Kicked off Mariner in St. Thomas

[hdawson]

Stargate. I agree totally with you. Carnial does a very good job with onboard behavior like anyother line. There are those that seem to live just to bash another line. Celebrity X 5, Royal Caribbean X 4, Carnival X 4, HAL and a few others.

[stargate fan]

It is so sad that you such a negative opinion of teenagers. Do you have teens of your own?

 

We have two sons. We have very high expectations of them, and they always amaze us with how they reach those expectations. We are also very strict and demand behavior that is appropriate. Basically, we want to give two wonderful gifts to the world someday.

 

Our oldest son, 17, got a car for his 16th birthday. We felt he deserved it as he was, and still is, ranked #1 in his high school class. Chances are excellent that he'll be valedictorian next June. He is also very involved in his high school band. His brother is a soon-to-be-sophomore, ranked #26 out of 404, and is also in band. They both participate in academic programs after school. Without that car, I would not able to work the hours I do. Our town has no public transportation. Nor do we have sidewalks so walking home from school is not feasable. And, yes, the convenience is amazing.

 

Most of the juniors and seniors at the high school have cars. Most have jobs and need those cars to get back and forth. Do some of them "ABUSE those cars - and in many cases, use those cars to vandalize other peoples property (yard "farming" - spinning out across a neighbors lawn)."? I'm willing to say SOME. But I also believe in youth today and think the majority are respectful and careful.

 

We take our sons on cruises. They have free access to the parts of the ships they are permitted in. They check in with us frequently. They are polite (according to accolades from other passengers) and abide by OUR rules, which are harsher than the cruise line's. And they always make us proud.

 

Think positively of kids and you'll get positive results. Think negativley of kids, and you'll get what you ask for.

 

Bingo...when a kids a kid, you have to be a parent, not the "best friend". Parents have to say "No" a lot. The kid may not like hearing it, but they do learn later on in life that "No" usually means "I love and care about you". And when they are out on their own, you can become more of a friend than a parent.

 

When I was a teenager, I wanted a car. My dad told me "Fine - you want one, you got one...and the payments, insurance, gas, tires and everything else that comes with it - when do you start your new job?". And I got a car...MY car... that I worked for and paid for. It taught me the value of property.

 

Today, I see kids driving cars to their high school that I STILL can only dream of owning (high end Beemers, Porsches, brand new SUV's) that were just GIVEN to them by their parents. They only learn that if they ask enough, mom and pop will give them whatever they want. And they proceed to ABUSE those cars - and in many cases, use those cars to vandalize other peoples property (yard "farming" - spinning out across a neighbors lawn). They think nothing of breaking bottles in parking lots, defacing buildings, or doing whatever else they want because they know that mom and dad won't hold them accountable for anything.

 

I think that too many kids are given too much too soon because the parents are too tired or busy to spend any real time with them...just give them something to get them out of their hair. Heaven knows that there are times I'd just like to kick back and do nothing on a weekend, but I MAKE the time to watch her soccer game or listen to her play the piano. Bottom line, kids are hard work, but the rewards of that hard work are repaid many times over. If the parent slacks off in the child raising department, it shows up in the kids pretty quickly.

 

So it's good that the Captain on this ship took the opportunity to introduce the concept of "consequences" to this family. Hopefully, it was a lesson learned.

[stargate fan]

Why, thank you, hdawson.

 

Stargate. I agree totally with you. Carnial does a very good job with onboard behavior like anyother line. There are those that seem to live just to bash another line. Celebrity X 5, Royal Caribbean X 4, Carnival X 4, HAL and a few others.

[heartofamerica]

Think positively of kids and you'll get positive results. Think negativley of kids, and you'll get what you ask for.

 

For the most part, I do have a positive view of kids. I do however feel that in my area, there are too many kids who are given cars without the responsiblity that goes along with owning one. It's great your kids are aiming to be valedictorian...I wasn't valedictorian, but did graduate with honors, while holding down a part time job after school to buy the car I was driving. IMHO, the teenage years are a good time to teach kids that mom and dad won't always be giving you cars or houses or money. Some day, they'll have to earn them. I harbor a more negative view of the teenagers parents than I do of the teenagers...a lot of them are like dogs...ignore them long enough and they misbehave because negative attention is at least SOME attention. And the busy lifestyles of parents today means that for some, it's awfully hard to make time to be there for the kids.

 

Despite what you feel to me my "negative" view towards teenagers, I did comment to my wife as we were leaving St Thomas on the Zuiderdam last week that there was a teenager who came up beside me and struck up a conversation about how awesome it must be to pilot one of these ships. He was personable - the kind of kid that I know his parents must be proud of. Oddly enough, while in line at the airport, he was in front of us. Turns out that he lives in the same town that I do.

 

Point of my post that offended you being this- too many parents give too much to their kids to compensate for a lack of attention. That shows up more often than not in the behaviour of the kid.

[cruzincurt]

"....No surprise. The rules have been on the front or inside cover of the compass everytime I have cruised with RCCL.

 

The surprise (or maybe not so surprising)comes that the passengers are not bothering to read the compass. That's one of the first things I do when we get to our stateroom...."

 

Do people have to be given a set of rules to know what proper and legal behavior is? I don't think so.

 

Today, we are reaping the rewards of the mind set of the 70's where self expression started. Today's school system is also experiencing the outcome of their educational policies of 10 to 20 years ago as the kids of that period are now parents.

 

Most kids are good and well behaved, it's just my neighbor's 15 year old and his friend that thought it was OK to break into my house.

 

It also is not just the kids, I once witnessed a down and out fist fight, rolling on the floor, etc., between two male adults on a HAL cruise. The next day, secuirty stood watch in our hallway outside the doors of the offenders. They were off loaded at the next port.

[hstrybuf]

I ask you...How do you know Carnival will never do this? How do you know Carnival has not done this? This is the first time I've read about Royal Caribbean removing a family. Why are other family-oriented cruiselines not mentioned? What, there are no issues on Disney or Princess?

 

I would think that cruisingator, who you quoted when you posted this, probably has more knowledge of what Carnival does than most people on the RCI board. He has 16 Carnival cruises under his belt. ;) As to why more people aren't referring to other cruiselines . . . well, this IS the RCI board and we ARE discussing what happened on one of their ships.

 

And I do agree with you on one point. We can't lump every ship of any one line into the same group. Some captains are going to be more likely than others to throw troublemakers off the ship at the next port. Me, I vote for the gangplank! :D

[sailinglisa]

No disrespect intended with my question, but here it is. If I see someone's kid misbehaving on a cruise.....how the heck would I know who this kid's parents are? And how could I tell them how their precious darling was behaving? And would you believe me without proof of their actions (gee, it's a sea day and I left my camera in the cabin!) They don't have their parent's name or cabin # tatooed on their foreheads! And if I report the behavior to the pursers desk or security, how would THEY know who are the parents of the lovely child who did these acts? Without me physically dragging the offenders to security or the purser's desk (which would probably land me in hot water with the parents - how DARE you touch my child!, etc.), how can I learn the identity of the offenders?

[heartofamerica]

No disrespect intended with my question, but here it is. If I see someone's kid misbehaving on a cruise.....how the heck would I know who this kid's parents are? And how could I tell them how their precious darling was behaving? And would you believe me without proof of their actions (gee, it's a sea day and I left my camera in the cabin!) They don't have their parent's name or cabin # tatooed on their foreheads! And if I report the behavior to the pursers desk or security, how would THEY know who are the parents of the lovely child who did these acts? Without me physically dragging the offenders to security or the purser's desk (which would probably land me in hot water with the parents - how DARE you touch my child!, etc.), how can I learn the identity of the offenders?

 

Call security, tell them what deck they are on, and point it out to them.

[dougp26364]

OK, I have to check into this thread on one point. Parents responsibility and comments like, it must be partially the parents fault or show me a bad kid and I'll show you a bad parent.

 

Our two kids are my stepchildren. When we married, one was in first grade and the other was pre-kindergarten. I feel that as they were that young, you would have thought that I'd have some degree of influence on them.

 

The youngest caused us some trouble but, was just being a teenager rebelling against her parents. While it did take a strong hand and lots of involvement with a less than supportive school staff, we managed to get her through her teenage years and things have turned out well.

 

Now the oldest is a different story. We monitored his actions as well as any parent could, handed out increasing degree's of punishment for repeat offenses and took responsibility for his actions as well as forcing him to take responsibility for his actions.

 

Examples I can think of? One day he was "playing" with his friends having a good old fashioned dirt clod fight. Unfortunately, he found that getting up on a roof and pelting everyone and everything with dirt clods made for pretty good sport. He did damage to one of the neighbors cars. When we found out about it, in addition to being punished by us, he had to work off and pay for the damage he did that I found out about.

 

I routinely found him drinking underage and I swear he spent more time NOT driving a car than driving one, among other punishments.

 

At one point he threatened us with calling SRS if we didn't back off and let him live HIS life, despite the fact that he was under 18. The reply was go ahead, we'll gladly pay the child support if you think living in foster care will be any better. He backed off.

 

When he took to attempting to threaten his mother, I offered to take him over to the field across the street and let him try out his whoop a$$ moves on me. The understanding was, I wouldn't be holding back either and if he ended up in the hospital, he ended up in the hospital. That stopped some of the aggressive, threatening of his Mom to get around me.

 

There were many, many other incidents. All were met with corrective measures, parental guidance and punishment when the act warranted it and often, the act warranted it. You can only ground or remove privileges so much. Military school was even consider as an option and, in retrospect might have been something we should have done.

 

Despite all of our attention, love and discipline, this one just didn't turn out the way we had hoped. He did manage to graduate high school but only because we kept up with every little thing there was to watch involving school but, alas, he's still not getting the big picture.

 

Not long after graduation he was literally kicked out of the house for sleeping with a neighbors wife. His comment when we did this was, I'll be homeless? Our response was you need to learn to think of the consequences of your actions BEFORE you take them.

 

So, has he learned a thing? Nope, his latest flame is also married and HE gets mad every time I bring it up that there's no future in dating a married woman, plus all the other ethical things wrong with it.

 

Parents CAN do everything possible and the child can STILL turn out bad. I've revisited this child's upbringing many times wondering what, if anything, I might have done better or different that would have provided a better outcome. There was discipline, there was monitoring, there was involvement on every level yet I still feel that I failed on many levels.

 

Of course, I would not have taken this child on a cruise vacation with us. There would be to many ways in which he could get himself and others into trouble. But I can see other parents taking such a child, hoping that maybe by showing love and affection the child would finally "get it" and see they really do care.

 

Maybe the parents were trying and it didn't work out? Maybe the cruise was a reward for the child doing something right rather than wrong but he/she reverted to old ways? None of us will really know for sure.

 

While you're little Johnny or Jane may be the perfect child or at least one that responds appropriately to you, everyone one isn't blessed with such a child. Some of us really have a fight on our hands and some of us, no matter what we do, lose that fight. Some bad kids do come from good families. Don't be so quick to judge the parents based upon their childs behavior.

 

At any rate, I'm glad that RCI took the action they took if indeed the rules were broken and the action merited such a drastic measure of kicking the family off. You can't let one family ruin an expensive vacation for all the other passengers and their families. But DON'T be so quick to always blame the parents unless you witness the parents NOT being parents. Sometimes they really are trying but the kids just won't listen.

[smeyer418]

Thanks Doug, When I saw the original post, I thought the same thing. You can do every thing right and still have a child that will do it their way and have no control whatsoever. You know the story...when I was 17 my parents didn't know a thing but by the time I was 25 it was amazing how much they had learned.

[Nliedel]

Nope, you're story of love and dedication just proves the pudding here. Yes you have a hard to handle kid but you know what? I bet you that in a few years that boy will turn out OK. Without your love and involvement it would have been worse and I can tell from your post that you would not let him run wild on a cruise ship.

 

Love is hard, kids are hard. You sound like you called all his bluffs. Believe me, I was NO angel. I am actually scared of my mother's curse (may you have children just like you) cause my oldest is. You do the best you can with them and you are, obviously a concerned parent. If someone came to you and said "your kid is being a monster" you would have stepped in. You would not have blamed everyone else, you would have blamed your child. That's what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to teach them to look for consequences, to have a few brains cells and that we are there for emotional support but not as rugs. I know I am missing something but I cannot think because I am dog tired from being up all night with one of my little hooligans.

[TahoeBob]

Nope, you're story of love and dedication just proves the pudding here. Yes you have a hard to handle kid but you know what? I bet you that in a few years that boy will turn out OK.

 

I don't know about that, My oldest son still gets into trouble big time. When he was in High School, he never went finally got his GED well things got really bad and the few times he has been arested even the court system cuts him to much slack due to overcrouding in the jails. Well finally things hit the fan big time, and the judge gave him 2 options.

#1. a year and a half in county

#2. a 9 month in house drug rehab

 

I am happy to say to took the drug rehab, Michael goes in Monday and now the hard part starts for him.

 

 

Bob

[hdawson]

Bob. My heart goes out to you and your wife. I guess I've gotten rather hard-nosed in my attitudes. I have no sympothy for those that choose to use drugs. We are given the facts almost from birth and throughout our lives on a daily basis. So much for education!

I do have tremendous respect for those that decide to beat their addiction and turn their lives around.

[2forthesea]

Bob:

 

Good for Michael to make the decision to get back to life again!

 

As I've said before, our #1 Son was the Evil Boy from 14 to 24. I literally did not think I would see or hear from him again until he was 30 when he was 19. Five more years of h*ll and he decided that he was tired of fighting and wanted his family back.

 

Took him on a cruise when he was 14 and caught him in line at the midnight buffet with an alcoholic drink in his hand (he was only holding it for someone else....after watching him for several minutes drinking from it!!!). Bad cruise!! He never went on another one after that.

 

He's 28 now, and calls or emails me several times a week. So, yes, they do come around, and sometimes it's a hard, hard thing to watch and participate in, but as DH says: some of the models come with the wrong instructions!!!

 

Good luck to Michael.

[Cruising89143]

I ask you...How do you know Carnival will never do this? How do you know Carnival has not done this? This is the first time I've read about Royal Caribbean removing a family. Why are other family-oriented cruiselines not mentioned? What, there are no issues on Disney or Princess?

 

We sailed on Paradise back in 2000. She was a non-smoking ship and passengers signed a contract agreeing to abide by the rules - no smoking material of any kind, no matches or cigarette lighters. Well, at one port, there was a woman crying on the phone to a relative because her party was being removed due to breach of contract.

Carnival followed through and the party was gone.

 

We have been on three cruises. I'm sure lots of people have been on many more. We always go during school vacation. In these three cruises, I have never seen unruly children. I have encountered rude adults pushing their way onto the elevator before I can get off or shoving me in the buffet lines.

 

I think it is very dangerous, unfair, and discourteous to make generalizations about other cruise lines and their policies without knowing exactly what happens on every single sailing.

 

There...I said it.

 

Take a look at how many times I have cruised with Carnival and you have your answer. How many times have you cruised on Carnival.The Paradise was a totally different thing. What we are discussing here is breaking the rules of conduct that RCI has in place. Carnival has nothing like this in place. The Paradise was the exception for people caught with smoking materials or smoking. I have seen kids on Carnival tear up the ship and nothing be done about it.

 

There have been threads on this very subject on the RCI board before about the Captains kicking families off of the ship. It is not something new and I for one am glad that they are doing it.

 

There I said it!:rolleyes:

[Cruising89143]

Stargate. I agree totally with you. Carnial does a very good job with onboard behavior like anyother line. There are those that seem to live just to bash another line. Celebrity X 5, Royal Caribbean X 4, Carnival X 4, HAL and a few others.

 

I hope that the comment above was not directed at me because you need to get your facts straight if so. Sixteen times with Carnival and I have seen it all. Just because I tell the facts does not mean it is bashing. It's called telling the truth and I guess to some the truth hurts.;)

[Cruising89143]

I would think that cruisingator, who you quoted when you posted this, probably has more knowledge of what Carnival does than most people on the RCI board. He has 16 Carnival cruises under his belt. ;) As to why more people aren't referring to other cruiselines . . . well, this IS the RCI board and we ARE discussing what happened on one of their ships.

 

:D

 

Thanks Deb. I have no axe to grind with Carnival. I have had some really great times over the years on their ships but there are some areas that they need to improve upon and this is one of them IMHO. The more that cruise lines cater to families is more reason that they must crack down on things like this.

 

Give me a Spirit class ship with the right itinerary and I will be on it.:)

[stargate fan]

I stand behind my statement.

I think it is wonderful that you have cruised with Carnival sixteen times. But look at how many cruise ships are out there, full of passengers, every day, and your sixteen times still do not make you an expert. How many ships were full of passengers just the weeks that you were on your ships? Do you know for a fact what actually happened on those ships? I imagine you do not.

 

BTW, my family has cruised twice on Carnival.

Take a look at how many times I have cruised with Carnival and you have your answer. How many times have you cruised on Carnival.The Paradise was a totally different thing. What we are discussing here is breaking the rules of conduct that RCI has in place. Carnival has nothing like this in place. The Paradise was the exception for people caught with smoking materials or smoking. I have seen kids on Carnival tear up the ship and nothing be done about it.

 

There have been threads on this very subject on the RCI board before about the Captains kicking families off of the ship. It is not something new and I for one am glad that they are doing it.

 

There I said it!:rolleyes:

[Cruising89143]

I stand behind my statement.

 

I think it is wonderful that you have cruised with Carnival sixteen times. But look at how many cruise ships are out there, full of passengers, every day, and your sixteen times still do not make you an expert. How many ships were full of passengers just the weeks that you were on your ships? Do you know for a fact what actually happened on those ships? I imagine you do not.

 

BTW, my family has cruised twice on Carnival.

 

Never said that I was an expert. I'm just stating the facts of which I have observed while I was on board. Carnival does not have a rules of conduct in place. I don't have to be on all sailings to know that it goes on. Go over to the Carnival board during spring break, summer and holiday sailings and you will have all the answers that you need on this subject.

[PhoenixCruiser]

Never said that I was an expert. I'm just stating the facts of which I have observed while I was on board. Carnival does not have a rules of conduct in place. I don't have to be on all sailings to know that it goes on. Go over to the Carnival board during spring break, summer and holiday sailings and you will have all the answers that you need on this subject.

 

Perhaps they need one, did you see that they have yet another missing passenger today :eek:

 

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[Cruising89143]

Perhaps they need one, did you see that they have yet another missing passenger today :eek:

 

###

 

Not sure what that is all about. It seems this is happening more and more and Carnival is always the line mentioned. How does one fall overboard without trying? Truly sad.

[PhoenixCruiser]

Not sure what that is all about. It seems this is happening more and more and Carnival is always the line mentioned. How does one fall overboard without trying? Truly sad.

 

I'm not sure either! I did find this Man Overboard List VERY interesting!

 

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[hdawson]

Not surprising that Carnival would have a higher incidence of "man overboard". Compare the size of their fleet to Cunard. Carnival has 21 ships with an average number of guests over 2,000. Cunard has 2 or 3 ships. For 2005 there have been two Carnival incidents to Cunard's one. I think Carnival probably carries more guests each week than anyother cruiseline. I don't think it's the product of the demographics.

[PhoenixCruiser]

Not surprising that Carnival would have a higher incidence of "man overboard". Compare the size of their fleet to Cunard. Carnival has 21 ships with an average number of guests over 2,000. Cunard has 2 or 3 ships. For 2005 there have been two Carnival incidents to Cunard's one. I think Carnival probably carries more guests each week than anyother cruiseline. I don't think it's the product of the demographics.

 

According to the list posted

 

RCI = 1 person overboard

Carnival = 10 people overboard

 

That's a huge difference, of course, IMO!

[Cruising89143]

According to the list posted

 

RCI = 1 person overboard

Carnival = 10 people overboard

 

That's a huge difference, of course, IMO!

 

Actually Carnival and RCI have just about the same number of ships in service but it does seem as though most of the incidents are on one line.