wanted to stay the entire time so we never had an issue with them leaving early. Most of the time we were at Club HAL when the activities ended to pick them up.

 

For communication, we stayed with our kids unless they were in Club HAL, so we never had to communicate our location to each other. I did see other families put a piece of paper in their mailbox to use as a family message board to let others know where they are.

[furf_n_slo]

We've used those handheld walkie talkies to communicate with each other on the ship. Just make sure you're not using the same channel as the HAL employees. LOL We learned that one that hard way!

[Cruisin'Lady]

our recent trip on the Maasdam with our 10 yr old DD worked great with HAL Club. There was only her and one other girl on board that used HAL Club so they got lots of attention. She loved the activities and we used walkie talkies for when she checked herself out after kid club and it was down two flights of stairs and down to toward the front of the ship to get to our room. We had a lovely concierge that made sure she got to the room safely once she got to the Neptune lounge...but that is an exception for the most part...we just happened to get an excellent price to be in a suite and the concierge loved pampering her (spoiling is more the word). I know that most families with kids cannot necessarilly afford the high prices of a suite.

 

The only times she needed to do that was when we wanted to go to the movie theater or when we wanted to go to the 7pm show time and she needed to get to HAL club (my only complaint about HAL club is their evening check in and out times coincided with other activities...making it difficult to get a good seat or the kids getting out during the middle of a showtime). Other than that we didn't need the walkie talkies as one of us would go get her at the scheduled time. Have a great cruise!:D

[cb at sea]

If you aren't letting your child go off on her own, you won't need radios or walkie-talkies! Unless she's in the club, she'll be with one of you!

[RuthC]

Just because HAL grants permission for older kids to sign themselves out does not necessarily mean you have to. Feel free to set more stringent rules if that's what you want to do.

[lborne]

Just sailed with our two boys 6 and 11. Both loved the HAL club. Activities were what doclove explained. You have the option to NOT allow your older ones to check themselves in or out. Unlike Disney that has pagers to communicate with the parents, club HAL had nothing. You are supposed to list where you will be so they can contact you if there is a problem.

[DrTee]

Isn't school in session in November?

[DeirdreTours]

My 11 year old daughter and I took a 7 day western carribean cruise in November. She loved the activities at HAL Club, but also enjoyed the freedom of moving about the ship on her own or with the 2 other 11 year old girls who were on the same ship. There were only 17 passengers under age 18 on board, with maybe 6 or 7 showing up at the HAL club each day.

 

I wish we had taken walkie-talkies and certainly plan to on our next trip in May (when husband and two other children will be joining us as well).

[bplazo]

I never allowed my daughter to roam the ship by herself at that age. I would drop her off at the club if she wanted to go and then I told her what time I would pick her up.

[mek]

Just because HAL grants permission for older kids to sign themselves out does not necessarily mean you have to. Feel free to set more stringent rules if that's what you want to do.

 

I've only cruised with kids 12 and older, but I agree with this post and would not let a 9 year old sign themselves out.

[14 months and counting]

Thank you for your input; I definitely have a much better idea of what to expect. We will definitely not be allowing our nine year old granddaughter to move about the ship unescorted. Great idea that we can specify she NOT be allowed to check herself out of Club Hal. We plan on one of us being with her throughout the cruise unless she is involved in an organized activity with the other children. She is very excited about our adventure together and we want her to have fun and be safe.

[mrsltg]

Isn't school in session in November?

 

Precisely the reason to pull the kids and take them on vacation then!

[topspot]

Isn't school in session in November?

 

Yes, but Thanksgiving is also in November and most schools are closed for the week. When our DD was 9 we had no problem pulling her out of school for a weeks vacation. Vacations are much more afforadable and a lot less crowded in October and early November. She is an excellent student, and had no problems making up the work. Now that she is older, and the demands of school greater, we prefer not to have her miss a whole week at once, so now we vacation during Thanksgiving.

[vinodoc]

For some reasons, our 13 yo daughter and 9 yo son would not participate in HAL Club, but enjoyed hanging out with us. Good and bad I suppose. Good that they still want to hang out with us... bad because no down time for us parents.

 

Kevin