Children

[momof3luvs2run]

Anyone have a child who didn't want to go on the boat? I'm concerned that one of my kids will not want to do the cruise! This trip is a surprise, so they have no idea we are doing the cruise.

My son loves the movie Titantic. I'm starting to worry though that it may keep him from boarding the ship!!

DH and I are thinking that when they see the boat that they will be so excited that they won't be worried about it.

Any thoughts?

 

[thegales]

Trying to put a different spin on this-

You arrive at the terminal, which is a building, check in, and wait in the line. When it is time to board, you go through normal doors, and walk down a hallway (maybe get your picture taken), but you are still in the building. The actual gangplank for boarding is wide, has 'walls' and a cover. All of a sudden, they are announcing your name, and you are on the ship. You could almost say you don't realize that you just walked onto the ship.

I don't think you will have any problems. As you have said, the excitement of the ship is enough to overcome any fears.

 

[Rence]

Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise. Different children react differently to different types of surprises. If you had a child who was skittish around animals, it may not be wise to surprise him with a puppy. Instead you would talk to the child about puppies, read about puppies, visit someone who has a puppy etc. so the child can acclimate to the idea of being around an animal.

If you seriously think that your son may have a strong reaction to the boat, then I would not surprise him with it. Instead I would make the announcement ahead of time, perhaps watch the DVD with him, try to catch the Travel Channel special on DCL with him. He can express his fears if he has any and you can explain to him how ships have changed since Titanic.

 

[Pooh's Purple Pal]

My 7 year old had just read the Magic Tree House Book about the Titanic before our first cruise. He was adamant that he did NOT want to go on a cruise ship! I'm glad we weren't trying to surprise him because it took a lot of talking before he was comfortable about going. We discussed weather (icebergs!), how ships have changed, and even emergency procedures until we were blue in the face. What we never told him was that nothing could possibly go wrong because we have been in hotels where we've had to evacuate due to small fires and even experienced an earthquake and we wanted him to trust us. Once on the ship, he was very comfortable and never obsessed about sinking.