Celebrity for Kids - S-class

[bill turcotte]

Kids club -

 

Staff- What made the kids club on Celebrity S-class was the staff . They really care about the kids and it showed . They played with the kids not just babysat them. The head of the Staff really talked and listened not only to us , the kids but what her staff was saying and doing .I really felt safe leaving my girls under her care . .

what they do -

We had about 80 kids on the ship . This was the week after thankgiving so the number was low . The count for my girls age group was so low they merged the 3 to 5 and 6 to 8 ( could of been age 9 ) kids in one group. this was great . We would leave the kids at the kids club 3 times a day for 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours at a time . We had breakfast , lunch and dinner with our kids .. Or at least we sat with them while they ate . You can pay 6 dollars an hour if you want the kids club to be with your kids durring lunch and dinner . This way you can get off the ship ( mayan ruins )while your kids are being watched .

The kids did lots of crafts related to the theme of the day . Pirate night , circus night , dance party .. they did face painting for each theme . The kids club bought them to circus show , a special kids glass blowing show ,behind the seen show ect ..

Thier are tons of games in the kids club , which worked out great for my 5 year old twins , I could see which games they really played with so I know what to buy them for x-mass .

My twins make friends with other kids in 3 mins . So going to the kids club means seeing thier friends .

The ship and kids -The pools On NCL and RCl are much bigger , with waterslids and very colorful . The pool are not big on Celebrity. So its easy to watch your kids . Thier is no slides or water guns ect .. the girls never notice this ship did not have them . Thier is a water fountain to play in .Makes great photos . You have to ask yourself how much does your child need to be happy . My girls were very happy with Celebrity's pools . I have no problem giving up the waterslide , waterfalls ,bright colors in favor of a more spa like setting where I do not feel like I am at a water park.

Thier is a lawn area on the top deck , Your kids can play bare foot . Thier a glass blowing show which are girls loved in the lawn area . Old fashion lawn games . The Lawn area works on every level . A+

 

food - I did not see chicken fingers or mac and cheese in the grill area .I have to say the food did not work as well on this ship as say NCL ship for the kids . NCL has a kids buffet area thay caters to kids taste . That said The Food on Celebrity for the parents is 100 times better .

Get Select Dinning plan . Then you can eat when you want to .We would bring are girls to the grill and feed them ,drop them off at the kids club and go have dinner ourselfs when we wanted to eat .

Connecting Rooms - We loved the way the rooms connect on the s-class . The front door you use to enter the cabins are converted into a one door with a little foyer. On other ships the connecting door in in the middle of the cabins with takes up lots of space and lets to much light and noise pass though the rooms . Celebrity gets an A+ on room design . The showers had doors which made bath time easy . The slideing glass door to the small deck had a child lock on it .There no way the girls could climb on the railing unless they climbed on the tables and chairs . We just moved the table back from thew railing . If you were going to share one cabin with one extra child thier more then enough space . If you have two kids I would go for the extra cabin .

Over all we been on ships that are Bigger and louder which may be great for kids . These ships are more gentle , but I think nicer . My girls never lacked for anything . They had a great time . They always wanted to go to the kids club . they were very happy. I was very happy and glad not to be waterpark or kids play area instead to be on a ship that felt like a resort

[alj1208]

Bill....... Thanks for all the details about Celebrity Eclipse's kids' club and the general kid situation on board. Glad you and your family had a great trip. We are going on Eclipse with our 4.5 year old DS in March, and your review confirmed our reasons for choosing Celebrity. And, thanks for the info about the child lock on the slider to the balcony. Do you happen to remember roughly how high the lock is? I highly doubt my son would get a chair and try to reach it, but I am paranoid about this scenario, remote though it may be. We will have our son in the same cabin with us, and he's NEVER out of our sight, but, just wondering if you can estimate the child lock's height.

[Scrapchick]

I am so glad things worked out for you and you all had a great time. You made some great observations about how bigger and noisier isn't always better, and how slides and ice rinks etc aren't even missed when they're not there.

 

I'm glad you took the time to post this so other families considering Celebrity have another point of reference. Celebrity has much to offer families and their kids clubs are excellent. I'm delighted you had a great time on the S class...

[bill turcotte]

alj1280

I think if my girls wanted to climb to get to the lock they could , but if would of taken them 20 mins of work to set up something to climb on . I was a little afraid so I made sure they never saw me lock the child lock . They were into the size of the handle and how it locks on the normal latch , they never thought about a 2nd lock .

P.s. --we never did room service .. I bet if we did we could of got mac and cheese and chicken fingers . On the pasta area . we got pasta with suace on the side , we just added butter ..the girls ate the veg on the ship . they were cooked with anything on them which was great for the girls .

 

2- Ice ring -- I forgot other ships have that ..your right ..out of sight out of mind .. When you see so many opitions and you want your kids to have everything you forget your going on vacation . Its a balancing act between your wants and thiers . Celebrity was the perfect balance for us ..this was the 1st ship on was ever on where I looked into where I could sail on her again ..I liked ship that much

[sargenet]

Bill:

What did you think of the buffet and choices? We just went on Navigator of the Seas with our son over Thanksgiving. Picked it because of the children's program. But we were very disappointed in the food in general.... So we are considering either Eclipse or Solstice in March.

 

I have sailed once with Celebrity before my son came along and loved it. My sister just sailed on the Solstice and she is worried that there won't be enough choices for my son for dinner in the buffet. She said on her cruise the food served in the buffet at night never changed.

 

My son can't eat corn or soy products...so we tend to go with fresh meat (preferably chicken breast), turkey, steak etc. Also fruit and salads. We bring our own salad dressing and ketchup! On our RCCL cruise they had a great variety that did seem to change some each night. Were there many options from your experience? We too will feed our son in the buffet, then go to dinner once he heads to the kids club,

 

I noticed that you went during an off week. If there were a large increase in the number of kids during the cruise (like 500 total all groups) do you think the kid's club would be a different experience? I know there were over 800 kids on our sailing on the Navigator...but they were older kids mostly (my son is 7). He still had an awesome time in the program.

 

Heck..he sailed HAL on a 3 day cruise when he was 4 an had a good time! Kids at that age don't need the slides, ice rinks etc!!!

[bill turcotte]

Thier was chicken or turkey freshly grilled and thin steaks almost every night . Thier was a salad bar and a pasta satition everynight . Thier was always white rice . In the Am thier was Apples , bananas . We would grab a few every morninig and take them to our cabin to have then through out the day and when we got of the ship .

I am sure we could of put a request in with the grill mgr , we did not do it on this trip but when the girls were babies the ship went out of its way to help us with special diet needs . I would talk to the Buffet mgr durring lunch and he would guide me .

 

P.S. We would put thier juice in the little tea pots and let them pour thier juice in to thier own cups , they loved it .