Almost 3 and potty trained?

[Tinknalli]

We will be on the FOS in 2016 with my sister and her family. My niece will be within 1 month of her third birthday. If she is potty trained how does RCCL handle the clubs. Are they a little flexible like DCL or are they strict about ages in the clubs? Any experience with an almost 3 being allowed to spend a little time there?

 

[bumbershoot]

She's totally and completely potty trained? Can do the entire thing by herself?

I'm always impressed by that. DS figured out that his waste went in the potty by 18 months, which made my life tremendously easier (though I kept him in his cute cloth dipes, just in case, another 6 months or so), but he wasn't independent for a LONG time after.

 

[Tinknalli]

No, she is only 14 months old right now. More of a hypothetical question to see the difference between the two lines. Having a boy and a girl, my experience is that girls train easier and younger.

 

[GoofyDisneyDaddy]

Unfortunately, word I've heard is RCL is strict on the ages, though I don't have any first hand experience.

 

[mmbl]

We will be on the FOS in 2016 with my sister and her family. My niece will be within 1 month of her third birthday. If she is potty trained how does RCCL handle the clubs. Are they a little flexible like DCL or are they strict about ages in the clubs? Any experience with an almost 3 being allowed to spend a little time there?

They are very strict.

 

[Golden Rose]

As I understand it, RCCL can make no exceptions at all due to insurance reasons. They are simply not certified to take under 3's into the kid's club, and they will not do it. Most of their ships don't have a nursery, and don't have any drop off program for under 3s.

We booked on DCL for our potty independent DD about a month before her 3rd birthday knowing that they were likely to let her in, and they did. But they have a program for kids under 3 on the ship, so they are permitted to make the exceptions on a case by case basis.

 

[Summerl30]

As I understand it, RCCL can make no exceptions at all due to insurance reasons. They are simply not certified to take under 3's into the kid's club, and they will not do it. Most of their ships don't have a nursery, and don't have any drop off program for under 3s. We booked on DCL for our potty independent DD about a month before her 3rd birthday knowing that they were likely to let her in, and they did. But they have a program for kids under 3 on the ship, so they are permitted to make the exceptions on a case by case basis.

I believe most of them DO have a nursery.
Freedom of the seas definitely does. I believe it's $6 an hour and also has programs for them in the nursery.
In the separate tots program I think it's more like parent and tot. Not sure.

 

[Golden Rose]

Most of them don't have a nursery. We've been regularly cruising with RCCL for over a decade, and we've never been on a ship with a nursery. We have cruised when both kids were under 3, 4 or 5 times. We have been on many of the older ships, but we have not been on the big, new ships, which I understand do have nurseries. So, yes, a few of the ships do have, like Disney, the pay for it nursery, but you have to check on a ship by ship basis.

What they do have is Royal Babies/Royal Tots, a Mommy(or Daddy) and me program, which they used to partner with Fisher Price, but now do on their own. You go to a playgroup with your appropriate aged child. On one of the cruises we were lucky and there weren't many preteens, so they left that area set up with toys for toddlers so that you could go in and play there (unsupervised) throughout the day.

Maybe they've gotten better with the under 3s in the last year or so. I heard they were trying to improve under 3 offerings, but they were pretty disappointing for many years. Don't get me wrong, we still had great cruises when we cruised with our kids, but the ships themselves didn't have much to entertain the little ones. That is one area DCL did much much better, and one of the big reasons we switched to DCL for the last couple of years.

 

[Summerl30]

Yes you are right.
All the ships I've considered taking my kids on have had nurseries, not that t affects us as we never cruised with our kids that young.
Interesting to note that the two newest ships won't have a nursery.