Help w/ crusing Disney cruises vs. other cruise companies with teens

[ctc917]

The last time our family was on a Disney Cruise my DS was young and now that he is 15 I'm wondering if he will find things to keep himself busy on a Disney Cruise and I was hoping I could get some experiences from people on what their teens did on DCL? did they like or love the teen club? did they find enough to keep themselves busy on sea days?

I was also wondering if anyone had Teens that went on a Disney cruise and then another cruise line and which did they like better? and why? Which cruise line was it?

If your teen only cruised on a line other then DCL as a teen can you tell me which line that was and what did they like? dislike? Teen Club? How did they keep them selves busy on Sea Days?

Thanks
ctc917

 

[aggiedog]

We've done 2 DCL cruises and one MSC with teen girls. The MSC cruise was port intensive and my kids really had no time, or inclination, to try the club.

For DCL, it was a mixed bag. I think a very lot depends on the personality of your child. Of my 3 teens, one is an introvert and is perfectly happy alone with her Nintendo DS or Switch. One teen dd is more extroverted but has little patience with girl drama or superficial "what's popular now" sorts of conversations. Youngest teen dd loves to game, and particular loves beating others. Of the the 3, the youngest enjoyed the club the most, solely due to playing Wii and Xbox and whooping up on the teen boys. Middle dd found a like minded friend the first day on one cruise and hung out with her in and out of the club. Introvert dd was fine hanging out with them, but the draw was not the club itself. That said, they were out and about every night until midnight. The second cruise, she came back saying the club was full of "Kendra Scott girls" - her term for people more interested in superficial "what's popular" things I guess. She didn't go back, so neither did her sister. Youngest dd repeated her gaming streak.

As a family, we played trivia and bingo during sea days.

On our MSC cruise, they did make a few much younger "friends" in the evening while hanging out in the concierge lounge playing dd's Switch. They spoke limited English, but understood MarioCart well enough.

 

[Travel60]

We cruised DCL with our teens at 11 & 14, 13 & 16, 15 & 18. They LOVED the teen club. First cruise, it was only daughter (son in younger group), last two cruises they hung out together with other teens that they still keep in touch with. Both are smart and relatively outgoing but not "in-your-face" outgoing. They are adults now and still enjoy DCL.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

Our teen is not into kids clubs on any line, but he prefers other lines to dcl because there is more to do on other ships. Also there is more food variety and availability on other ships. His favorite so far is Carnival-- they have a very upbeat hip vibe. He has also been on NCL which he also likes more than dcl. I have a feeling he would love the big royal ships, but we haven't gotten there yet (on the agenda). Our younger kids prefer Carnival's kid clubs to dcl's. And they have been on more dcl than Carnival cruises.

 

[dcassetta]

Older teen nephews have sailed Disney and RCCL. They said they preferred the teen spaces on Disney, but thought some of the activities on RCCL were more fun, especially the wave rider.

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

My teens rarely do the clubs but enjoy the physical activities on Royal and the newer Carnival ships more. Saying that, they’ve never been at a loss of things to do on a Disney ship. There is always something going on.

 

[KashasMom]

It really depends on your child. You're paying a premium for Disney's clubs. My daughter doesn't go in the clubs and started to want "more" to do when she hit 7 1/2-8. Disney pools are lacking (very small and really only one pool) so that was another issue for her. We like RCI's Oasis class ships. More "active" things to do and lots of pools. If your son will go in the clubs, he'll be fine. If not, I suggest taking a look at some Personal Navigators to see what kinds of things are there for him to do.

 

[FigmentSpark]

My kids loved the DCL clubs... so much so that it felt like DH and I were cruising alone, except for dinner and bedtime. They're both bummed out that we can only afford WDW this year instead of a cruise and it's the clubs that make the difference. My older son, in fact, has no interest in any other cruise line, as he likes the ambiance of the DCL ships and the Vibe. The younger one loved gaming with other kids in the Edge. Next year, when we'll go again, he will have graduated to the Vibe, which disappoints him, as he loved the Edge.

 

[owensamo]

My teen daughter loved the clubs when she was younger. We've been on 2 Celebrity and 1 DCL cruise since she became a teenager. While she still loved the DCL cruise, and probably interacted with the club and other teens more there than on Celebrity, she still spent some time missing Celebrity. I think she enjoyed the down-time on the Celebrity cruise - on DCL there's always something going on that we feel we're missing out on. On Celebrity we felt fine just finding a quite nook in the library to read for a couple of hours. She also liked that she could go to the specialty restaurants with us for dinner. Finally, we all really enjoyed spending our evenings in the Sky lounge, watching the scenery and the karaoke/trivia/dancing/etc. that was held there.

We love DCL for the magic and the service, but we do find it difficult to relax. We are still sailing DCL - we will be on the WBPC in February, and are looking forward to trying to relax on all the sea days - but will also continue to sail Celebrity, and potentially other cruise lines, depending on the available itineraries and ships. We never lack for things to do on DCL, which in some ways is why we are fine with sailing other lines as well.

 

[iivye]

My daughter loves the clubs on DCL and spends the majority of her vacation time there. She has went on 6 Disney cruises and been in the clubs from age 9 - 14. If you look at the DCL Navigators you can see what kind of entertainment there is for the older kids. Honestly my kid is one who likes to just sit and talk to other kids so I'm not even sure how important the programming is to her.

We did one NCL cruise on the Norwegian Pearl when she was 14 and she did not like the clubs there. If we would have been on a bigger ship she might have liked it better but for now her favorite is still DCL.

If you decide to go on DCL I'm sure your teen will have plenty to do if they enjoy social interaction with other teens but I think they could also have just as much fun on another cruise line.

 

[cruiser21]

My kids are club junkies. Hands down DCL for the clubs.

 

[aggiedog]

I do think there is a difference between Edge and Vibe. Could just be the age ranges they serve.

 

[darnheather]

Mine have only ever done Disney but my now 17 year old chose the Panama Canal cruise as her graduation present so that she would still be 17 and able to go to the Vibe. She loves it. She made friends on her first cruise 2.5 years ago that she still talks to on a regular basis. She cries so hard on the last day because she has to leave new friends behind. And since I homeschool I don't mind not seeing her (except for dinner) for the duration of the cruise!

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

My teen-aged sons and my teen-aged Nieces loved Vibe but they did have the built-in advantage of having each other so even if they hadn't made friends there, they could still enjoyed it.

They enjoyed many of the games/activities, like Gender-Wars (some sort of boy girl competition), Zombified (they made a Zombie movie at various times during the week and then saw the finished product the final night), and Gotcha (a sort of tag game played all over the ship where someone is trying to tag you, but you don't know who, and you have a target person you need to find and tag). They would go there every evening after seeing the show with us and stay out as late as we'd let them. They also enjoyed many other ship activities (trivia, games, sports deck, etc.) They also spent a fair amount of time with us, which we enjoyed.

 

[gotomu212]

We've had mixed reactions with teen nieces- some is personality, some is luck of the ship.

One time both LOVED vibe had made friends and wanted to hang there 24/7. A second time they didn’t have a great time and didn’t want to hang with “friends”. I think it just had to do with who the other kids were and you can’t control for that.

One niece loves to relax and go with the flow so for her Disney is great (at 17 she still loves the characters, shows, and movies too so that helps). The other one is active and she doesn’t like the lack of physical activities on DCL. A 16 year old in the mickey or Donald pool isn’t ideal and she missed ropes courses, wave generators, ice rinks that she found on other lines. Both also found food lacking later at night (pizza was the only option after dinner and they couldn’t do room service because mom and dad were in bed and didn’t want food and kids in the room). On other lines they said kids could hang and snack better.

They cruise a ton so it’s hard for them knowing what else is out there.

 

[kylaura]

My 14 year old loved the Vibe and and itching to go back every year. I wonder if she'll still like it at 17 with a bunch of 14 year olds around? She really enjoyed the Castaway Cay teen excursion, went on a speed boat, snorkeled and biked together. We're going on a Thanksgiving cruise and someone has set up a Vibe chat for them. They are already talking and planning, which is great. I've always gotten her a pen pan on the Facebook group so she'll have someone to look for in the club.

 

[Donna M]

My son was 17 when he went on his first cruise, Disney. A year later he went on the Oasis with a friend's family. He said he liked Disney better. He's deployed right now so I can't get any more info.