Couple random questions - Oceaneer self-checkout and Apple Watch

[smcd80]

I’ll be sailing in a few months with my 10.5 yo daughter and my 7 yo son. We’ve done DCL with them but they were 5 & 2 so I have new questions. First is self-checkout in the club. I know she can but is there any way to allow her to checkout my son with her? She is a rules follower and would only leave if she wanted to go back to the room or find us, so I‘m comfortable with her having this responsibility, but I know her brother won’t be happy if she can leave and he can’t go with her.

Second question is a tech one. My daughter has an Apple Watch that is independent, not tied to a phone (for any Apple techies, it’s a Family Mode setup). I’m trying to figure out if we can iMessage her on board to communicate if we do let her self-checkout. I‘d prefer not to give her an old phone - she won’t be used to carrying one, doesn’t wear a lot of stuff with pockets, etc. so I feel like it will be harder for her to keep track of. We have a great system with her watch that works well for her and us, but it’s unclear to me how the iMessage stuff works on board and I mostly read about experiences with people whose watches are tied to their phones.

Has anyone else done this who can advise?

Thank you!!

 

[lanejudy]

A child cannot sign out a younger child; I think one must be at least 14 to be able to sign a young child out of the Club/Lab. If the concern is that you want them to remain together, there is no reason your daughter has to be allowed self-check-out. That's entirely optional, then both kids will remain together at the Club until you pick them up.

 

[smcd80]

A child cannot sign out a younger child; I think one must be at least 14 to be able to sign a young child out of the Club/Lab. If the concern is that you want them to remain together, there is no reason your daughter has to be allowed self-check-out. That's entirely optional, then both kids will remain together at the Club until you pick them up.

Thanks! I figured that was probably the case. I don’t need them to stay together, I just anticipate drama with my son if his sister can come and go at will and he can’t, I’ll just have to weigh that and figure out what makes sense. Thanks!

 

[CamillaF]

I had 8 year old twins on our last cruise. We let them do self check out and even let them roam the ship themselves. The are rule followers, have good common sense and are nice kids. They had a walkie-talkie and we could get a hold of each other. It worked out well. All kids are different.

 

[smcd80]

I had 8 year old twins on our last cruise. We let them do self check out and even let them roam the ship themselves. The are rule followers, have good common sense and are nice kids. They had a walkie-talkie and we could get a hold of each other. It worked out well. All kids are different.

Ahh walkie talkie, I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me! Perfect solution - even separate from the question of self-checkout I think we will let them have a little bit of freedom on the ship as they’re both pretty responsible and I trust my oldest to watch him in reasonable doses, so this is a great idea. Thanks!

 

[Disneygirlxo91]

I’ll be sailing in a few months with my 10.5 yo daughter and my 7 yo son. We’ve done DCL with them but they were 5 & 2 so I have new questions. First is self-checkout in the club. I know she can but is there any way to allow her to checkout my son with her? She is a rules follower and would only leave if she wanted to go back to the room or find us, so I‘m comfortable with her having this responsibility, but I know her brother won’t be happy if she can leave and he can’t go with her.

Second question is a tech one. My daughter has an Apple Watch that is independent, not tied to a phone (for any Apple techies, it’s a Family Mode setup). I’m trying to figure out if we can iMessage her on board to communicate if we do let her self-checkout. I‘d prefer not to give her an old phone - she won’t be used to carrying one, doesn’t wear a lot of stuff with pockets, etc. so I feel like it will be harder for her to keep track of. We have a great system with her watch that works well for her and us, but it’s unclear to me how the iMessage stuff works on board and I mostly read about experiences with people whose watches are tied to their phones.

Has anyone else done this who can advise?

Thank you!!

In terms of iMessage it can’t really be relied on. WhatsApp was much more reliable, I believe that works on an Apple Watch as well. I’ve never brought my Apple watch with me on a cruise so I can’t speak whether it would work when the phone is connecting to the WiFi.

 

[CamillaF]

Ahh walkie talkie, I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me! Perfect solution - even separate from the question of self-checkout I think we will let them have a little bit of freedom on the ship as they’re both pretty responsible and I trust my oldest to watch him in reasonable doses, so this is a great idea. Thanks!

We use walkie-talkies on the ski mountain so my husband and I can separate with one of the twins. So we bought good ones with a 20mile range. The work great at long as there is a clear line of sight. Not so good when we were on the other side of the mountain. They worked great every where on the ship. Once one of us even left to go to port while the rest of of stayed back and they worked fine in downtown Skagway.

 

[jgregson00]

Ahh walkie talkie, I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me! Perfect solution - even separate from the question of self-checkout I think we will let them have a little bit of freedom on the ship as they’re both pretty responsible and I trust my oldest to watch him in reasonable doses, so this is a great idea. Thanks!

If iMessage does work, it works just fine for texts, but not for pictures/vids. You will just have to connect the watch to the ship's wifi which should be easy to do. Some have had trouble getting it to work for the whole cruise though...

 

[livih99]

Ahh walkie talkie

If you also have an apple watch, there's a walkie talkie feature on it. I'm not sure if you need wifi or how far the range is, but it's something to consider

 

[greensombrero]

So I haven’t tried your particular set up but we are an apple family and have had good luck with iMessage onboard most of the time.

The way it works though is based upon being connected to the ships wifi and Apple’s push notifications being allowed through for free which is what iMessage is built on for text only messages.

So if you can connect her watch to the ship’s WiFi you should be good. I just don’t know how that works not paired to a phone, IE how you get it to connect. The only other call out I’ll give because it burned us a bit last time is updating apple parental controls on a device on the cruise can be problematic because you don’t have real full internet with the WiFi.