RCCL vs Disney Kid's Club

[crzgrl66]

We just returned from Liberty of the Seas. We went on DCL Wonder last year. This is what my kids had to say about the kids club...

 

15 Year old - Teen Club - I was shocked to hear that he found the teen club on Disney to be more fun. He loved all the fun activities on Liberty of the Seas, but wasn't impressed with the teen club. Disney had lots of different games and game systems to play in the club, Liberty only had Rockband. He said both clubs had super friendly counselors.

 

9 Year old - Voyager - He loved the kids club on Liberty. He liked all of the games that they played, gagaball, dodgeball, tag, sport competiitons etc. The only thing that he liked better on Disney was that the parents were given pagers and we could be paged if he wanted to be picked up early. We opted not to give him sign out privileges on Liberty.

 

6 Year old - Explorers - He only attended the kids club for the first 3 days. He didn't like that they only played whole group games. He wanted to play with the Wii's, but because there were so many kids, the counselors never had it available and only offered whole group activities. He also didn't like that once he was checked in, he had to stay until picked up and couldn't get a hold of us if he wanted to leave. On Disney, the counselors did the activities at a particular time, so he could pick and choose what he wanted to do. On Liberty, the Compass had a list of 6 things that they were going to do in a 3 hour block of time. When we tried to hit a specific activity, they usually had just completed it or were going to do it toward the end of the session. He chose to go with us to shows at night and play his Leapster with headphones instead of attending the kids club.

 

For us adults, RCCL had many more options and fun stuff for us to do in the evening. DCL was more relaxing, but not as exciting. Cost wise, it was pretty much a wash. We were able to get a good price on our DCL cruise because we went off season. We paid higher rates on RCCL because we went during peak season. I thought that with our kids ages, we were probably done with Disney but after our trip on the Liberty, the kids started asking when we could go on Disney again.

[Keith1010]

Very nice summary.

 

I think what we all need to keep in mind that just like the adults that all children do not think the same. Some children at a variety of ages will enjoy a Disney Cruise the most while others will have other preferences.

 

Keith

[CaseyJr]

Thanks for the feedback.

 

I've heard several times that, much to parents' surprise, the older kids really enjoyed Disney activities.

 

I wonder if part of the problem was sailing "peak season." It sounds like they had to adapt their activities because the kids clubs were full.

[shoppgirl]

We just returned from Liberty yesterday. My girls (6 and 8) did not go to the club (Explorers) other than the first night when it was open house and then for a brief 30 minutes on our last day! They did not like that it was not free play and had to do whatever the councelors were doing. I asked if they could have free play, but the councelor said there are too many kids to allow them to have free play and they need to do group organized activities. I personally did not think there were too many kids in the room...I have more kids in my 2nd grade classroom than there were in the club!! When we went to drop them off for the last 30 mintues of the afternoon session, the kids were having "quiet activity" time, sitting on the floor building/playing with Jenga type blocks. When we picked them up, they were playing a group game. Totally not impressed, so they didn't ask to go back again that evening.

 

They had more fun spending the week with us and our extended family. I guess it all depends on the child and their particular interests. It just did not suit our girls. I am hoping the Dream's kids club will be of more interest to the girls! We will not have extended family on that trip!:rolleyes: