Oceaneer's Club/Lab - Kids programs general

[Kevin Liu]

We are experienced cruisers on RCI, and first-time DCL cruisers. We have three kids aged 6, 3, and 3.

We are planning on taking a 7 night cruise on the Disney Fantasy next summer; have been doing some research and have noticed some negative sentiment towards the kids programs on DCL. The major complaints seem to center around 1) all kids aged 3-11 grouped as one, which is concerning to parents with kids in the lower age range 2) little emphasis on programming, with some describing the club as glorified babysitting and 3) tied to 2), the overall disengagement of the staff/counselors in these areas.

I know with reviews, it's usually the negative ones that stand out and usually make up the minority, so I wanted to get the feedback of those on this board who've had their own experiences with kids around the same age as mine.

 

[Chemist]

My boys (5 and 10) definitely enjoy it more when they go for a "program".
My older one really enjoyed the drawing classes. Anyone can cook is silly fun, they enjoyed that. (It was NOT a cooking class.)
The ones with "professor make a mess", were also a hit.

If they were there when there wasn't much programming they ended up playing video games or watching a movie.

They enjoyed theclubs, wouldn't want to live there.

But also, there were lots of other fun things on the ship, so why would they hang out in the clubs all day when they could be in the pool watching a movie???

 

[pezgirlroy]

Last year we cruised with a 7 year old and 2 year old on the Fantasy. Obviously the 2 year old was in the nursery. The 7 year old loved the Kids club. She always went for specific events/programs that were coming. I don't agree at all with the comment of glorified babysitting. I also thought the staff were great. She didn't want to stay all day but def. loved going. We will be cruising on the Magic first week of April. My youngest will be turning 3 halfway through the cruise. I have no concerns with sending her to the kids club. I am only going to send her for about an hour at a time. But this is because she will be going with her sister and I will want her sister to have a break.

 

[murmer]

My 9 yr old had heaps of workers who knew his name specifically and would talk to him outside of the club if they saw him. For me it did not feel like the counselors were disengaged at all. With that said my kid is super outgoing and went into the club with friends (other kids from our cruise group that were chatting via messenger kids before the cruise started).

 

[bumbershoot]

concerning to parents with kids in the lower age range

Trust me, it’s concerning to the older kids as well, since the youngers dart around like no one exists and it sort of feels like the At-At scene on Hoth.

I don’t see it as “glorified” babysitting. It IS babysitting, but with less personalized attention.

My son liked it until he went on Royal, where it’s all run by the counselors with no “wander around and wait in line for video games” time.

My son is an extreme extrovert and an only, homeschooled, child who is very used to finding friends. The groups of family units in DCL kid clubs were NOT open to random kids joining them. The only group stuff he managed to find involved the dance floor (he’s a dancer), which meant he got loads of attention from girls (who he’s quite comfy with), and that was fine on the one cruise where that happened.

He preferred a more hands on approach with kid clubs than Disney offers.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

My DS wouldn't even walk into a DCL kids club by himself until he was 7 years old. When he was younger, the chaos was just too much for him. Even then, he MUCH preferred the kids' clubs on the smaller DCL ships. He loved the Wonder (smaller ship, less children on our European cruise and much less chaos), hated the Fantasy. I think it's really going to depend on the child. If your kids are somewhat independent, they may be fine. You can also just put them in for scheduled activities or go with them when they have open houses (which kind of defeats the purpose of dropping them off at a kids club). We tried putting him the Dream kids' club when he was 3 1/2 and it was a complete no-go.

 

[kappaman14]

All three of my kids (currently 13/9/5) have loved the kids clubs on board. I do think there is an age-out factor with the Oceaneer's Club, because the programming skews younger. My 13yr old LOVED the Oceaneer's Club at 5 & 7, but by 9yrs old she was starting to wane a bit (& she didn't even go into Oceaneer's on her last "eligible" cruise). My 9yr old just had a great time in the Oceaneer's Club this past fall, but when we do the Alaskan cruise in a year I bet she'll mainly head to Edge.

I have noticed that DCL has become dependent on iPad content, whereas the clubs used to be more hands-on play and arts & crafts. But honestly, I think that's more a think that bothers me than my kids (who, again, seem very happy in the kids clubs).

As with all things, it comes down to what your kids are into doing. But if they like Disney content generally, I'd suspect they'll have a good time.

 

[spiffgirl101]

My son was on the Disney Dream when he was 3 and the Oceaneer's club was way too chaotic for him. And he was in full time daycare at that point, so I was surprised.
When he was 6 we went on RCI's Liberty of the Seas, and he loved the kids club, he wanted to be there all the time.
We are going on the Dream again next February, and DS will be10, so he should be able to handle the club now, but it is a drastically different feel from RCI.

 

[Sunshine2U]

Our children (20 years ago) and now nephew (9) and grandson (5) have gone into the club once each cruise for two hours, claimed they were bored and did not want to go back. We haven't made a big deal about it and I'm sure we could have insisted they go back if we had a reason. That's not great info since I can't say why. It's just what happened.

 

[hpsalb]

My kids love the clubs. The age grouping is because once upon a time they offered separate programming but families wanted to keep their siblings together.

Sometimes it does seem chaotic but I feel like it’s because there are lots of activities going on in the overall area concurrently.

I’ve never felt the staff to be disengaged.

A lot of this depends on the kid. ODS likes to find an activity or quiet corner to do something. MDS loves the activity and wants to follow the noise. And it’s not like they spend all day there.

 

[Spiffy MacSpiff]

Other cruisers' mileage may vary, of course, but it might make you feel better to know that I've never walked into the clubs to pick up one of my boys and found some kind of crazy Lord of the Flies situation with feral children of all ages trampling all over each other. There has been some mixing of age groups but in general the littlest kids seem to gravitate to age-appropriate areas and activities, as do the big kids. I've talked to parents who have children at both the older and younger ages of the Club spectrum who were really happy that bigger brothers and sisters could be present to support little siblings who might be reluctant to try the clubs otherwise. And FWIW I've never seen lines of kids standing around waiting to play video games. There are lots of organized/supervised activities going on all the time that aren't listed in the Navigator.

Re: staff engagement, we have been very pleased. Counselors knew our children by name and were able to share stories about what they'd been up to or funny things they'd said or done. One of our boys -- he was six for our first cruise -- was very cautious about mixing with strangers at that age, but staff were able to do some social engineering on his behalf and much to our surprise we'd arrive to pick him up and find him engaged in some group activity out on the magic playfloor, or playing with a new friend, and not wanting to leave.

One suggestion: Embarkation day open house in the clubs, especially during peak cruising season, can be crazy and overwhelming for small or timid children, even with parents present. You might want to choose your time for a first visit carefully. Later on, there are busy times and quieter times to check your child in. Going for the quieter times might be a good idea if you have concerns for their comfort.

 

[mab2012]

I think it has more to do with the child than the age. You'll get a range of responses on how individual children feel about the clubs, from "my kid loves it so much I can barely drag him out", to "my kid went once, hated it, and refused to go back". And everything in between. My own kids will occasionally go to the clubs, but more often they choose the pool or family activities with us. And when they do go to the clubs, they rarely stay very long. That was true of Oceaneer's, and, at least for my oldest, remains true at Edge.

I do think there is an age-out factor with the Oceaneer's Club, because the programming skews younger.

Again, depends on the kid, but I think this is true for many kids. I've seen many, many threads on this forum about 8-10 year olds feeing "too old" for Oceaneer's Club/Lab. I've seen it happen with my own kids too, but again, they were never big club-goers to start with. Shouldn't be a problem for OP's kids just yet though.

I also agree with much of @Spiffy MacSpiff 's post, with the caveat that while there are no lines of kids waiting to play video games, that's at least in part due to the sheer abundance of available screens in the Lab area. To the extent that my youngest chose to spend time in the Lab on our last cruise (he was 9), it was largely so he could play games or watch movies without us telling him it was time to move on. But I think that's mostly an issue with older kids too. Most often when I've been in to pick up my kids, there is some sort of planned activity underway and a great many kids involved in it. I do think it's generally up to the child to choose to participate though. A counsellor might or might not invite or encourage an individual child to join in, but they certainly won't insist. I think this is where the perception of "disengagement" comes from. A child who is reluctant or even just ambivalent about joining group activities is likely left to his or her own devices most of the time.

 

[KashasMom]

When my daughter was about 4-5 she had a bad experience in a Disney club. I came to pick her up - she was in the "older" kids' side - crying. By then she'd been in clubs on both Royal and NCL, which she enjoyed. They had a much better counselor to child ratio and were actually doing/making things. Every time I pass by Disney's Club/Lab it looks like a free for all. And I'm surely not sending my child to a club to sit around an iPad!

 

[CPME]

I think it hugely depends on the child. My daughter was 4 when we last cruised and loved the clubs. She wanted to be in there every spare second we were on the ship and would happily be there for the planned programs or just for free play. Sometimes playing on her own, sometimes in a group of kids her age, sometimes (often) with the playroom staff. We were never called to come and get her and often when we collected her to go for meals or just to spend time with us she would be upset we were taking her away from playing! The older children didn't really phase her because she wasn't interested in doing what they were so it was as if they weren't there to her. I can imagine a shy or unconfident child might be more concerned, I just wanted to offer a different viewpoint and say that it really does depend on the child.

 

[cadien]

It's really unpredictable. Our son has been in the clubs at age 6 and 7. He loves them. He also loves screens, so that's where I always expect to find him but not once. Half the time, he's literally running around in Andy's room. One time this last cruise he was playing a board game with another kid and another time he was just hanging out talking with a different one. I'm fine with it basically being babysitting considering there's no additional fee, but there are always structured activities going on. By the second day, all the counselors at drop off and pick up remember his name and after a couple days even joke with him about things from earlier in the cruise, so they're engaged.

 

[Spotthecat]

I have 3 boys, ages 5, 8 and 11 and we just finished our fifth DCL cruise a couple of weeks ago. First time we cruised, the oldest was 5, the second was a few weeks shy of being 3, and I was pregnant with the third. So I have the perspective of all the ages of your children throughout our cruises. At the younger ages, 3 to 5, introducing the kids club to them while going to open houses with them was great. Actually, they let my second child in before 3 because he could communicate his needs well, but we still kind of hovered in the hallways and only dropped him off for one hour at a time as he needed to come out for hugs, lol, or we checked that he needed to go to the potty. He was quite fine with this, and we felt more comfortable leaving him for short periods of time. But we also made sure we hit a lot of open houses, to show them the fun they could have at all the spots (and heck, we wanted in there too, lol). At 5, they still need to be told when specific activities are going on, so we'd routinely pop in to remind them, or drop them off close to that time and tell the counselors, as we had the one child upset that he missed making flubber because he "didn't know". They will announce stuff, but won't force children to participate, and that includes lunch by the way. When my youngest cruised at 3-4, we also did the open houses, or only dropped him off for short times, and he had a ball. Only a few times did we have trouble extracting them, and that happened when they were younger - they just weren't ready to go. At 7, my kid wanted solo time and would let me know when they were done with the club, lol. But that is also when they would start to scour the navigator to see what _other_ activities they could do.

They were almost never together, and frankly I didn't expect them to be together, or that the oldest would look out for his younger brothers - that's not his job (only the one time did I have him try). This past cruise, they were really into the scheduled activities, the 5 year old especially was super interested every time there was the possibility of a character being in the club (Pluto's pajama party, flying with Peter Pan, luau with Stitch, Being worthy with Thor, Dr. Strange session even though he had no clue who the guy was, and anything Star Wars related). As parents, we always tried to target those kind of activities. As they got older, they wanted to try the electronics, but it was hit and miss. The eldest this cruise did some club/lab, and some Edge, but if there wasn't anything structured in Edge, he'd sign himself into the club and do stuff there. He didn't feel he was too old for it, which was great, but he did love the freedom of being able to come and go.

They got pretty attached to some of the CMs, and knew the routine for checking in and out down pat even when they were younger. What they still refuse to do, though, is sleep with their kids club wristbands on, they always insist on cutting off the lock at night...which makes signing in the next day slightly longer.

 

[lorenni]

Over the last few years they have removed basically all “real” toys and have installed video games and iPads. If my kid (7) goes to the kids club he is 100% going to be playing a video game or looking at an iPad when I pick him up. If you are not ok with that, the kids club will not appeal to you.

Yes there are some organized activities but I don’t know how interesting they are or how engaging they are to specific age groups. Maybe kids who already get unlimited screen time at home are more interested in the organized activities. My kids screen time is really limited so maybe it’s the novelty that sucks him in.

He spent virtually no time in there until pretty recently because the first time he went at 3 years old I watched a group of running older kids literally trample him right after we had dropped him off and the counselors did NOTHING. He didn’t want to go back for a long time and we didn’t blame him.

 

[Kevin Liu]

Thank you so much to everyone that's contributed to this thread, really helpful.

We've just booked for Aug 2020 on the Fantasy in a 00V =)

 

[Numtini]

Our daughter loves the kids club and does a variety of activities. The staff is great and I found them very involved. Last cruise, four or five girls were in Andy's Room building a fort out of the plush cubes and then talking about Marvel heroes, and there was a CM just hanging out and making sure they all got a chance to talk and all that. We've also discovered over time that asking her what she did might get a reaction like "played in Andy's Room" or "Played on an ipad" and then a month or more later, she'll mention meeting Thor or making cookies or chasing Stormtroopers out of the club with The Force. They do a lot more than it seems. This is a vacation though, not an educational space. They're looking to give the kids a fun time, not give them an enrichment experience.

 

[hnthomps]

It depends on the kid and the counselors and who knows what else! While neither of our kids has been the type to want to be in the club the whole vacation, they've had more positive experiences than negative ones. The older kid loved some of the activities and made some friends, and loved having so much more screen access than he's allowed at home. The younger one (4 at the time) was a bit overwhelmed, and generally speaking would prefer never to be more than 5 feet away from me anyway, so it wasn't so good for her. She never asked to go, but we had no trouble leaving her when we had an adult activity.

I definitely wish there was a room with more gross motor things (like in one of the Andy's room set ups on one of the classic ships), and I wish there were fewer screens. But since we drop most screen rules on vacation, I try to Let It Go. I think, however, it's kind of a problem that there aren't enough ways for kids to run around / burn off energy other than the dance floor activities.