Leaving a child in Oceaneer's during an excursion

Side note: she will be a week from her 4th bday and goes to daycare/preschool 3 days a week from 8:30-5:30, so she’s used to being away in a group setting.​

FYI, the club is VERY different from preschool.
In preschool, they have a group of friends who they know and teachers who they know and who know them. Its a true group setting. The club is a free for all with lots of activities and staff around, but they don't have "an assigned group of friends" like a preschool class.

And another aside, is she potty trained, or is she potty independent?

In the clubs, they have to go and do the whole thing all by themselves. Using the potty, wiping, pulling pants back up, washing hands, etc.
Cast members will not/cannot help with any of that.


We meant to leave our boys in the club while we did an excursion. Little one got pink eye, so we cancelled excursion.

That being said, we were going to do a Disney one, that worked better for our comfort level.

But honestly, our potty trained 3.5 year old was not independent enough to stay in the club all day anyway. He happily managed an hour or two here and there.

He did spent a full afternoon in the nursery one day. A nice long nap followed by coloring and playtime. He was fine with that. (And since he has an older brother he self-identifies as a big kid, but he was still okay in the nursery.)

Thanks this info was really helpful. I have one of those self-identifying as a big kid 3 year olds. She has 3 teenagers as siblings, so it's interesting at times :-)
 
Yes, I know. Both from the podcast and from the HAL crew member who had been on a ship that had people stranded.

We took a glacier walk tour WAY back in 1994 on Mendenhall. My sisters and I, no parents (my older sister was 17). We saw the tents when we landed and asked "what are those for?" The guide said "Maybe for you, if we get stuck up here due to fog." We thought he was joking. He wasn't. Watching the helicopter fly away was sobering. It was already a very cloudy, foggy day up there.
 
I think it’s about personal choice in raising a child and your comfort level in leaving a young child with possible food issue, bathroom issue in the care of a young adult/s that have no way to reach you off the ship..in addition to the myriad of other potential issues ( injury, sickness, delays of a non fleet excursion etc etc)
Since you asked.. nope, I’d never do it. Too many potential risks , imho they Outweigh any benefit.
Whatever you decide, best of luck n happy sailing!
 
Kids can go to the nursery if they are 3 or younger. I have heard that if the nursery isn't too crowded, the staff may take "older" kids to the Club to hang out for a little while. On her first cruise, my daughter turned 3 but wasn't fully potty trained. We checked her into the nursery while my husband and I were at Palo, and the staff took great care of her. I had the sense they appreciated playing with someone who could actually carry on a lengthy conversation. I would feel much more comfortable leaving a 3-year-old for most of the day in the nursery, with a much smaller staff-to-child ratio, than in the Club/Lab for that long a period of time.

If you have a cell phone, even if you're not sure you'll have cell service, it wouldn't hurt to provide your phone number to the kids' program staff. You should certainly make sure the staff know that you will be off the ship, so they don't waste time trying to locate you on-board if there is a crisis.
 


I would never do it but I have heard of people doing this. 3 is way too young imo but whatevs... they can only be in the nursery at 3, not at 4 and it's for periods of time, not sure if the nursery will take her for the entire day. If she's in daycare and regularly away from you for 6 hours then I suppose it would be ok but there's no structure there like there is in daycare, it's a lot for a 3 year old to be in the club that long.
 
Your best bet is the nursery. You can and should make reservations now.

They will give her a higher level of care than she would get at the club yet still make sure she has plenty of fun.

Said from the parent of a now 5 year old who self identifies as 10.
 
On our first cruise our youngest turned three 2 days before boarding. We put her and our two older kids in the club and checked on them regularly. It was great.
However, on the night my wife and I were booked at Palo we delivered the kids to the club and our youngest just melted down - I mean insane. We felt we couldn’t leave her like that - not fair to her or the staff. But the CMs insisted they had it under control and that we should go. We finally relented and said ok but they were to call us if the meltdown didn’t end. I remember the wavephone on the table between us and expecting it to ring all through dinner. It never did and when we picked up the kids she was asleep in one of the CMs arms. It was just fine and we were more than impressed by the staff.

That said, I can’t imagine us going on a long excursion and leaving one of our kids in the club at that age. We just wouldn’t be comfortable doing it. Heck, our kids are 13, 11, and 9 now and it just occurred to me that if one of them asked to stay on board while we go do an excursion on our upcoming Alaska this summer I would still be hesitant. Not because I think my kids aren’t going to be ok, but because I would see too many scenarios where we didn’t get back to ship and the family might get separated. But that’s probably just me.
 


We left our baby in the nursery for an excursion without problem. We did take a cell phone and when checking her in we left the number and tour information.

We also left our son before when he was around 5-7...same deal made sure to tell them we were off the ship and gave a number. When our son was in the Club they did tell us that they did encourage kids with parents off the ship to eat during lunch more than they normally do.

If heaven forbid your daughter did have an accident they would deal with it (they’d get supervisors help, but there is a process in place just in case- they will not make her just sit there)
 
Thanks again everyone. So glad to know about the nursery option. We are within our booking window, and she will just squeak in age wise to the nursery....by like a week. Phew. So glad to know that's an option for 3 year olds. She is all set / reserved for the nursery as of earlier today.
I think you made a great decision--it's what I would do if I were in your place. Glad you were able to book it for her--she should be well taken care of while you're off the ship.
 
Our youngest will be almost 3 when we go to Alaska. We’re taking him on all of our excursions including the glacier one which I hope to book through Disney. I would love to do the Glacier Explorer trip in Skagway and would be willing to bring my own life vest if that would make it acceptable to them for him to ride in the canoe (that’s why they have a 50 pound minimum, their vests are too big). Since it likely won’t, we might opt for the gentle river float trip in Skagway instead. I would never leave either DS onboard without a family member for an excursion, would rather split up and let my DH and I take turns going instead. Too much risk for my comfort level.
 
For peace of mind's sake with your 3 year old the nursery is the best choice. Our DS was 3.5 on our last cruise and we stuck him in the nursery when me and his sister (5) went to the Royal Court Tea. I wasn't comfortable leaving him in the kids club without his sister around. When we picked him up a few hours later he was having a blast.
 
Disney is hard limit on age for excursions. Very hard.
That's true, but if you book independently you'll find that sometimes the same exact tours have lower age restrictions or that their restrictions are based on height and/or weight and not age, plus they are cheaper if not booked through Disney. Like I said, we won't be booking the Skagway Glacier Explorer Tour because of the weight restriction. I would rather my child get to explore Alaska even if it means doing a less exciting tour for me, rather than having him be stuck in the nursery all day. But I do plan on using the nursery for Palo.
 
One thing you should consider is that she may not be willing to go/stay in Oceaneer's at all.

We took a cruise when my oldest was 3.5 and despite having been attending daycare since she was a year she just would not stay at Oceaneer's. We had to leave Palo after 45 minutes as a result (huge bummer). She just wasn't ready. There is no way to know if she's going to be okay until you get there and try and even if she goes in one day, there's no telling whether or not the next day will be okay.

Oceaneer's is very different from daycare/preschool. For one thing there's a big age range of kids and the little ones can find it really overwhelming. For another, unlike at daycare, if a child says they want to leave, the CM will call the parents to pick them up. They're not going to force a kid to stay.
 
Very good point by Otten. We've done 4 cruises so far and have been lucky that my dd has never had a problem going to the club. On our first cruise she was 6 yrs old and she had cousins going to the club with her. But on all of our cruises I've seen parents with little ones(3-4 yrs old) outside of the club trying to get their kids to go into the club. On our last cruise my dh went into the club to get our dd. I was waiting for them when he came out by himself and said she didn't want to leave. Another mom was there with her 4 yr old dd and said we were lucky, she said her dd keeps refusing to go to the club and her and her dh hadn't been able to do anything on the ship by themselves.

I see you're going to take her to the nursery and not the club, so hopefully there won't be any problems.
 
Thanks again everyone. So glad to know about the nursery option. We are within our booking window, and she will just squeak in age wise to the nursery....by like a week. Phew. So glad to know that's an option for 3 year olds. She is all set / reserved for the nursery as of earlier today.
Just FYI, maybe it's changed but we were NOT able to book the nursery online for our three year old. We got an error that she was too old. It's possible we would have been able to book her on board or if we called but we couldn't do it online.
 
On our first cruise our youngest turned three 2 days before boarding. We put her and our two older kids in the club and checked on them regularly. It was great.
However, on the night my wife and I were booked at Palo we delivered the kids to the club and our youngest just melted down - I mean insane. We felt we couldn’t leave her like that - not fair to her or the staff. But the CMs insisted they had it under control and that we should go. We finally relented and said ok but they were to call us if the meltdown didn’t end. I remember the wavephone on the table between us and expecting it to ring all through dinner. It never did and when we picked up the kids she was asleep in one of the CMs arms. It was just fine and we were more than impressed by the staff.

That said, I can’t imagine us going on a long excursion and leaving one of our kids in the club at that age. We just wouldn’t be comfortable doing it. Heck, our kids are 13, 11, and 9 now and it just occurred to me that if one of them asked to stay on board while we go do an excursion on our upcoming Alaska this summer I would still be hesitant. Not because I think my kids aren’t going to be ok, but because I would see too many scenarios where we didn’t get back to ship and the family might get separated. But that’s probably just me.

It's not just you; my kids are currently 9 & 7 and we would not leave them on the ship while we did excursions. We went to Alaska last August and as a family, decided on which excursions we all wanted to do. My youngest was 6 at the time so this meant there were a LOT she could not do. It was still super fun. My husband I are going to Alaska again in 2019, this time kid free and will choose different excursions without having to worry about age restrictions.

I know in the majority of cases, leaving your kids onboard in the clubs will be just fine but yeah.....I won't do it.
 
Our daughter was almost 4 on our first cruise and she actually insisted on being left in the kids club and would throw tantrums when we came to take her out. Now she has been going to full time day care since she was 6 weeks old so she is very independent and that probably has something to do with it.

We took her on our first excursion and she was so miserable on it that we ended up leaving her on the ship for the rest of our excursions. The staff took our number so they could call us if needed. I think all kids are going to react differently to the experience but if your kid loves it you shouldn’t feel bad about leaving.
 
I seem to be the outlier here... we left our 3.5 year old in the club and our 18 month old in the nursery a couple of years ago while we were on a DCL scuba diving excursion in Nassau. Everything went fine, both kids had a great time. I would think twice if there was a chance of not making it back to the ship though (unlikely for scuba diving, barring a total catastrophe). My thought process was if I could trust leaving my kids at preschool/daycare, surely Disney’s secure childcare options were as safe/safer. Just my two cents.
 

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