How did my minor child get drunk on Ruby?

[Bentley5700]

Mom I hope you chill out as 16-year old boys drinking booze/beer is not that unusual. Most of my friends and I did it back in the early-60s and turned out Ok.:cool:

[ldubs]

But if that kid presented a non-photo ID and looked the proper age, why would the bar tender be responsible? The point is that the kids lied, stole an ID and broke the law.

 

The other thing that I haven't seen addressed here is...just how "drunk" was this kid? Did they have one martini or 5? Martinis are an unusual drink for teens-they usually go for beer. They also like to act "drunker" than they really are just to show off.

 

 

It is possible the bartender was genuinely hoodwinked in this case. I'm not debating that at all. My comment is in response to those who say it is the parent and no one else who is responsible. Just nonsense IMO.

[Loonbeam]

It's been noted the other teen used his Dad's sea pass, so there was no age limitation trigger.

 

First of all I hope you won't cruise with your son for awhile. He needs to learn to be responsible and live with the consequences.

 

Secondly I thought the SeaPass Card has his birthdate or its a special color designating that he is a minor. The bartenders' responsibility includes checking for the age before selling a drink.

 

If an adult purchased or furnished alcohol without your permission then its against the law. If you bought him a beer and consumed it with your presence then thats fine. On some itineraries 18 is the drinking age so depending where you go and how old your teen is he could have been allowed to purchase a drink.

 

If your teen used his SeaPass and charged the drink without your permission you have every right to be upset. Not only did he steal money from you he lost trust in you and got drunk which is against the terms and conditions of the cruise documents that you signed. Do you realize you could have been thrown off the ship with your teen if he did any damage or was caught drinking under age.

 

To scare your son tell him if you were thrown off the ship in another country he would be bound by their laws and not the US law. He could have worse ramifications such as being deported possibly loosing his right to leave the US for awhile to spending time in jail in a foreign country.

 

Your son was lucky he was not debarked from the ship. I have heard of teens doing bad things like throwing chairs off the ship, drinking underage and being debarked. Your son could have been added to the "No Sail List' which lists passengers who have committed crimes onboard and this means your son would be banned from ever traveling on Princess and their sister ships. Some people are able to petition for removal from the list but that is rare for the cruise line to take you off the list.

 

When you go and try to book a cruise the cruiseline would refuse your son's reservation as its linked to his birthdate.

 

Please don't take this offense lightly it could have gone a lot farther than it went. I hope you confined him to the stateroom and he had to be with you at all times(not cool for a teen being seen with his Father) and you set an early curfew.

[Loonbeam]

Ok thats wierd, I postyed this like 3 hours ago..

 

It's been noted the other teen used his Dad's sea pass, so there was no age limitation trigger.

[Raring to go]

I spent a lot of years as a high school administrator. I dealt with more than one drunk teenager. Never once did I send them home, and then call their parents and leave a message to tell them what I had done. They were kept at school until a parent could come get them. If you are going to provide a place for teens to congregate, then you have to accept some responsibility for their safety. Drunk teens do stupid things. Without placing blame or pointing fingers, everyone involved...cruise line, teenager, and parent...are very lucky that no harm came to these young men.

[lovetotraveltx]

Like all parents on this board and everywhere we all wish our kids would always make the right decision in every situation they come across. Sometimes they just don't. Every very well raised kids with very attentive parents don't.

 

Regardless of what anyone thinks of the OP or her parenting skills there is no way that 16-year old should have been left to wander a ship on his own. If the situation warranted a call to his parents, and warranted him being kicked out of the club then it warranted supervision by a responsible adult. If this is going to happen in tween/teen clubs where kids are given permission to go as they please and/or asked to leave there should be a phone, (like Disney has) or some kind of walkie/talkie system where a parent can be called if need be.

 

IMHO, Leaving a voice mail in the parents' empty cabin and sending him away with no follow up and not knowing where he went or what he was doing was not a good or responsible decision on that adult's part either!

[Moviegirlnyorlando]

Well I used to work at a major theme park on "grad nights" alcohol was prohibited. A drunk (or teens sometimes more so under the influence of other substances) child was placed in the first aid station and chaperones were called. This was consent that had to be signed before such child was allowed to Roam free w/o chaperone. Perhaps with no curfew on princess like they have on other lines chaperones should be given beepers for this exact situation. Child wouldn't have been pepper just chapters one teen center and security personal who would be informed by any crew escort. Finding a drunk minor.

 

On the other two clubs parents must sign kids in and out. Since 13+ this is not a rule and a parent allows self imposed curfew and liberty staff should have a way at all times of contacting parents allowing this in case of this or any emergency for that matter! forget drunk ness what if a teen was sick or injured ?

[MauiLvrs]

It's NOT the ship's fault.

Exactly....

Passage Contract

"Each passenger agrees and warrants that he/she will supervise any passenger in his/her care at all times to ensure all policies, along with all other rules of the Carrier and ship, are strictly adhered to by all Passengers under their supervision."

 

The bigger the stink anyone made ... the more likely this is to have happened...

 

"• Princess reserves the right to disembark any passenger(s), including parents of minor passenger(s), whose behavior is disruptive to other passenger(s) or crew, or who cause damage to the ship."

 

... I personally think 18 year olds who drive on our highways, fight in our armies and can possess firearms should be able to have a cocktail. I never allow her or any of my children to drink away from me t I think that even the 1/2 glass champagne toast I allowed my 13 year old this past New Year's Eve allows it not to be such a taboo and makes them less likely to get stupor drunk on Martinique behinds back, when my daughters went to Europe when my youngest was 14 I signed the waiver and she was freely allowed to drink wine with dinner as most civilized countries allow. We pump pour kids in this country full of speed Ritalin and downer anti depression but don't let them have wine with dinner ?

That's my two cents

Thanks ... I feel more normal...

[slc22]

...Drunk teens do stupid things. Without placing blame or pointing fingers, everyone involved...cruise line, teenager, and parent...are very lucky that no harm came to these young men.

 

Surely I am not the only parent who is considering the safety of the OTHER kids in the club?! IMHO the staff was well within their rights in kicking out 2 boys who blatantly ignored the ship rules on underage drinking, to ensure the safety of those teens who WERE following the rules in the teen center. As a mother of daughters, I would not want them to keep drunk young men in the same vicinity with my daughters until the guardians were able to be located. While I have sympathy for the OP as they seek answers, I applaud the teen center staff for doing their job to protect the rest of the kids.

Edited January 5, 2014 by slc22

[hubofhockey]

Ages 16-20 are so tough for cruising. Evening entertainment simply is not geared for this age group. It's probably even worse on Princess, where those in their 20s and 30s can get bored pretty quickly. Mine are entering that age group and I would never bring them on a Princess Caribbean cruise. Those teen clubs are no more than a meeting place for teens before they begin their "roaming" for the night. If OP wanted more close supervision for her older teen, she should have included him in her evening plans. If not, find a cruise line or ship that provides more of what teens look to do at night. The only question here is whether Princess should have detained her openly drunk unsupervised son. I won't be taking my teens on a Princess cruise anytime soon. They have reminded us several times how unkid friendly Princess is. It's hard to disagree with them. We gave it a shot once and it was a mistake.

[HOTROD1]

Just a quick comment to the last post. My family of 3

includes our 18 year old son. We disembarked yesterday

from the Crown. It was the first time that a cruise line

offered an 18-20 year old club. Our son said it was the

best cruise he has been on. This is the 3rd cruise in 3 years

In a row over the holidays. Our first on Princess. I would

Encourage u to consider Princess again.

As to what happened to the young men in this thread.

I guess security could have taken them to the security holding

Area until parents showed up but I have a feeling that

would not have been acceptable either. The boys screwed

up and need to be held responsible. We have all screwed

up when we where kids. It's the cruise lines responsibility

to watch out for passenger safety. They are not babysitters, IMHO

[JimmyVWine]

Surely I am not the only parent who is considering the safety of the OTHER kids in the club?! IMHO the staff was well within their rights in kicking out 2 boys who blatantly ignored the ship rules on underage drinking, to ensure the safety of those teens who WERE following the rules in the teen center. As a mother of daughters, I would not want them to keep drunk young men in the same vicinity with my daughters until the guardians were able to be located. While I have sympathy for the OP as they seek answers, I applaud the teen center staff for doing their job to protect the rest of the kids.

 

I am with you 100%. Quite a bit is getting lost in translation here. First of all, the boys weren't drinking Martini's in the teen center. They did that elsewhere. People are placing far too much blame on the teen center when it is really extraneous to the topic. This story could just as easily be about two boys who were not registered at the teen center who got drunk. What then? Bring those unregistered boys to the teen center so that it could be used as a holding cell? Second, the teen center is not staffed in a way that would allow for it to be used as a holding cell. On a vacation season cruise, there coukd be upwards of 50 teens registered that week and it usually has two or three counselors. For those who have not been to one or used one, the teen center is not run like a pre-school center. It is a come-and-go meeting area where the teens are given wide berth and organized events are the exception and not the rule. Yes, there are organized activities, but mostly the teen center is a place to hang out, and many of the kids soon leave after they have accumulated a critical mass. They head to the basketball court, pools, lounges, frankly anywhere but the center itself. Other kids stay there and play video games and air hockey and the counselors are there to keep order. Without a cell and handcuffs, a couple of petite female counselors cannot detain 16 and 17 year old boys who have been drinking. Nor should they. It would be unfair to them and unfair to the other teens who might be in the center.

 

If you want to make the argument that the boys should have taken by security to some secure location, fine. But leave the teen center out of the discussion. It was not the cause of the problem nor should it be the solution.

[JimmyVWine]

The rest of the kids DID not really need protecting, the drunk/ill child did.

 

You don't know that. Presumably, the boys were told to leave due to behavioral issues. Unless they were given a breathalyzer test, the counselors would have detected their state of inhebriation only through manifested actions. We don't know what those actions were but they could have included bullying, threats or worse. Whatever it was, it was enough to get them kicked out. I assume that their drunkenness was not made known through their poor performance at air hockey.

[Cruiserkenn]

OK, maybe we all need to take a deep breath and reflect.

 

We can all be thankful that no one was injured. No one passed away.

The potential was there for bad things to happen, but due to Divine Providence, the relative safety of Princess ships, and perhaps even an unrecognized good quality in the teen boys in question, thankfully, no one was hurt. Thankfully.

 

Of course this should be a lesson learned for all. Let's keep a close eye on our mini bars and on who is using our cruise cards.

 

Boys will be boys, and boys will find ways to get into trouble, even under good circumstances. This incident is very mild compared to the wild and crazy things I did as a teen, and compared to what went on in college dorms (and outside the dorms).

 

Let's all learn from this experience.

[Blk_Amish]

You don't know that. Presumably, the boys were told to leave due to behavioral issues. Unless they were given a breathalyzer test, the counselors would have detected their state of inhebriation only through manifested actions. We don't know what those actions were but they could have included bullying, threats or worse. Whatever it was, it was enough to get them kicked out. I assume that their drunkenness was not made known through their poor performance at air hockey.

 

What we do know is the OP got a call that the child was drunk. IF this child was drunk as the message stated THEN the action of the staff involved fell beyond my expectation for caring adult. If others were at risk THEN security should have been called. I ASSUME that security was not called the risk to others was not the problem, lack of care for a drunk child was.