Teen/kid club age range policy

[ljandgb]

14 yo dd will be 2 weeks shy of 15 on our cruise. I'm sure she'd like to spend some time with her 17 yo sisters in the teen club. Ds will turn 12 the day we disembark and may not want to hang with the 7-11 yos. How strict is MSC on age cut offs for their kid clubs?

[Reds4life]

I have a 6 yr old and 12 yr old daughters and I called about the age ranges and they said they were flexible within reason. I asked about both being in the 7-11 group for some activities and they said it would be fine. I will say that the customer service has been incorrect on various policies prior to our cruise, so you may want to double check but that's what they told me.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Reds4life

[ljandgb]

Thanks for the fast reply. It's not a deal breaker for us either way, as we'll be in port every day.

[ONECRUISER]

58 minutes ago, P27159 said:

I am resurrecting an old topic because I didn't realize this was here, so I was wondering if anyone has any experiences in stretching the age range (either up or down) slightly, maybe by a few months.  In our case, our daughter will be turning 18 two weeks before sailing and she would like to attend events, and meet kids, in the 15-17 teem club.  Carnival and Royal Caribbean seemed pretty flexible with regard to this, so I was wondering if anyone had similar experiences on MSC that they can share.  Thanks.

I would say no. Normally its easier step down age Groups then up, but here you'd have an 18yr old Adult with Teens young as 14 and I'd doubt it being allowed. 

[ljandgb]

As that daughter is now 24, I’d say that ship sailed a looong time ago!

[P27159]

18 hours ago, ONECRUISER said:

I would say no. Normally its easier step down age Groups then up, but here you'd have an 18yr old Adult with Teens young as 14 and I'd doubt it being allowed. 

I understand why they have cut offs, but have found for the other ages they tend to be flexible.  I wonder if they will see my 18-year-old girl, who could probably pass for 15, and look at her differently than say an 18-year-old boy that looks like a man, and there may be concerns about preying on younger girls. I guess the only way to know for sure is to find out once we’re on board, but was wondering if anyone had this specific experience that can comment for sure one way or the other.

[Neotericisis]

On 3/16/2024 at 4:27 PM, P27159 said:

I understand why they have cut offs, but have found for the other ages they tend to be flexible.  I wonder if they will see my 18-year-old girl, who could probably pass for 15, and look at her differently than say an 18-year-old boy that looks like a man, and there may be concerns about preying on younger girls. I guess the only way to know for sure is to find out once we’re on board, but was wondering if anyone had this specific experience that can comment for sure one way or the other.

I have the opposite issue. My son is 14, we sail next week, and he will be 15 in July. I am going to see if I can get him into the teen section because he is a High School freshman who is 6ft tall and 220 lbs. I posed this question here and the responses said that it could go either way. I’ll let you know after I come back if I was able to bump him up to the teen section. I don’t understand why they have the youth group stop at 14 since that is High School age. My son would feel very awkward with the Middle School group. Plus he would stick out like a sore thumb. I plan on requesting manager approval if they deny my request. 

[P27159]

2 hours ago, Neotericisis said:

I have the opposite issue. My son is 14, we sail next week, and he will be 15 in July. I am going to see if I can get him into the teen section because he is a High School freshman who is 6ft tall and 220 lbs. I posed this question here and the responses said that it could go either way. I’ll let you know after I come back if I was able to bump him up to the teen section. I don’t understand why they have the youth group stop at 14 since that is High School age. My son would feel very awkward with the Middle School group. Plus he would stick out like a sore thumb. I plan on requesting manager approval if they deny my request. 

I have never cruised on MSC before, but have been on carnival and Royal Caribbean a few times, and have ran into that situation when my kids were a little younger, and we’re trying to fit them both in the same group.  Sometimes it was a matter of having our oldest pushed back into the younger kids group, and sometimes we were trying to get our youngest pushed into the older group.  We never had a problem doing that. I think they are a lot more flexible in those young to mid teen age groups, because they know the kids have different maturity levels, and it doesn’t make sense to be so rigid.
 

I asked my question because I think for 18-year-olds, there are some other elements that come into play, where they might be more rigid.  I can definitely see why they wouldn’t want an 18 or 19-year-old boy to be in a group with impressionable 15 and 16-year-old girls, for example.  My oldest daughter will be very unhappy if she shut out of the teen club, because that’s really the only way she’s going to be able to meet people.