Kids club ages

[Moparop]

I have a daughter that will be less than a month shy of her 8th birthday when we cruise to Alaska this summer. She has heart set on being with her brothers who are 11 and 12 in the tween club. Is there any chance of that happening? If it's a no go, I'd like to start preparing her now for the possibility. If you have experience with both their 3-7 and 8+ club, which has better activities for a creative, somewhat shy rising 3rd grader?

 

Thanks!

[ski ww]

We just had our 7 year old great grand daughter on a New Years cruise & she spent all her time at Club HAL when we were aboard ship, she loved it. There were maybe 8 - 10 kids around her age give or take a few years. We also spent a lot of time in the pool were she played with friends she met at Club HAL. I didn't see any of the older 12 - 13 age group there. The teens could use the pool out back but the younger ones had to use the in door pool. She will make a lot of friends at Club HAL & we were not allowed to pick her up before closing, her words. I'm sure she'll have a great time.

Allan

[TheCalicoCat]

I have a daughter that will be less than a month shy of her 8th birthday when we cruise to Alaska this summer. She has heart set on being with her brothers who are 11 and 12 in the tween club. Is there any chance of that happening? If it's a no go, I'd like to start preparing her now for the possibility. If you have experience with both their 3-7 and 8+ club, which has better activities for a creative, somewhat shy rising 3rd grader?

 

Thanks!

 

 

This probably depends on the number of kids in the clubs. If the ship has a lot of kids then they will be strictly enforcing the age limits.

 

With that said, my son was less than 6.5 & mixed in with the 8+ group (They made one big groups) on his last cruise.

[RuthC]

Unless the groups are mixed due to few children, your daughter will not be allowed to move up to the older group. However, her brothers would be allowed to move down so they can stay together.

[1of4]

The politically correct answer is that your daughter will be put with the 3-7 year old group when you register her on embarkation day. Let the staff know that she is keen to be with her brothers. The Club Hal staff will tell you she has to be with her age group.

 

In reality though, the staff will combine age groups for specific activities depending upon the number of children onboard. Our experience has been that our son "forgot" to go back with his age group. He is 3 years younger than his sister and was 7 on our first family cruise, which was to Alaska.

 

On all our sailings our children have been able to be together the bulk of the time.

 

But understandably the Club Hal staff have to abide by the rules. There is such a huge difference between 3 and 7 year olds that in my experience the staff cater more to the needs of the children and adapt the activities to suit who is registered rather than stick to a set program. This fact alone sets Club Hal apart from any other kids club at sea that we have participated in. I hope your children will love it as much as mine do.

[meab]

This is our first time on HAL coming up...but in what I've seen for the Eurodam, it looks like the kids club ages are 3-6 and 7-12. I had previously thought it was 3-7 and 8-12 too, and my 7 year old was not looking forward to being with 3 year olds!

 

When we get back, I'll try to remember to post about what the actual ages were for Club HAL!

[MandyGirl]

This June will be our first time to use Club HAL for a northbound Alaska cruise. On our Celebrity Panama Canal in November, with only 16 kids onboard they combined groups for some activities. Our youngest turns 7 on this cruise and has well over 100 nights of cruising, so we are hoping she is not stuck with the 3 year olds and can do the next level up with her 10 year old sister (and Junior Park Ranger on Glacier Bay day). We don't suspect many kiddos on the sailing except those families who are accompanying us (none on CC rollcall)

[c-cruise]

We've done several HAL cruises with our kids (our 10yr old is a 3 star Mariner) and unless there are a lot of kids onboard they typically combine the 3-6 and 7-12 into the same space and then group them for different age appropriate activities. Each night they typically have a different theme and the activities are based around that theme.

 

We were on the Koningsdam a couple weeks ago and they never used the room for the 3-6 year olds. Instead they had all the 3-12 year olds in the tween room the whole cruise. There were only about 60 kids on this sailing though. You may have more on a June Alaska sailing, but being a one way itinerary that will likely cut down on the number of kids.

 

Disney is the only line we have been on that groups 3-12 into the same club. They pretty much have to do it this way in order to appease the majority of the parents and not exclude anybody from the various kids club experiences they offer. Totally different animal though so hard to compare to Club HAL.

[MandyGirl]

Thanks! Yes - she has over 70 nights on Disney alone and then time on RCCL, Celebrity and NCL (last week RCCL had over 1000 kids onboard) so we are definitely looking forward to a lesser-kids cruise again like Panama Canal. Baltics, Med and Transatlantic cruises were good too on kid numbers so we hope the one-way in early June is light enough to combine age groups.

[WANative]

Hi! We just back from cruising to Alaska. The tween group is 7-12 now, and older kids are no longer allowed to participate in activities with the younger kids, which was hard for my 13 year old boy. I did see some mixing of the 3-6's and the tweens, for movie night, for example. But teenagers are kept separate.

[MandyGirl]

Hi! We just back from cruising to Alaska. The tween group is 7-12 now, and older kids are no longer allowed to participate in activities with the younger kids, which was hard for my 13 year old boy. I did see some mixing of the 3-6's and the tweens, for movie night, for example. But teenagers are kept separate.

 

 

Thank you for the update :) our youngest turns 7 in Juneau (day 4 of Cruise) so I hope she is able to move up to next group with her sister then. NCL made her wait until exact birthday which was fine but this time I'm hoping HAL lets her move up

 

 

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[Moparop]

Hi! We just back from cruising to Alaska. The tween group is 7-12 now, and older kids are no longer allowed to participate in activities with the younger kids, which was hard for my 13 year old boy. I did see some mixing of the 3-6's and the tweens, for movie night, for example. But teenagers are kept separate.

 

Wonderful!! This conversation came up again today and your information will make my daughter's day!!

[1964IceCreamLady]

Interesting thread! I have a 16 and will-be-15 year daughter and son (respectively) and a 12-going-on-22 year old son. My youngest will definitely feel "left" out of The Loft and VERY unhappy to hang with 8 year-olds. I have prepared him and OF COURSE he will be ok (my oldest two are happy to leave him on the ClubHAL glacier). It hadn't occurred to me he could "move up."