Adventure Ocean questions

[futureAG]

HI all!  We will be sailing on the Ovation in August.  This will be the first cruise for our DDs & DN who are 8,5,&4. Just wondering how the communication works between parents and camp staff while children are in their care?  Is it possible for our children to request to be picked up before the end of the session? How does the staff contact us?  Thanks! 

[danp2482]

Hi! I Can't speak directly to Ovation but on Odyssey you are given a ship cell phone and they call you on it. It is definitely possible for the kids to request to be picked up before the session is over. When they do, the staff calls the cell and you head on over to get them! 

[rimmit]

It varies by ship and age.  You can request a phone though from my experience on all ships.  It is random though as sometimes I was handed a phone.  Sometimes I was offered one if I wanted one, sometimes they made me take it.  We have used AO extensively over the course of 12 years and there has been no consistent rhyme or reason when they give out a phone EXCEPT if you use the nursery.  If you use the nursery they will definitely give you a phone no matter what as if your baby is unconsolably crying for an extended period of time they will call you to come pick your baby up.  Our kids always loved the nursery and had no issues, but I know some parents who had some unconsolable infants.  Most ships definitely do not have enough phones to hand out to every single family that has a child in AO.   They just dont have enough phones for that. 

We’ve been on Ovation twice, once in 2015 on the inaugaural repo to China and in 2019 in Australia/NZ.  In 2015 they handed out a phone in the nursery but none for AO as we gave them the number of the phone we were issued by the nursery.  In 2019 my kids aged out of the nursery and were just in regular AO and we had a phone about 50 percent of the time.  It was rather random.  If you asked about another ship it’d be a totally different answer.

 

Also, if you dont have a phone and they need to contact you,  they can check your charge record for the night and where you’ve scanned it and track you down thay way or leave a voicemail in the cabin phone.   If you have a dining reservation they can track you down that way as well.  Over the years we have been tracked down a variety if different ways.

 

You can always request a dectphone (I think that is how they spell it) if you like though if you want them to be able to contact you at all times and they should have one available.  Before the days that cell phones were common place on boats, we got some strange stares when we’d answer the ship issued phone.  Hope that helps.

Edited June 9, 2022 by rimmit