Current Youth Activities CM -- Ask me anything!

[Nannylisad]

About the Wave phone pouches, there are new phones on the Magic that are bigger than the other ships.

Oh dang. How much bigger ? Just a guess. Are they easier to use ?

 

[Nannylisad]

About the Wave phone pouches, there are new phones on the Magic that are bigger than the other ships.

Oh dang

 

[Minniemiss]

Not sure about the size but here the post.
http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=49922998&postcount=62


photo
https://twitter.com/TheDCLBlog/status/393801044742119425/photo/1

 

[Jenntx]

I just purchased a little pouch to hold the wave phone. I will feel better knowing I have constant communication with them.

Ugh, I cannot believe how cold it's going to get! Brrrr.

Do you mind me asking where you purchased the pouch from? I'd like to get one before the cruise for my son. Would hate for him to loose the wave phone.

 

[Jenntx]

Oops - guess I should have read further before asking. I see that the question has already been answered.

 

[Jenntx]

Oops see the answer!

 

[DreamBound23]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000O...f_=pe_385040_30332200_pe_309540_26725410_item

On Amazon. Hopefully the above link works! I bought a small and medium size one.

 

[cyndyminnie]

We are cruising at the end of the month for the first time with two DSs, 9 and 7. We also have 3 other boys in our group. Can the boys take pictures in the kids club? Of themselves, activities, any characters that come by? Is that allowed? Thanks so much for this thread! It's really helpful.

 

[WDWJonasGirl]

What is your favorite activity to do with the kids?

 

[CMontheseas]

Hello,

We are coming on our first cruise in February from the UK. I am interested in what gifts you guys would like? Any UK favourite chocolates like Flakes or Jaffa cakes? (Prince Naveen requested we bring Jaffa cakes next time lol) can we bring a hamper type gift and you share it between you or do you prefer separate gifts? Just I could have more of a variety if I could do a group present.

Haha the Jaffa Cakes would be absolutely lovel! I know a lot of brits would love you for it.
But yes, a thing we can share works out better than separate gifts if those get too expensive! The last thing we want is anyone to really worry themselves about it, we'll still appreciate the gesture a bunch!

New to posting...sorry if posted in wrong spot....wondering what the procedure is for children in the youth clubs during an actual emergency .

Hello! In an emergency, what we are instructed to do is immediately send out messages for every child in our care to be picked up from whichever location they are in. Every single member of the Youth Activities department no matter where they are in the ship will be required to pull on their Costume, respond and come report immediately and be assigned an emergency position in the space. Any child with Self-Check privileges who wishes to leave and knows where to find their families/assembly station will be allowed to leave. All others will be kept safe with us.

For ease, the counselors will round up the children and divide them up by last name A-M and N- Z (you'll see these signs up whenever we practice for emergency drills on board). Families will be directed to pick up the children, give their secret word, and leave the space with the children towards their designated Assembly Station.

Only at the end, after it seems no more families are coming to the space and there are children who have been forgotten or left behind in our care, we will escort them to each Assembly Station (note that this is the last resort in case you don't show up to collect them!!!).

Only after all of the kids in our care have been reunited with their families will we be given the go ahead by the managers to our own stations. Because of our duties we don't have the ability to retrieve our life vests from our rooms like the rest of the crew does (which is why some guests ask us why we don't have any life vests on during emergency drills!), and will have to grab spare ones from a locker in an actual emergency.

Soo....in short. Please come collect your children in an emergency or you'll have a whole bunch of Youth Activities staff without lifevests coming to their liferafts incredibly late!

 

[CMontheseas]

Very insightful questions, I'll try my best to answer for you!

Great thread, very informative.

What I'm wondering is if there is any downside to granting my child self-check privileges? Aside from the obvious concerns about whether the child can be trusted or will be safe on the ship unsupervised, of course.

In what ways are kids with self-check privileges treated differently from those without? I presume that if she asked a counsellor to text us rather than checking herself out, they would do that? Or if she did choose to check herself out, could she ask the counsellors to send us a quick message to say "X has checked herself out of the club and is coming to find you", so that we know to expect her? (I don't think I'd give her a wave phone - too likely that she would lose it!)

If a child were to ask any of us at the front Desk to send a message on her behalf to let her family know that she was leaving, we would certainly do so! This is an excellent & responsible thing to put in practice. Remember however, that the child needs to ask - we aren't able to send a message every single time a Self-Check child enters and exists the space automatically (even though some parents insist!).


I did see something earlier in the thread about self-check kids being sent off to get their dinner while the younger kids were invited to eat at the club (or something of that sort, sorry if I'm mis-remembering). Would my child with self-check privileges also be able to stay and eat if she chose to? What about an emergency situation? If I gave her specific instructions to stay put with her brother until we came to get them, would that be okay, or would she be encouraged to go to the muster station on her own? Are there other situations I haven't considered that might be different for self-check kids?

If a Self-Check child really wanted to stay in the space and eat with us while we were serving food, they definitely could! They only wouldn't be able to choose and just eat whatever it was set for that meal. What ends up happening is the Self-Checks tend to wait and see whatever we're having and then decide to stay if they want some or end up leaving to get pizza or burgers and soft drinks upstairs.


In the case of an emergency - like I mentioned in my last response, self-checks who would like to leave and know where to locate/how to find their families at the assembly station will be allowed to check themselves out. At any rate, if they have family members who aren't Self-Checks or if they don't seem confident about being able to find their Assembly station or family, we encourage them to stay with us where they're secure and most-importantly - trackable.


I don't really know if there's any negative drawbacks to Self-Checks, they seem to really enjoy their independence and whenever a child is lost onboard the ship (which we take very seriously, there's a whole alert process if you've ever seen it in action!) most of the time they aren't Self-Checks!

Where I guess things can get dicey is if for whatever reason the child cannot locate you anywhere on the ship - you have left your wavephones in the room, you're not where you told the kids you would be. This happens quite often and what ends up happening is the kids sheepishly come back to us shortly after checking themselves out saying "I don't know where my family is, can I come back in?" Or they say "If you see or hear from my parents, please let them know I couldn't find them and I'll be waiting inside the room?" Works like a charm!

Thanks so much!

 

[CMontheseas]

I know this is a long thread, so my apologies if I am repeating a question (-I read the first 19 pages, then decided to jump to the end!).

How many kids use the kids clubs? Is there a limit where no more kids are accepted? It seems like the kids clubs would be super crazy and packed, especially on sea days. Does it get too overwhelming?

Thank you for answering so many questions!

On every cruise we track down how many kids we have registered for the spaces (not just how many kids on board), by age group and based on that we determine a few things like how flexible we can allow the age limits to be at each grouping level.

There is of course no actual limit to how many kids can be accepted into the space. In terms of capacity we hear a lot of questions about what our "Cut-off" is, and rest assured that doesn't exist (or has not happened to any of the spaces since Disney Cruise Lines has existed or it would be a policy in our training!).

On busy sea days, we generally prepare ourselves to have upwards of 200 kids and this - while stressful - can be easily accomodated by the spaces.

Where I can see it getting crazy in a very rare extreme case I don't think has ever happened either is if all of the...let's say all 600 registered children on board decide to check themselves into the same space at the same time and completely ignore the other one. In that case I assume they would turn the less popular space into Open House where only a minimum of 2 counselors are needed to staff while everyone else is sent over to the busier location in order to meet adequate supervision ratios.


But yes....if you can imagine 200 children around you at the same time trying to do a cooking program and determining which ones have allergies and which ones cannot be in contact with the others while keeping one's cool, this is our reality! Now imagine what we'd have to deal with in case one of those kids throws up or has a potty accident in the middle of all that! Overwhelming to say the least!

 

[CMontheseas]

What is your favorite activity to do with the kids?

Tink's Talent Show!

We are cruising at the end of the month for the first time with two DSs, 9 and 7. We also have 3 other boys in our group. Can the boys take pictures in the kids club? Of themselves, activities, any characters that come by? Is that allowed? Thanks so much for this thread! It's really helpful.

The only time anyone is permitted to take photos is during an Open House session. During any secure programming (whenever adults aren't allowed in the space), no photos can be taken except of course our own surveillance cameras and for company use. This doesn't mean that there aren't kids (and adults!) that try to take sneaky photos, but we're actually forced by management to tell people to delete the pictures/refrain from taking photos and remove themselves from the space.

Now if let's say it was a Mother who was clearly taking a picture of her own daughter and no other children in an isolated part of the room, and no other children were checked in the space and was doing it SUPER stealthily.... officially I'd still have to make her delete it. (Unofficially Counselors might be nice and turn a blind eye but risk their jobs in the process!)

 

[jkburns]

CM:

Thank you so very much for your time and expertise - both here and on board!

My significant other is a HUGE Rapunzel fan....she is taking her first Disney Cruise on the Dream this Sunday! (with me, I should add ).

Do you know is there a way to get Rapunzel's autograph and/or a brief meeting?

It will be just t two of us adults traveling.

Thanks so very much.

Kevin

 

[CMontheseas]

CM:

Thank you so very much for your time and expertise - both here and on board!

My significant other is a HUGE Rapunzel fan....she is taking her first Disney Cruise on the Dream this Sunday! (with me, I should add ).

Do you know is there a way to get Rapunzel's autograph and/or a brief meeting?

It will be just t two of us adults traveling.

Thanks so very much.

Kevin

Oh dear... Rapunzel is technically only available to do that during meet and greets on the Disney Magic I'm afraid!

(But I do know what you mean... Rapunzel does appear in the Golden Mickeys on the Dream and in Wishes on the Fantasy. But will never ever ever be anywhere else on the ship hair + dress and all at any other time!)


However if you mean to say you'd like to get the autograph of the "friend of Rapunzel", I'm sure she'd be able to do that if you're resourceful enough. A good way to try is whenever you see the characters with a greeter in white, politely ask them if there's any way to meet whoever is "Friends with Rapunzel" for whatever reason: to congratulate her on her performance/because you know her from home/she's a family friend. If you were to ask a CM where you'd be able to find "Rapunzel" they'll politely tell you flat out she's no longer visiting and is back at her kingdom.

If you're really lucky..that might be a way for it to happen. Saying you'd like to meet her to give her a gift would probably work well....but don't expect the "friend of Rapunzel" to look anything like....Rapunzel when you do. If you catch my Disney drift.

And if all else fails and no one seems to be cooperating, study her face - nose and eye placement especially and see if you can spot her when she's a character greeter.

 

[lbgraves]

I can recall one or two times it has been reported here where the ship stayed in port late to reward the crew and the club/lab stopped accepting new kids at check in because they were at capacity. This was on a classic ship. Apparently many parents decided to head back off the ship after dinner and put their kids in the club, so that maxed out the numbers. People reported having to wait for a child to be checked out in order to check another on into the space. This is over the past 11 years +, so is very rare.

 

[CMontheseas]

Oh my that's incredible! Thanks for that tidbit, I'll share that with the rest of the CMs and ask about it - I could certainly see how if a ship was doing a late appreciation night in Nassau for example, we wouldn't have enough staff still on board/in a non-partying state to provide adequate supervision!

 

[mab2012]

CMontheseas, thanks very much for your responses to my questions about self check-out. If we decide to do it we'll be giving our daughter very specific instructions about how we expect her to behave, and having this kind of detailed information makes that so much easier! Much appreciated!

 

[Weedy]

CMontheseas, Are you still not feeling well? Still restricted to your cabin? Hope you get better soon)

 

[CMontheseas]

CMontheseas, Are you still not feeling well? Still restricted to your cabin? Hope you get better soon)

Yes, so I'm trying to keep myself occupied instead of staying in bed! My deck privileges have been taken away since I'm considered too contagious still. I'm living on some very limited room service of rice and crackers and apple juice right now! (Not allowed to have the guest stuff down here!)