To answer some of the questions:
The age group breakdown is: 3-5, 6-8, 9-11, and then the teen program is 12-14 and 15-17.
The hours vary depending on the day, but typically port days the club is open from docking in the am till 5:00pm, and then from 7:00 pm - 10:00pm.
From 10pm -1am there is a $5.00/hr charge per child charged by the 1/2 hour
On sea days the club has a morning session from 9:00am - 11:30am and then from 1:00 pm -5:00 pm, and then evening from 7pm-10pm and then charged from 10pm-1am
On formal nights they do have a signup to take them to Johnny Rockets, but I don't know anything about that because our children dine with us every night.
As far as my kids liking it:
They LOVED IT! They loved their trip on
DCL, but didn't use the clubs as much as I thought they would. The boys who were 5 & 7 at the time went every evening after dinner, but my then 9 year old would go for a specific activity, then leave, not hang out. They also only went 1 time during the day.
On this last trip I couldn't drag them out of the clubs! My husband and I had so much alone time it was bizarre. I think the biggest difference was the smaller group size. There were 800 kids under 18 onboard the Magic when we sailed (First week of Feb, which is NOT a school break week). There were 300 kids under 18 (with many of them teenagers) on the Explorer, (and it WAS a break week for most of Michigan and some other parts of the Northeast). There was never more than 20 or so kids in their club at any one time. They got very personalized service.
Also, the 5-7 and the 9-11 were together on activities occasionally which was nice for my boys.
Favorite activities:
My 7 year old loved pirate night, they dressed all the 3-5 an 6-8 year olds as pirates, painted their faces with beards, mustaches and eye patches etc, they fabric colored bandanas that they wore and learned all kinds of Pirate lingo, then they took them around the ship to "Take over the ship", they went to the royal promenade and did their little routine, the councelor had a megaphone and would say the first thing (and the kids would respond, I don't remember and of the things they said other than at the end, the councelor said and this was sponsored by the letter and all the kids yelled out "ARRR", that type of thing. They went to the late seating of the dinning room and did it for everyone in the dining room, they looked so cute all lined up on the stairway of the dinning room, then they took them all to the centrum and had them sit on the steps and they had the ship photographer take a group picture with the Adventure ocean boarder, which of course I had to buy.
The 6-8 year olds also had the cruz comics (a group of roving entertainers from the ship) teach the kids some circus stuff and they performed a circus on the royal promenade. It was VERY cute, my son was a clown.
The 9-11 year olds did more game type stuff, they had survivor night where they made tribes and had different competitions, they had a sports night on the sports deck where they played all kinds of different games, and then they played this game called gagaball, which is like dodge ball but rolling the ball instead. I never heard of it, but my boys loved it, on their adventure ocean survey they said it was the best thing. They also had a room with play stations and computers.
With the smaller size the kids got to know all the councelors (there were 10 of them) and they got to know my boys by name. Even though they were in different groups, the rooms were right next door and the councelors knew that they were brothers.
On DCL I felt it was so crowded in comparison, we had to stand in line to pick up or sign in the kids, sometimes over 20 minutes, they also moved around the ship so much that there were so many times you couldn't pick up or sign in, which felt restricting. I never had to stand in line to sign my kids in once on
RCCL.
At the end of the week we asked our kids which cruiseline they wanted to sail again and all 3 said RCCL, they liked it that much more.
And in answer to the question did we feel like we missed anything, no, we go to WDW at least every other year, sometimes more, so we didn't feel like we needed to see disney characters on a ship. I feel the service on both lines is very comperable, and I find there is so much more to do for Adults and kids on RCCL. The only thing that is missing is shows for the whole family. Since my kids insisted on going to the clubs right after dinner every single night, that wasn't a problem. The ice show that we all saw together was at 5:00 pm before early dinner, so that was the only show they saw.
We booked our cruise through cruisequick.com, which does not really offer much service, but did offer great prices. (I am a cruise fanatic, so I don't need a TA to help me with anything). Go to any
travel agent they specializes in cruises and they can help you book a cruise.
If anybody has any more questions, just fire away!
