Just Back: RCI Sovereign With a 5 Year Old

[SeaBrz]

(This review was written for parents or grandparents considering travel with children.)

 

April 11, 2005

 

Just back today from a 3-nighter on the Sovereign and had a great time.

 

Traveling this trip: me (Grandma) , my daughter (31), my grandson KLG (5)

 

This was KLG’s very first cruise so we did things differently than we would normally do (like we only ate in the Dining Room once – at lunch.) It was very important to us that he have a great time since we want to include him in future family cruises.

 

This morning, before leaving the cabin for the last time, he asked “The next time, can we go on a 7 night cruise? Like on the Mariner?” WOO HOO!! HE’S NOW THE 5TH GENERATION OF MY FAMILY HOOKED ON CRUISING!

 

A Review From A Kid’s Experience:

 

We stayed in 9582 (SO), the closest cabin to Adventure Ocean and it was a perfect room for us. We heard NOTHING outside of the cabin, slept like babies, had a great cabin steward, plenty of room, and a HUGE shower. While our view wasn’t really obstructed, the tops of the lifeboats and a small maintenance deck were just below our window – no big deal.

 

There were very few younger kids on the cruise, but there were a couple hundred under-18ers from a church group in Georgia (I think). I expected some problems, but these teens were fantastic and their parents all need commended. They must have spent most of their time in Fuel and the Living Room (awesome refurbed teen clubs) on 11, but when we did see them (Windjammer, CocoCay, pools, etc.) they were just good kids having fun, but bothering no one.

 

As for Adventure Ocean – I have to say that we were quite disappointed on Day 1 and most of Day 2. Even at the AO Welcome Aboard get-together on the first night, most of the counselors seemed very burnt out and not at all glad to be there. One female counselor appeared most excited because her vacation started next week. Now, to be fair, they told us that they had just finished three brutal weeks of Spring Break cruises that averaged 800 kids per cruise. I am sure it’s tougher on a ship with a 3-day/4-day itinerary. Just about the time we all got to know and understand each other this cruise (3 night), it was time to leave.

 

On our cruise, I believe the number they gave me was 54 total kids from ages 3 to 12. The very nice new AO club space has large areas for three age groups and a shared disco-like dance floor. There were never more than 12 kids at any given time in the 3-5 year old area and there were always at least 2 counselors. It is obvious they are setup to handle many more kids, but they initially refused to give my daughter a pager (even though they had a large box of approximately 50) because they said they were “reserved for parents of 3 and 4 year olds.” She was eventually given one on Day 3 after she kept showing up every 30 minutes to see if her son wanted to leave (he never did). She could have just called AO, but she said it was easier to run up there rather than trying to find a house phone sometimes.

 

NOTE FROM RCI TO THE AO TEAM: Pagers are not for YOUR benefit – they are to give the PARENTS peace of mind so they can spend more money in other parts of the ship! (Tongue in cheek comment of course)

 

RCI’s AO description on the Deck 9 page for Sovereign states: “Adventure Ocean - A play area for kids, complete with kiddy pool and a special space for Mom and Dad to watch. Featuring a family-oriented diner, teen disco and video arcade.” I have a feeling that this was reused text from another class of ships because, on the Sov, there is no kiddy pool, or special watching space (that we found), nor family-oriented diner.

 

My grandson was part of the Aquanauts and the days are structured into 3 sessions per day (morning, afternoon, night). Each session has a list of planned activities and scheduled times. It took us until late into the second day to realize that they are very flexible about the scheduled times. A couple times we would race with KLG to get to an activity that was scheduled for a specific time (like 9:15) only to find that they had done it earlier or would get to “sometime during the session”. KLG took it in stride, so we did, too.

 

There are 10-12 computers in the 3-to-5 area and there are different programs on some/most (?). KLG and another little boy loved to play together on one with an Arthur program. By the evening session of Day 2, the kids and counselors knew each other better and the atmosphere seemed less subdued than the earlier sessions. That night, back in the cabin, KLG could not stop talking excitedly about all the things they saw and did and read.

 

Note about Nassau (Day 2): KLG HATED the crowds and traffic in Nassau and liked the Pirate Museum even less. It was very dark and loud in some rooms and he was too young to appreciate the life of pirates AND there was not ONE live person even DRESSED LIKE a PIRATE. I still can’t figure out what they meant by an “interactive museum” in their advertisement. There are some authentic artifacts on display at the end of the tour, but only mildly interesting to a 5-year-old. He would have very much preferred to stay at AO for the day, but none of us knew and felt guilty, in advance, about leaving him behind.

 

(As for me, this was the LAST time I will ever get off in Nassau. I haven’t stopped here in a couple years, but I will not put up with the latest tourist nightmare -- military police forcing cruise ship passengers to walk through a firetrap narrow “shopping mall” of overpriced junk and braid dealers just to get to Bay Street. (I will stay onboard instead and revisit my childhood memories of the clean, rich, beloved Nassau pre-1973.))

 

On Day 3 we went over to Coco Cay around 11 am and it was already getting hot outside. We were a little alarmed to see that the AO club on the island is simply a fenced in patch of sand with a small pavilion. The kids that were already there were sweating in the sun and there was no sign of water anywhere (we did see the counselors pouring water for the kids later on). All age groups go to this area, but we only saw the younger ones. A counselor asked KLG’s age and informed us that 3-to-5’s never get to leave the fenced area, but the 6-and-older group had just left on a scavenger hunt on the island. I understand the liability issues of managing a group that age around an ocean, but I saw some kids in there that could stare out over that lovely ocean but never got to stick their big toes in it because there parents left them for the entire day while they went on other excursions. We retrieved KLG after about an hour and he was thrilled to cool off in the ocean, however he wanted to go back to the AO area after a couple hours. We were very happy to see the kids playing water games when we took him back. They had a hose in the area and had water balloon fights and launched a neat water rocket 40 or 50 feet into the air. The kids were having a fabulous time when we picked up KLG for the tender ride back to the ship at the end of the day.

 

The evening of Day 3 was called a “Un-Birthday Party” and RCI put on a great party (complete with gifts) for the kids. The kids got to bring home the crafts they had made during the short cruise and all were great, but a couple were fantastic!

 

Summary:

 

Adventure Ocean offers a unique opportunity for cruise-loving families to each do their own activities yet spend lots of quality family time together. I met a single mother of another youngster this weekend and this was their second cruise. She loves to SCUBA dive and snorkel, but her son is too young to participate and she has no one back at home to leave him with. Cruising gives them both an opportunity to have a fun vacation.

 

From what I could tell, the fun gets even better as the kids get older. I didn’t get to see the older kids’ Compasses, but I know they ventured out to different parts of the ship and were always having a great time when I peeked into their club area.

 

Overall, my grandson was thrilled with the AO program so we loved it, too, but RCI (and other cruise lines) needs to make sure that their counselors truly love being around children and don’t get burnt out. My grandmother (now 100+) introduced us to cruising decades ago, and I look forward to continuing the tradition with my grandson.

 

Thanks, RCI, for another great cruise vacation memory!

 

 

(Will post separate threads of non-AO related cruise info.)

__________________

SeaBrz

[the kabuki]

Thank you for that report. This is one of the ships we're seriously considering for next year, the other is disney. Our first cruise, and info like yours really comes in handy.

[KimberlyH]

Thanks so much for your review. We were on the Sovereign last December when our DD was 2 and she'll be old enough for AO when we go again *this* December.