I'm sorry to hear it didn't go so well for you dd. We did fine on our cruise in May, though my kids didn't want to spend as much time in the clubs as we had thought that they would. My ds(8) was also discouraged about the dodgeball thing. Are there kids out there who actually LIKE dodgeball? I always thought it was our PE teacher's way of torturing us!
Whenever there was any mention of dodgeball, my ds couldn't page us fast enough!!!
I'm glad it didn't ruin your cruise experience!
Karen
I'm sure there are kids out there that enjoy dodgeball- but our kids aren't them! We had the same experience on both our cruises- the minute they even mentioned they were about to go to dodgeball on deck 10- pager going off for us to come get them (atleast after the very first time... so atleast they did try it the FIRST time and decided that was not for them!). LOL
We basically got where if it was on the navigator- we planned to either not take our kids at that time or planned to go get them!
Personally- I think the 8-9 yr olds together (like the first cruise) worked better. Our son was 8 on the first cruise and had a blast. This time at almost 11yrs old he was bored, felt the things they did were childish/etc.
Our just turned 8yr old on the other hand was in the OC for a week, started growing bored in that age group so we tried her in the lab but that only lasted one day. A WORLD of difference (in size, maturity, things they like to do, etc.) between a barely turned 8yr old and kids up to age almost 11! I can't even imagine what her playing dodgeball with kids that age would have been like! She quickly realized she'd rather be back in the OC even though it was starting to bore her and she started not wanting to do the activities she'd done before... she was in the "in between" age that I don't think she would have been had the age group been 8-9 like it was previously.
Personally I think the age groupings were better before- 8/9 and 10-12 and that was with the 10-12 age group you could CHOOSE if they had sign out privileges! This time it was 11-13yr olds that could all sign themselves in/out and we have heard a lot about how well (not) that worked out on deck 2 and around the ship. Even with us our son almost 11 did try the OQ but we soon put him back in the lab after the first time he didn't follow OUR rules (which were to page us if he was leaving the OQ for any reason- first time he didn't, back to the lab he went because that was the only way we knew he couldn't leave without paging us, since here we could say no sign out privileges. I wasn't about to have my son add to the number of children wandering the ship unsupervised.)
Personally? I think the OC age groupings are fine, that the lab should go back to the 8-9 group and 10-12 group (or perhaps even 10-11 instead) and that the OQ could be for 13/14yr olds (or 12-14 if the lab age group was 10/11) and that would solve all sorts of issues
(1. you could have your 11 or perhaps even 12yr old unable to sign themselves out if you wanted.
2. the age groupings would have kids CLOSER in age instead of wide age groups where kids can be so different from one end of the age grouping to the other... activities could be more geared towards more specific age groups, kids won't feel either they are too little or feeling they are too old and everything is "babyish" - and you wouldn't have kids almost 14 with kids barely turned 11... such a world of difference between those ages too! just like between those barely turned 8 and those almost 11...activities geared towards more specific age groups instead of a wider RANGE of ages would keep more kids interested. I remember thinking when Christian mentioned keepin the kids in the clubs- that should have been a big sign to
DCL that they weren't keeping the kids interested enough to keep them there!
3. would make the stack age grouping closer also- keeping the 14yr olds out of the group with kids almost 18yrs old.)
And personally I agree with the person that said the stack was primarily a hang out place or meeting place... make/meet friends and then basically spend the day either hanging in the stack or all around the ship. (They did have great activities late at night like 11pm -2 or 2:30am though... which kept me waiting up for teen, not much for adults to do that late)
With that said- even though our kids did not have as good a time in the club/lab as they did on the first cruise and spent less time there- the counselors only "slightly" felt like babysitters this time but I figured it was because there were so many more kids? Atleast I thought there were more on the EB. Our kids personally fell in love with many counselors and miss them very much... they don't talk about missing the club, the lab, or it's activities-but they do talk about missing some counselors. KWIM?
but so that I know I'm not way out of line by mentioning it.
