Kids Clubs

[coinkc]

I have read bits and pieces about people having to rush straight to the kids clubs to sign their kids up. Are there a limited number of spots available each day? I am asking because there is a chance that my daughter and I will get to take our first cruise in December. I'm sure she will want to do some of the activities but we probably won't know until each days schedule comes out. Is this something we have to plan out before the trip?

 

[faireygod mother]

They do have a ratio criteria. You can register her in the terminal now. We have never had a problem with getting the girls in either the club or the lab. I have only read of an isolated incident when that happened and if my memory serves correctly it was extenuating circumstances.

 

[Aced1]

How do you register the children for club or lab time before the cruise date?

 

[dcandmc]

My understanding is that you can't register for the club/lab before the day the cruise departs; the soonest that you can sign up is in the terminal when you're waiting to board. I was also under the impression that every kid is guaranteed a spot in the club/lab based on the child's age; this is why DCL limits the number of overall reservations for children of club/lab age. When to register for the club/lab then becomes only a matter of personal preference and convenience.

 

[lbgraves]

DCL only allows the number of children who can be in the club & lab to book, so every child onboard can register for the clubs. I like to go to the club right after lunch to register the kids. There are no lines & you can get the pager, nametags, & wristbands within 10-15 minutes.

 

[tkd lisa]

I've posted this before, so ignore if you've already read it.

If your children are young, it pays to get them registered early, because then you get your pager. Our first cruise, we didn't get to the lab to register our kids early (DD had just turned 9). DH took them to the pool while I unpacked. Just before the lifeboat drill, DD got separated from DH. While the drill is going on, all services are closed. No one could help us find DD. She was separated from us for probably 45 minutes and we had no clue where she was. They had taken her to the kid's counselors, and once the drill was over, they looked us up in the computer and brought her to our room. If she had been registered, they could have paged us with her location, and even if we couldn't have gotten her, we would have known she was safe.

Especially now that you can register in the terminal, I'd strongly suggest doing it just for the peace of mind.

 

[Lizardbeth61]

. . . for individual activities. I think we may all have missed this part of coinkc's post. Yes, register in the terminal for using the kids club. However, you can sign her in and out as often as you wish, whenever she wants to be there or leave there. So, in short, she only needs to know aobut the activities so she doesn't forget to get to the club in order to participate.

When you register, you're signing her in as a participant for the cruise, but she may only go once and never again . . . or be like our two who beg us to stay up late so they don't have to leave!!! Our kids have a blast. We had to beg them to eat dinner with us!!! The counselors keep them under control, but they are definitely spoiled by the staff in terms of running wild . . . safely!

 

[lazarru]

ok now I'm confused. I had also thought that the register was so that they could use the club and in each time period on a certain number of kids could use it. But from this last post, anyone can use it anytime? Registering is just so you know what's going to be going on? Can someone confirm that. Would seem to make things alot easier that way, you can decide more on the fly what you want to do.

Also, on sea days. how crowded is the club? We have a 5 & 3 yr old. Is it so packed that they only get like 5 min out of an hour to actually do something?

 

[Lizardbeth61]

. . . then sign them in and out at will . . . on the fly. You do have to sign them in and out until their at least 8. At 8, they can sign in and out on their own, but that's another whole topic (For the record, we still have them page us when our 8 or 11 year old want to leave!).

Anyway, you can sign in and out whenever you want to with a few exceptions . . .like when they're "transitioning" from one location to another or during a movie.

A typical schedule for us is to sign in after we've done a family outing when in port. Perhaps later they'll want to go for a swim and so they come out because the club DOES NOT take them in the water. Then later they may want to have dinner with us . . . then again, maybe not because they can eat with the club and often prefer to. After dinner they usually want to go back to the club for evening activities with a break for the show perhaps.

Our biggest problem is that just as you get one in, the other wants to come out so I sometimes feel like we're constantly signing in and out and despite the fact that they love the club and are in it a lot, we still have little couple time. No problem though. It's pure pleasure seeing how much they're enjoying themselves. I guess we could say you're in for a certain period of time, but they're in different groups so that's tough on them if they don't like the particular activity and we are there to be a family.

Anyway, days at sea . . . yes it's more crowded, but I've never seen it a problem. Sea days are more difficult to get into the Mickey Pool!

Hope that helps. I'll be happy to answer any other questions. We've been on 6 Disney Cruises because it's a wonderful Cruise line and our kids LOVE IT!!!

 

[princesspumpkin]

Registering the kids puts them into the system, gives them their id bands and gives you a pager. People say to do this early only because later on, the lines are longer to do this. Plus, people suggest doing it the first day so that your child can visit the club/lab the first night and start making friends (and not feel so left out if they actually start the next day). To my knowledge, they don't limit each planned activity to a certain number of kids. Activities are planned every hour and a half or so. You can pick which activity you want your child to do and drop them off at that specific time. You may find 8 kids there, you may find 20. But there are always enough CM's. When DD-6 went two years ago, whenever we dropped her off, there were usually around 15-20 other 5-7 year olds with about 3 or 4 CM's there at any given time. The evenings were the most crowded, but we were never turned away.

 

[DrCavin]

You can now register your child in the terminal before boarding or once you have boarded. You have to have your child registered before they can enter the club/lab. It was pretty crowded the first night due to some parents signing up their kids & dropping off kids. After that there was never much of a line to check-in/out/

I have read one person saying they could not check their child into the club/lab, because they were filled at that particular time only, was not the entire day or anything. Not sure if it was due to a lack of CM's to watch to kids or if they reached some maximum for the club/lab. CM_Mom could probably tell us the circumstances under which this can occur. Her daughter works in the club/lab. It is true Disney only allows some many children in the different age groups to be booked on the cruise to prevent children from not being able to be checked-in.

 

[CM_Mom]

The club and lab have specific counselor to kid ratios they must maintain. I think it's 1-15 for the little ones and 1-25 for the older ones. They also have a maximum occupancy - just like any other public space on the ship or anywhere else.

The club or lab not having room for kids to participate is one of the things you can scratch off your worry list. I think I've only read about it happening once in the last year.

If you remember, when you booked your cruise, you had to list the ages of your kids. That enables DCL to limit the number of kids in each age group so everyone has a Magical or Wonderful experience.

 

[shel985]

Ok I understand the registering and signing out parts but I am interested in knowing if it is possible to bump a child who just turned 13 down to Oceaneer lab for the 10-12 yr olds? I know they say they can drop a level but do u know if that applies to the so called "teens"?

 

[tkd lisa]

shel, yes you can do this. I know several kids on the 10 day Christmas cruise who did this, once they saw the teen crowd.

I do know that the sometimes move counselors among the age groups, whenever one group or another gets close to the limit. So in a very rare occasion, if your age group is maxed out at the counselor ratio, and they haven't got a counselor to "float" over to that group, it is possible that they might not be able to join the activity. But I've only heard of it once (same time CM_mom mentioned), and I've been posting regularly on this board for nearly 3 years now.

 

[momof4aj]

CoinKC,
Just my two cents but with three kids all in different age groups in the kids clubs I strongly suggest you bring a highlighter! When we signed the kids up the first day, they gave us a "Navigator" for each age range for the entire trip. We just went through each day after getting our Navigator and decided what looked like something each of them wanted to do and what activities we wanted to do as a family. The highlighter really helped me keep track of who was where, especially when the clubs were going to different areas of the ships for activities! Also, sign up early--we didn't and had to wait in line the first night before the kids could go to the clubs.

 

[reineeos]

Get tip on the highlighters!
Dawn

 

[cristit14]

Just another FYI... When you get pager and armbands make sure the phone # on them are the same. There was a typo on DD armband and we didn't notice it. The first night she had been paging us to come and get her and we never got the page. She was fine, but I think if this had happened with DS he might have been a little more upset about it.

Also, it is a good idea to let the kids go the first night to the welcome aboard party. They get to meet lots of kids and start making friends. That was DDs favorite part of the club.

 

[crisi]

You'll need a password, too, when you pick them up from the club. Might be something to think about now so you (and 90% of the other parents) don't use "Mickey." Won't take a moment to agree with your spouse to use the dogs name, or your maiden name. But you'll blank those things when they say "and what will your password be."

With two or three or four navigators (one for the adults - one for each age group in the kids club), highlighters are great, or you may want to carry a small notebook where you can "calendar" the day's highlights. We found tracking three navigators to be difficult - even with highlighters