Norwegian for 11 yo boy -kids program

[mj cruiser]

Hey everyone! Was on Mariner (RCI) lst year with my son and he loved it. This year we are going on NCL and would love some input on their kids program 10-12 yo's! Any info appreciated!

[SweetAngel]

I would also like to know how Norwegian rates for 11-year-olds and 9-year-olds as I am considering a New Year's cruise with my children.

 

*****

 

When they were 6 and 4, they absolutely LOVED the Norwegian Star. It was hands down the best program on the seas, ten thousand times better than Carnival's award-winning program. The activities were innovative, not like the same old ones you see on every other ship, and my children counted the minutes till they could go back. I had never expected to have such happy kids and get so much personal free time on a family vacation! There were 600 kids on board that cruise, which is way above normal, so who knows if they altered their activities to accomodate the crowds or if they just always do such wonderful activities like that.

 

Once they designed pirate outfits with swords and paraded across the ship to the main stage right in the middle of the Bingo game and, in a cute little skit, declared that they were taking over the ship.

 

Once they made origami helicopter-type birds that they released from the top of the 7-story atrium. I was in a shore excursions line when I saw these beautiful colored objects floating down. That night, when I found a bird in the room, I learned that my children were responsible.

 

Once I was eating in the formal dining room when the little ones came in to serenade the diners with the ABC song.

 

On New Year's Eve, they had a grand parade through all the public areas of the ship.

 

I was impressed how the children moved around, getting to explore the beautiful ship and interacting, instead of being confined to the children's rooms all day. But mostly I was impressed how much my extremely shy and sometimes difficult to please children LOVED the program.

[jimswims]

I think that the NCL Kid's Crew is great.

 

Our son just turned 13 and our daughter is 9. They both enjoyed the activities on the Majesty, Spirit, and Dawn in both the 7-9 age and the 10-12groups. They both say that the Spirit is their favorite NCL ship bacause the kids pool and arcade, and Kids Crew center is huge. They did T-shirt painting, games, movies, older kids did a scavenger hunt, parade, talent show, cookies with the captain, pillow fight and pajama party on the last night. On the Majesty, one of the headliner entertainers (Rudy) came and participated in the Pillow fight and chose my daughter to duel with....she still talks about it and it was in 2004 and then a rematch occured in 2005 since we were back on board and he was as well. My son also met the daughter of one of the headline entertainers in the Kids Crew when we were on the Spirit since they were the same age. We got to meet him after a show thanks to our son's connections. It was fun!

 

We have now been on 4 NCL cruises with our kids. My wife and I both enjoyed the formal nights and the evenings on all of our past cruises before we had our kids, even the Black Tie everynight on the QE2! However, we love Freestyle cruising on NCL. The bigger ships designed for freestyle cruising with 10 restaurants are great for us. We have even taken our kids to eat early so they can go to kids Crew and then we get to go to one of the special restaurants just the 2 of us.

 

The activities may change based on the time that you cruise. We need to cruise during the summer because of our work schedules and there were lots of kids on board every time.

 

Have a great time.

[SweetAngel]

Thanks so much for sharing!

My kids are very excited to ride on the Spirit. That kids' pool could just make the whole trip! We are trying to reserve a trip for this Christmas or New Year's.