? about the kid clubs at disney

[littleolmee]

hi all, i have heard about the kids clubs at disney, the ones where your 4and up ages kids go for a couple of hours of play time with disney castmembers and have dinner there while parents have a couple of hours to themselves. has anyone used these child care clubs? what was your experience? do you know if these people under go special training to be watching kids? are they checked out for police records and that kind of stuff? our family will be going for the first time this year and dh and i were thinking about it but, wanted to make sure we checked it out before we left our kids in anyone's care especially when we don't know any of this people. i figured disney would be very careful about who they let do this as the chance of getting sued would probally bankrupt disney if someones kids would be hurt at the hands of someone they hired to be in charge of kids. you just can't be to careful. thanks

 

[luvmarypoppins]

I can understand your concern. My dh and I are on a council for our kids school and our church to develop child abuse rules,training etc. Its an eye opening experience for sure. You cant be too careful these days. We left our 3 ds at the neverland club at the Poly. They give you a beeper, sprinkled pixie dust on the kids and up the little stairs they went. We were not allowed in. We did go in at pickup and this is what I observed. A huge wide open play area. This is where they also had dinner. In the play area were spaces that had movies and pillows for rest time, a teepee where a grandma type lady was weaving hair things, another cm girl who was supervising mickey bingo with a group of kids, our ds was the spinner and older kids playing video games (2 of our ds were in there.) I only observed 1 male cast member at the time, so I dont know if that was your concern. I did not see one crying or upset child and that is a very good indication to me of how things are run. Its not chaotic and it is structured well with choices etc.

 

[littleolmee]

thank you for sharing your experience with me. i'm a stay at home mom so this is not a thing i've had to worry about but, it has really been in my mind as that 2 seperate places near our home town have been in trouble with the law for hurting children. this is going to be are families first time to go to disney(let alone our first time out of state) and i just want to check out everything before we decide to go with it or not. thanks again

 

[vicb]

I have posted this before but will again for you....

We used Sandcastle CLub two years ago (and have rebooked it for our trip next month!) and it was a great experience. DH and I felt a bit guilty leaving our kids in "daycare" while we went out to dinner in Epcot. So we came back earlier than planned to pick them up and take them with us to Illuminations. Well, that was a mistake, they were having such a good time there they didn't want to go. They said they enjoyed "a night off our feet".

My children were 6 and 9 at the time, they ate dinner there, played with the free arcade games (like Ms. Pacman), computer games, watched a movie, played with Legos and did valentine art projects. They were very comfortable in the club.

I too am a stay at home mom and my kids did not go to daycare but I felt it was very clean, safe and fun for the kids. As I said, my kids now 8 and 11 have asked to go back for a night on our upcoming trip. It is however expensive but what isn't at Disney.

Don't be afraid to try one of the clubs. Good luck.

 

[littleolmee]

thanks vicb for reposting, it is so nice to get other people's experiences with this. thank you on your understanding . like i said this wil be our families 1st time to disney and i'm feeling a little overwhelmed right now trying to get all the info and all the chicks in a row!

 

[vicb]

littleolmee, not sure when your trip is but we will be there Feb. 22-29 and I will post a fresh review of the club again on this board. Maybe it will be before you go and you can have an updated opinion.

First trips are very overwhelming. On our first trip as a family 6 years ago I had such expectations and when my kids didn't want to do all the things I thought they should I got upset. My DH helped me "see the light" and "go with the flow". We never made it to MGM that year or saw a single night time show or parade and only ate in 2 sit down restaurants but it was a wonderful trip. My kids only wanted to go to MK, the pool and TL. The first night my then 3 year old threw a coin in the wishing well and wished to be at home! That's when I knew I had to let my expectations go.

 

[littleolmee]

good advise thank you. we will be going either in july or august of this year(have to wait till dh's boss decides when he is going-we only get vaction when boss man goes he can't live without dh?haha) we are planning for 5nights on site and may even get 4 days off site if money premits. we aren't planning on any water parks in disney(figure pool at resort will be enough) and kids will be 5 and 9 when we go. i understand those are really hot times in florida and plan on taking it very easy so not to overheat anyone. and i'm going through the disney books and figuring whcih rides are not for our kids and planning on just passing them and having the kids decide which are must see thing so i hope not to expect to much i'm just so happy to finally go that just going is good for us!