College-Aged "Club" for 18-22

[CityTourer]

I very much agree with the OP.

On 6/13/2019 at 5:31 PM, californiacruisers said:

When my son was 4 years old, he loved cruising because he loved the kids clubs. As he grew older, he loved the pre-teen club and then the teen club. But he turned 18 and now cannot attend the children's clubs. And he doesn't fit into the bar scene since he is too young to drink. He is in limbo.

 

If you have a child who loves children's clubs, your child will eventually meet this fate too. SO PLEASE HELP DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

 

On our last cruise, I noticed that the Teen Club is open only during certain hours, e.g. 10a-12n, 2-4p, 6p onwards. I therefore suggest that the Teen Club facilities be open to college-aged people (18-22) whenever the Teen Club is not in session, e.g. 8a-10a, 12n-2p, 4p-6p. We could call it the College Club. The cost to the cruise ship would be very small since the College Club would be unhosted as its members are young adults who do not need supervision. College-aged people would be happy to use the Teen facilities such as video games, TV, table hockey, foosball, etc. Or just hang around with others their age.

 

All the cruise ship needs to do is to set up a few sessions introducing the Teen Club facilities and then let the College Club run itself. The introductory sessions and daily sessions would be advertised in the Daily Schedule of Activities. My son would have loved the College Club and it would have cost the cruise ship very little.

 

I made the above suggestion to the Teen Club staff when I was on our cruise. I also made the same suggestion on the feedback questionnaire at the end of the cruise. I will also send an email to the cruise line with the above suggestion. But I am only one voice and am easily ignored by the cruise bureaucracy. The cruise lines know about this problem but have no incentive to do anything unless they hear from customers.

 

If you have children who like the children's clubs, please add your voice before, during and after your cruise. Because this issue will eventually affect your child too. Please feel free to copy and paste anything I have written.

I wish Carnival would read this thread and do something about it. Soon! We were first-time cruisers last year and we were so fortunate that my son was 17 and he had a place to go to (Club O2) and make friends. He made friends with whom he was communicating via the app to meet up at different places on the ship as well. He was socializing more than I did that, he would come in at a much later time in the cabin as late as 1 am or 2 am if I remember correctly because the Club opened up  late hours for older teens. We are cruising on Inspiration again this year, but since there is nothing similar to Club O2 for the 18 and up (20), we've been scrambling to invite a friend or two to join us on the cruise but they all had other plans... So, he'll just have to stay with us or most likely just be on his own wandering on the ship. In a way, I would like for us to spend a little more time together as a family before he goes away to college. But, I'm sure he'd rather spend time with travelers closer to his age.

Edited July 22, 2019 by CityTourer

[jbethel11]

3 hours ago, CityTourer said:

I very much agree with the OP.

I wish Carnival would read this thread and do something about it. Soon! We were first-time cruisers last year and we were so fortunate that my son was 17 and he had a place to go to (Club O2) and make friends. He made friends with whom he was communicating via the app to meet up at different places on the ship as well. He was socializing more than I did that, he would come in at a much later time in the cabin as late as 1 am or 2 am if I remember correctly because the Club opened up  late hours for older teens. We are cruising on Inspiration again this year, but since there is nothing similar to Club O2 for the 18 and up (20), we've been scrambling to invite a friend or two to join us on the cruise but they all had other plans... So, he'll just have to stay with us or most likely just be on his own wandering on the ship. In a way, I would like for us to spend a little more time together as a family before he goes away to college. But, I'm sure he'd rather spend time with travelers closer to his age.

👏

[suzannecruisecritic]

On our last cruise, the ship didn’t offer anything but a number of families with kids in that age group who were on our roll call connected in advance arranged a quick meet and greet on the first day.