Princess kids program for 12 year old

[tobymurph]

I've read great things about the kids program on Princess for the younger kids, but what about for a 12 year old? What types of activities do they do? MY daughter will be very bored doing crafts with young kids. I was hoping she could join the teen group as she'll turn 13 soon after the cruise, but apparently Princess is very strict on age groups. Do they check for ID? If she is able to do the teen group, what types of activities do they do? Are the younger teens separated from the older teens? Thanks!

[sailinglisa]

http://www.princess.com/learn/onboard/activities/youth_teen/fun/index.html

 

According to Princess, the 8 - 12 year olds will get activities like those listed above.

[junglejane]

12 years old is a difficult age given the groupings. I can vouch for the fact that they are strict on Princess. They know your kid's true age because of the passenger immigration info you submitted, which must match the passenger's passport or birth certificate. You have to register your kid or teen once onboard to participate in the programs, so your kid can't just sneak in later into the older group. Anyway, I have sympathy for your concerns because I've been there with my older DD and now my younger DD will be 11 on our Christmas cruise. I figure that there will be plenty of kids onboard so I'm hoping that the 11 year old makes some friends her age in the Shockwaves program.

 

Here's a link to a mini-review I did on our last cruise of the Remix teen program: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1382149

 

On the one hand, your 12 year old may be frustrated to be barred from the teen program. On the other hand, once she turns 13 she will probably do a complete attitude turnaround and not like it if 11 and 12 year olds are allowed in. That happened to us on Celebrity, where they are less strict about age groupings. They let in some pre-teens into the teen program (because the parents demanded it) and the teens reacted by doing their best to ditch them.

[tobymurph]

Thanks JungleJane. Your thread was very informative. I really don't like the idea of my daughter being in a teen program where she is mixed with older teenagers so if that is the case on Princess, I'm happy for her to check out the

8-12 age group.

At her age, I don't think the activities are as important to her as just having the opportunity to meet other kids her age. While the RCi offers more activities like rock climbing and skating, I think she'd rather just hang out at the pool, the ice cream bar etc. with other 12 year olds. It's interesting that you say the activities are not well supervised on RCI.

I had debated going on RCI for the sole reason it offered more fun actitivies for her age group, but I like the itinerary for Princess and now think it's the best fit.

Her friend may now be joining us - so that solves the problem!

[sherryf]

My daughter was 12 when we cruised to Alaska on Princess last year. There were a lot of kids in that age group, so they often separated the 8-10 year olds from the 11-12 year olds. But sometimes they combined them all with the 3-7 year olds, like for evening movies, and she hated that. She ended up meeting a couple of other girls her age and just hanging out with them most of the week. They went to a few activities together but spent the majority of their time away from the kids club. They went to the pool every day, watched movies on deck, and found plenty of things to do. With several sets of parents and teen siblings around the ship to keep an eye on them, they roamed in a group with no issues.

[Keith1010]

I just want to say that I think that Princess has a wonderful children's program that our children enjoyed when they were of the age to do the programs and they did them for several years.

 

Keith