Freedom for elementary kids on ship?

[hanscarlet]

My mom found a lost child (around 3) in a hotel once. She was crying at the elevators on a room floor, not main floor. She took her downstairs where her mom was and the mom was mad that my mom intervened in her daughter's 'punishment'. Can you imagine punishing a toddler by leaving them on a hotel room floor and not knowing what to do or where to go? Insane!

Wow! That's terrible, 3 years old, that's terrible punishment for any kids, especially a 3 year old, poor kid

 

[FigmentSpark]

If I recall, it was in the hotel in the Mall of the Americas, too. Can you imagine if she'd gotten out and loose in there?

 

[Kriisikka]

Honestly the thing I would be most worried about with a kid in this situation would be a kid getting lost.

In this day and age of smartphones and google maps that is starting to become an obsolete fear.

 

[FLpixie]

I hope it's a true thing, your grandfathering. We were set into an absolute contract with ATT. STarted when we had Cingular, and we were the same same same from 2012 until later 2015.

When their entire plan changed, and if you made any change (including getting a new phone) you were put onto their new plan, and there went the old plan we'd had for so long. Even if you bought a phone outright, once you linked it to your account, the old plan was gone.

We had the same thing with Verizon - grandfathered plan with unlimited data... UNTIL I needed to get a new phone because my older one just couldn't function anymore. No change to the plan from us (just switching out the phone which I purchased at full retail) but the plan immediately changed to a certain amount of GB of data per month.

My 11 yo had in/out privileges on Carnival and will on DCL. Like others, he knows the rules - and he needs to meet up with us for dinner. We had walkie talkies on Carnival but will be using the Wave phones on DCL as he does not have a phone yet. (Although, I am going to experiment and see if I can get my old original Droid to run the app. If so, he can carry that. I think my old Droid Razr Maxx won't hold a charge but I'll check that one too.)

 

[mylittlebuttercup]

Parents know what is best for their own children based on the children's maturity levels. That being said, I think it is important to remember some of the recent news stories about assaults or abuse by crew members on cruise ships. Just because it's Disney doesn't mean bad things can't happen.

Also, like the people who warned about the pools, I would suggest people talk to their kids about rules for the splash area as well. We saw unsupervised kids in there who were not behaving so well--running into toddlers, being careless on the slide, etc.

 

[Ofinn]

We had the same thing with Verizon - grandfathered plan with unlimited data... UNTIL I needed to get a new phone because my older one just couldn't function anymore. No change to the plan from us (just switching out the phone which I purchased at full retail) but the plan immediately changed to a certain amount of GB of data per month.

My 11 yo had in/out privileges on Carnival and will on DCL. Like others, he knows the rules - and he needs to meet up with us for dinner. We had walkie talkies on Carnival but will be using the Wave phones on DCL as he does not have a phone yet. (Although, I am going to experiment and see if I can get my old original Droid to run the app. If so, he can carry that. I think my old Droid Razr Maxx won't hold a charge but I'll check that one too.)

Thats too bad. Sprint has let us keep our plan everytime weve gotten new phones. Weve been with them 11 years. I wont say I haven't had issues with sprint over the years, but I do have the direct line to their escalation dept programmed in my phone.

 

[Jennifer777]

If I recall, it was in the hotel in the Mall of the Americas, too. Can you imagine if she'd gotten out and loose in there?

Scary! The MOA hotel, at least at one time, had a security feature in the elevators so one cannot get up to the room floors without a key to a room on that specific floor. If this child got into an elevator going up to a different floor and this feature was still in place, her mother may not have been able to get to that new floor to find her child without a room key going to that floor. Not sure if the stair wells had this feature as well, but what a dumb way to "teach a lesson".

Parents know what is best for their own children based on the children's maturity levels. That being said, I think it is important to remember some of the recent news stories about assaults or abuse by crew members on cruise ships. Just because it's Disney doesn't mean bad things can't happen.

Also, like the people who warned about the pools, I would suggest people talk to their kids about rules for the splash area as well. We saw unsupervised kids in there who were not behaving so well--running into toddlers, being careless on the slide, etc.

Exactly my concern with allowing my children to roam freely around the ship. Not just because of the potential for a bad crew member but other passengers as well. Child predators seek out places and positions that will give them access to children. While the chances are very small and DCL does a great job with security to the kids clubs and cameras throughout the ship, it's smart to be aware. I let my 12yo go to our room, the kids club or get a smoothie from cove cafe without me but I would always want to know where he was headed on the ship and when he would be back so I would know where to look for him if he didn't return.

I also think we've all had those experiences where children are misbehaving, running up and down the hallways late at night or banging on doors and some of us have even experienced unattended children stealing magnets or FE gifts. No doubt these parents believed their children were well behaved enough to have free reign on the ship so out of courtesy for other passengers, when my kids are old enough to have free reign themselves, they can be sure I will be checking up on them unexpectedly to make sure they aren't being irresponsible or rude.

I don't want to imply that your kids aren't responsible in any way OP, I'm just saying that all parents, even those with angels for children have a responsibility to make sure their kids don't take their newfound liberties and run wild with them as some unfortunately do. ;-)

 

[tlprice]

My daughter was 8 on our first cruise and never asked for check out privileges. It is just the two of us travelling together so there's not really any reason for her to have it. She will be 9 on our next cruise and I'm sure if she wanted check out privileges I would allow her if needed with a lot of restrictions and requirements. We go on vacations to spend time together and enjoy going to the shows, movies, excursions, meals, etc. together. She does like to go to the kids area so I try to schedule some adult activities for myself so she has the balance of that too.
There were some kids on our last cruise that were very rude in the elevators, jumping in front of people that had been waiting for the elevators, running all over, running into people, etc. I agree with the pools too. There were some very rude kids whose parents clearly weren't watching them. They were "controlling" the ladders and wouldn't let kids out of the pool, they were pushing my daughter and saying mean things to her. She didn't want to stay in the pool long. I agree that the pools were quite disappointing. I would certainly tell a first timer not to talk up the pools too much to their kids. The free ice cream on the ship and at Castaway Cay is pretty amazing though!

 

[Ofinn]

My daughter was 8 on our first cruise and never asked for check out privileges. It is just the two of us travelling together so there's not really any reason for her to have it. She will be 9 on our next cruise and I'm sure if she wanted check out privileges I would allow her if needed with a lot of restrictions and requirements. We go on vacations to spend time together and enjoy going to the shows, movies, excursions, meals, etc. together. She does like to go to the kids area so I try to schedule some adult activities for myself so she has the balance of that too.
There were some kids on our last cruise that were very rude in the elevators, jumping in front of people that had been waiting for the elevators, running all over, running into people, etc. I agree with the pools too. There were some very rude kids whose parents clearly weren't watching them. They were "controlling" the ladders and wouldn't let kids out of the pool, they were pushing my daughter and saying mean things to her. She didn't want to stay in the pool long. I agree that the pools were quite disappointing. I would certainly tell a first timer not to talk up the pools too much to their kids. The free ice cream on the ship and at Castaway Cay is pretty amazing though!

It's always so funny to me seeing all the kids and parents in that little pool. Of course I live in a place where everyone has a pool in their backyard, and it's sunny 360 days a year. I'm sure my kids would be super excited to see snow...so I get it, but man that pool is crowded.

 

[SDFgirl]

OP here. I appreciate everyone's input and am glad the thread stayed civilized.

I'm under no impression that my kids are perfect at all times. They're not - but they are *pretty* darn good both at school and at home. Having said that, I would never say "see ya!" to the kids - I know that in a new and exciting situation, they might get a little slap happy.

I would like to give them a "long leash" on the cruise, so to speak. Not a tight leash, but not "no leash." I think we can work out rules that they will stick to and stay safe.

I really appreciate the information about the pool. I had no idea it would be so chaotic but I guess that makes sense. They love to swim, but then again we live so close to the pool that they may want to just do other activities on the ship.

Thanks again!

 

[ILovePixieDust]

I let my 12yo go to our room, the kids club or get a smoothie from cove cafe without me but I would always want to know where he was headed on the ship and when he would be back so I would know where to look for him if he didn't return.

;-)

Sorry off topic, but I thought Cove Cafe was adult only?

 

[Jennifer777]

Sorry off topic, but I thought Cove Cafe was adult only?

My mistake. I think the one I was referring to is actually called Vista Cafe? It's on deck four of the Fantasy overlooking the atrium.

 

[kamik86]

In this day and age of smartphones and google maps that is starting to become an obsolete fear.

My parents can't read maps (physical or on their phone) my husband doesn't do great with any map that doesn't have landmarks. (Disney maps he has no problem at all. Give him a google maps version with just streets and he will go in the wrong direction more then 50% of the time). So unless my (hypothetical since I don't have any) kids took after me for being able to read a map... they could get lost.

Also from my house if you head up a short walk you get to a state park for the mountain. Now this mountain is small compared to those out west but its part of the appalachian trail and has a bunch of camp grounds, different paths etc. I believe with the cell phone tower the whole mountain has service (well at least as long as your cell phone is AT&T, verizon covers most of it, if you moved with sprint or t mobile... yeah cell phone isn't helpful) but you could still get lost in those paths. Now this isn't going to be a disaster since an app to find the GPS location would allow them to be found, but still not a great experience.

 

[Mousemommy1]

We just got off of our 1st cruise on Friday. Our older girls were 11 and 9 at the time of the cruise. We also have a 15 month old DS. On our sea day, the girls were having a blast on the Aquaduck, but DS needed to go down for a nap (and mommy and daddy too, lol). So, we let them stay on Deck 11 to ride the Aquaduck and told them to be back to our room in 2 hours. They were able to ride the Aquaduck 3 times apparently and made their way back just fine.

 

[Californiacruizers]

I allowed my son who was 12 at the time to have sign-in and sign-out privillages on our NCL cruise last year. For the most part he is very responsible. He is not allowed to go into anyone's stateroom or any other non-public part of a ship, nor any shops alone. I allowed him to go to the buffet alone and to get self serve ice cream as ofter as he liked. He would also go up to the basket ball court on his own. I will most likely do the same on our upcoming DCL cruise. The only issue I had with him was using his room key to pay for arcade games. I suspended it after day one lol. I suggest you do what you are comfortable with.