DIfference in kids club

[sunrise717]

im thinking about doing RC... Disney is getting to expensive! But I have 8 and 7year old girls that spend most of their time in the kids club their choice.. So I would like to know how the kids club on RC compare to disneys kids club? Tia

 

[starvenger]

I think it's dependent on what ship you go on. On the Oasis class, the Adventure Ocean area is fairly large, and kids are divided by age group (3-5, 6-8 and 9-11). So programs are a bit more streamlined than on DCL. Since your kids are 1 year apart they should, in theory, be lumped into the same progam.

Reviews of the smaller (and older) ships seem to indicate that the AO programs are not as good and that they might lump the kids all into one group like on DCL.

 

[mcd2745]

My daughter (now 10) loves being in the kids clubs - whether on DCL or RCCL (we've been on Freedom & Oasis). She would have no problem spending the entire day in there if we let her.

The biggest difference between the two, however, would be that it is not possible to be in there all day on RCCL. On DCL, they are open continuously from when they open (usually) at 9am through closing time (usually midnight). On RCCL, the kids clubs - Adventure Ocean - has "sessions". The kids club will open at 9am, but then close from 12pm-2pm, reopen 2pm-5pm and then close for another 2 hours, and then reopen from 7pm-2am. However, there is a charge (IIRC...$7 per hour) per child from 10pm-2am (they call that the "late night party zone"). I don't get why they close for those intervals and it is really troubling for us. If you sleep in a little late, finish breakfast at 11am or so, if the kids go to the club they will have less than an hour. We always have second seating for dinner. So when they are closed from 5-7pm, and we're not going to dinner until 8pm, why should the club be unavailable to the kids for those 2 hours? It's fine if you have first seating and you're going to be at dinner most of those two hours anyway. I guess they just don't hire enough staff to rotate throughout the day with breaks and all. The one big positive for RCCL is that it does remain open later. I wish Oceaneer's on DCL stayed open an hour or two later.

The other big difference is the age breakdowns, as mentioned previously. On DCL, the entire area is for all kids 3-12 years old. On RCCL, there will be separate rooms/areas for 3-5, 6-8, and 9-11. After 10pm, they may put them all in one room - depending how many kids are left in the program.

 

[DnA2010]

Only have Oasis and Fantasy to compare, DD was 9 on Oasis and 10 on Fantasy... As far as Oasis goes, DD loved the more detailed time- ie more planned activities, and more personal councillors. She lived going to the late night hours, we let her stay till 11, as long as she got up cheerful (which she did). On Fantasy as she was almost 11, she w allowed in Edge, which she loved...she didn't live the reg clubs as much, I think partially due to the fact that they weren't separated by age. I wasn't keen on all the computers

 

[bumbershoot]

My son loves Royal's program more than Disney's.

The age groups are the same on all ships. But if there are very low numbers they will start combining them. On both Freedom and Vision they combined the 6-8 and 9-11 groups together on our sailings. By no means was it ALL age groups.

The counselors are MUCH more involved with the kids and the activities on Royal than they are on Disney. They really keep the action going, and keep the interest up. I've never come to pick up my son and find that he's been playing a videogame for the last 2 hours; it just can't happen on Royal.

I like that they close for certain hours. It allows us to see the kiddo.

 

[eskimoinparadise]

This thread on cruise critic has a full week of Adventure Ocean compasses for the 3-11 and 12-14 age groups.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2060369&highlight=adventure+ocean+compass

 

[ldo]

all 3 of mine LOVEd RCCL kids clubs from 3-11 yrs old. They do more structured activities, simple crafts, games, etc. On port days, they were open during port time, and on sea days after breakfast, lunch, dinner. They have an excellent club at coco cay, which my 5 yr olds did not want to leave. Not many older kids went to that one.

 

[drb116]

I know the question was RCCL vs. DCL and I would say that both of my boys (5 and 7) like RCCL and DCL about the same, however hands down NCL has the best kids clubs and it is the only cruise line where our kids actually ask to go and tell us they don't want to leave.

Disney has better rooms to entertain the kids on their own and RCCL has more engaging activities in a space that is basically an empty room. NCL goes for the empty room and engaging activities, but where they win is the staff. They put much more emphasis on getting kid friendly staff and our kids LOVE the staff every time. It is a lot of the little things they do, like learn all the kids names, great activities, and even change their names from something like Katrina to Kit Kat.

Any ship can have good staff and I have seen great staff members on all three cruise lines. NCL is the only one where all the staff is great all the time.

 

[aharbin88]

Thanks for this thread! I have a question to add to it. At time of our travel, my girls will be 7 and 9. We'll be traveling with their cousins, the youngest of which will be 11 at time of travel. Will they let my 7 year old hang in the kids club with the 9 and 11 year olds? I hate for her to be all alone. She may be okay with it, but I'd like for her to have the option, and I like that they can all keep an eye out for each other. Thanks in advance for any insight!

 

[starvenger]

I think if she was almost 9 there wouldn't be an issue, but at 7 they might not allow it. But definitely ask them - nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

[bumbershoot]

When we sailed in January and October they combined 6-8 and 9-11.

On the cruise I'm on though, it's spring break and they are NOT combined.

 

[bumbershoot]

oops double post

 

[short1882]

perfect! I was looking for a comparison post!!

 

[Spart02]

The major differences we found between Disney (all 4 ships) and Royal (Brilliance of the Seas):
1. The hours on the Brilliance were tough to work around and also interfered with when the waterslide was open (very limited amounts of time for the waterslide and only when the children's programming was also going on). For example, the evening show (which stated that it had adult content) started BEFORE the kids areas were open. There were a lot of little issues like that on our Christmas cruise.
2. The kids on the Brilliance all had to be doing the same activity, which was usually a sport-type activity. If your child didn't want to play Gaga ball, they just had to sit and watch. No other activities were available to them, even just playing on the computers or coloring.
3. Our Brilliance cruise seemed to be severely under-staffed compared to the Disney clubs. Usually it was just one adult to about 15 kids with no other staff visible.
4. Disney texts you via the Wave Phones if your child wants picked up. On the Brilliance, there is no form of communication.
5. Not kids club related, but we found the Brilliance to be not very kid-friendly. They were showing R rated movies on the big screen at the pool with people being shot and blood going everywhere. Some of the evening entertainment was not marked as adult content, but very much was. My kids saw WAY more than they should have one night, even with us getting up and leaving immediately when we realized what was going on. I'm not super strict about what my kids see and do, but one that game shows took things WAY too far without proper notice.

We decided that if we ever do a Royal cruise again, we'll do one of the bigger ships that hopefully has more to offer to families. The Brilliance was not a good ship for families, in our eyes. We also said that we would bring our own games or more to keep ourselves occupied, as the Brilliance didn't offer many family activities. We did the Brilliance for Christmas and the Disney Fantasy for Spring Break and they were night and day different. We didn't have time to do all of the Disney activities that we wanted to do and rarely had any down time at all. We love Disney, but with the increasing prices, we were hoping to fall in love with another cruise line. Let's just say we're still looking for love after trying the Brilliance!

 

[61maris61]

Sometimes it depends on when you're cruising. I think Disney will always have a ton of kids for the Kid's Club. Royal sometimes will have very few if you cruise in October, November, January. We did Adventure OTS out of San Juan this past October with our 6 yr old DGD. There were only about twelve kids in her age group, which meant 1). almost individual attention for the staff and 2), the ability to make friends easily.

By the way, she loved both the Disney and Royal clubs.