Bringing the 10 year old :)

[ColoradoGurl]

That's a shame. I think the Mariner is one of the smaller / shorter destination ships? We had the same issues with Disney cruise when my DD was 2.5 years...wasn't allowed in the pools or the kids club except during open hours. Not a huge deal, but I agree that it's better to cruise when your kids are at least toilet trained. Hopefully you'll actually get to experience kids club in the future.

 

At the time, Mariner was a 7 night cruise. But there were too few kids on board to open it up. We went several times because they did leave the doors open for the disco or some room for older kids, and we were hoping that maybe some other kids on board would show up to hang out, but there was never anyone in there. There may have been something open for the very young kids, but not for her age group. And we were told it was because there were too few kids on board.

[ColoradoGurl]

I have never ever heard of the kids club closing.

They do cancel activities if there are not enough kids but the kids club /room itself is always open and staffed during the posted hours. Bizarre..

 

They did leave the disco room open and we went several times on different days in hopes of finding kids there, but there never were any and there was never any staff in there when we went to check it out. It never occurred to me that it would be closed either, but I can tell you for a fact that it was. We also got an official note while on board that all activities were cancelled for adventure ocean because of low numbers of kids. I don't think it's bizarre, it would be a waste of money on their end for them to staff it for one child.

Edited February 4, 2015 by ColoradoGurl

[reallyitsmema]

They did leave the disco room open and we went several times on different days in hopes of finding kids there, but there never were any and there was never any staff in there when we went to check it out. It never occurred to me that it would be closed either, but I can tell you for a fact that it was. We also got an official note while on board that all activities were cancelled for adventure ocean because of low numbers of kids. I don't think it's bizarre, it would be a waste of money on their end for them to staff it for one child.

 

Was your child in Adventure Ocean at the time or was she in the Teen Club? You mention the arcade being left open, the arcade is available to all passengers so it is open all the time. The "disco room" you refer to would be Fuel and that is available only to the Teen groups, not Adventure Ocean. During the day, Fuel typically is not used and the teen groups are in The Living Room.

 

Just trying to understand what you are referring to because if she was in the teen group, kids come and go as they want and there aren't always a lot of kids there.

[ColoradoGurl]

Was your child in Adventure Ocean at the time or was she in the Teen Club? You mention the arcade being left open, the arcade is available to all passengers so it is open all the time. The "disco room" you refer to would be Fuel and that is available only to the Teen groups, not Adventure Ocean. During the day, Fuel typically is not used and the teen groups are in The Living Room.

 

Just trying to understand what you are referring to because if she was in the teen group, kids come and go as they want and there aren't always a lot of kids there.

 

Gotcha- I'm not super familiar with the differences because she's never been able to use the facilities in any age group. She was 10 going on 11 at the time and there was no Adventure Ocean activities for her because there weren't enough kids on board, at least in her age group anyway, which is what we were told by a staff member when we went looking for someone to tell us when it would open, then we also got an official note in our room saying all activities were cancelled. The rooms that we were told she could use to hang out in were open, but nobody was ever in there. We only saw a couple kids on board throughout the ship in her age group and honestly I dont recall if there were younger ones because I wasn't looking for those. But after several days of checking in the rooms for others dropping in and nobody ever did, we gave up and my daughter was really bummed. She was never able to find a friend her age at the pool either. Maybe because it was so close to spring break that most families waited for the break to take their cruise rather than take the kids out of school. We met one girl her age in the buffet and she was homeschooled in canada. Unfortunately we met her on the last day.

Edited February 4, 2015 by ColoradoGurl