Leaving a kid at camp to go on an excursion??

[bigdog1958]

you are saying that leaving your child on a ship while you explore a foreign country is the same as taking your child outside with a chance of a lightning strike? Not one person on this thread knows what the carnival proceedures are if the parents cant make it back to the ship, but you are all okay with it no matter what those proceedures are. The parents certainly have he right to do this, but I would want to know what carnival would do if I could not make it back to the cruise ship before I made the decision, but it appears most others dont care, as they believe Carnival right, no matter what they do. All I am saying is, that I would like to make sure. Its certainly possible, Carnival gives the child to the Belize govt for care, as the parents are their in the hospital. Since no one seems to know the proceedure, everyone on this thread must be okay if that happened.

[KenMo]

I asked JH what would happen with the children if the parents missed the ship. Here's his response:

 

this has to the best of my knowledge in my 26 years at sea, never happened. we would make every effort to wait for the guests should they be late back and if we could not find them etc we would evaluate what was best for the child and possibly disembark them along with a member of our youth staff and our trained guest care staff to look after them until the parents were found. it really depends on the circumstances and as I said.......so far we havent had to do this.

[irishnyc]

Absolutely not. :) Do what's best for your kid, works for your family, and what you're comfortable with. And don't worry about what anyone else thinks of it. :D

 

Ditto.

 

Me personally? DD is three weeks from turning four... I would not go on an excursion like that with my child still on board. I wouldn't take my four year old on that particular excursion either.

[cruizinisthebest]

I asked JH what would happen with the children if the parents missed the ship. Here's his response:

 

this has to the best of my knowledge in my 26 years at sea, never happened. we would make every effort to wait for the guests should they be late back and if we could not find them etc we would evaluate what was best for the child and possibly disembark them along with a member of our youth staff and our trained guest care staff to look after them until the parents were found. it really depends on the circumstances and as I said.......so far we havent had to do this.

 

No see I would prefer that above anything, leave my child on the ship. Not wandering around with a youth counselor in a foreign country. This cements why I would never do it. The OP and others have a right to make their own decisions. Of course things happen. Of course the chances are rare. But I wear a seatbelt everytime I get in a car - though I don't expect anything tragic to happen. Better to be safe then sorry. I adopt the mentality of picking excursions everyone can go on or we all stay on the ship when cruising with the kids. If they aren't with us, that's a whole other story. Just my opinion.

[sandytoes03]

We did it in HMC while we went horseback riding. The kids were there a total of three hours. Personally I would not be comfortable being off the ship 6 or 7 hours while my child was in camp. And, having done cave tubing, it's not close to the ship at all, which would make me uncomfortable as well. (I think I remember that it was like an hour bus ride after the long tender ride.) However, that is just me. You are not bad parents. If you believe your child will be fine and have more fun in camp, then go, guilt free, and have fun! :)

[klfrodo]

I asked JH what would happen with the children if the parents missed the ship. Here's his response:

 

this has to the best of my knowledge in my 26 years at sea, never happened. we would make every effort to wait for the guests should they be late back and if we could not find them etc we would evaluate what was best for the child and possibly disembark them along with a member of our youth staff and our trained guest care staff to look after them until the parents were found. it really depends on the circumstances and as I said.......so far we havent had to do this.

 

Interesting.

[angeleyez915]

Not one person on this thread knows what the carnival proceedures are if the parents cant make it back to the ship, but you are all okay with it no matter what those proceedures are.

 

That is not an entirely fair comment - ALL of the posters have not stated that they are ok with it no matter what the procedures are... in fact MOST posters are stating that the parents should verify what the procedures are for contact with the parents in case something were to happen BEFORE making the final decision to leave the child on board while they are on the excursion.

[rrraydon]

I left my 5 year old granddaughter onboard during my recent Glory cruise while we went to Senior Frogs for a drink/food/dancing in Freeport. We stayed for about 2 hours. I left my cell phone with the counselor with a list of my family's phone numbers in it. We had another cell with us and I left the number for that one. We had a great time and my granddaughter had a great time. She never wanted to leave camp! To each his own.

 

Whatever you decide, have a great cruise! :)

[billie5]

you are saying that leaving your child on a ship while you explore a foreign country is the same as taking your child outside with a chance of a lightning strike? Not one person on this thread knows what the carnival proceedures are if the parents cant make it back to the ship, but you are all okay with it no matter what those proceedures are.

 

I think, bigdog, the issue is sensible risk analysis. You talk about both parents somehow ending up in the hospital. In 10 years on these boards, I have never heard of that happening. However clearly, anything is possible.

 

So, would you dare to take a walk in Times Square in NYC (or any other busy city downtown) with your 4 year old? Mind you, in congested inner cities it is certainly possible that you (or you and your spouse) could be pedestrian victims of an auto, and your 4 year old might emerge unscathed and just wander away from the accident scene. How would you compare having your child in the care of Carnival, versus just wandering alone in a big city? Both of these events are possible, but unlikely. Do we live our lives worrying about the possible but highly unlikely events? If we did, we would never step out of our livingrooms.

 

As far as not having detailed info on how Carnival would handle the freak occurrence of both of you being hospitalized, again there are so many other "possible" scenarios where you would not know the exact procedure emergency personnel might employ in dealing with your youngster, and yet you dare to take trips where such situations could conceivably arise. Not knowing the details of how Carnival handles its situations is far down on my list of worries.

[aggie_gal]

There are actually four of us going...me, my husband, and my husband's parents (my in-laws) plus our 3-year old. My son would be fine with any of us should something happen to someone else on an excursion. We're looking at options. One option is that my husband and his parents go cave tubing, son and I stay on the ship. Son goes to camp for part of the day and Mom gets a little bit of "me time". The other option is to take him on the excursion. Or he and I can do a different excursion (just go to a beach) and the rest of the group goes cave tubing. We'll figure something out.

 

Y'all (can you tell I'm in Texas?!) raise a good point about it being a tender port with a long ride to the shore (unlike Cayman where it's a short trip in). Plus the excursion is not close to the port either. This does make me nervous which is why I'm leaning toward either taking him with us (he'd love the boat ride and I really think he'd like the tunnels. He loves flashlights and tunnels) or just hanging back on the ship with him.

 

Thanks for all the insight! We've got lots of time to decide what we're going to do.

[FlaMilkman]

Generally there is a reason why they put age limits in place. It might be insurance reasons, equipment reasons, etc. Although private excursions allow 4 year olds, Carnival has a minimum age of 8. That is quite a difference. Remember that the private excursion is operated by a Belize company not regulated by OHSA or other U.S. regulatory organizations.

 

As you don't have to make a final decision before the cruise I might wait and ask the Shore Excursion Desk the reason for the minimum age (keeping in mind that they have a vested interest in talking you into their tour).

[bplazo]

I would have never left my child with strangers. Since it is a family vacation then I would plan an excursion everyone would enjoy.