This is extremely helpful, thank you! The story is slightly more complicated than my original question, because my brother's family of 5 (FAMILY B) are also coming and they are on the same flight as my mom (let's call her "C"), so will be arriving together. Our family of 5 (FAMILY A) are flying in the day before we leave, and we are the only
Castaway Club members. All 6 children are minors (age 7 and under).
Here is the current situation with 3 staterooms:
1. AAaa
2. Cab
3. BBbb
If we do as you suggested and switch me with my daughter so that my family of 5 can check in early, it looks like this:
1. Aaaa
2. CAb
3. BBbb
It sounds like the early port arrival time I want for my family (A) will work, as an adult can check in alone for a stateroom before the rest of the party checks in? I hope I have that right, and the ENTIRE stateroom doesn't need to check in together?? (Adults in a stateroom can check in at separate times?)
An even better solution, considering the issue where my mom would have to sign a form for my nephew's parents to take him off the ship and check him into the kids club, is if my SIL was in the same room as my nephew. It would look like this:
1. Aaaa
2. CBb
3. BAbb
The only issue I might see with this is regarding stateroom charges... We would want each family's credit card charges to stay separate (ie my brother won't want to pay for my wine, port adventures, etc). How would we get around that problem with 5 different credit cards? Once on the ship, can we change everyone back to their original rooms, or would that negate the advantage of not having my mom sign a form to allow the child's parents to take them off the ship/sign them into the kids club?
The benefit of each stateroom having Castaway Club status would be great for booking Port Adventures together, however I can't see a way to make all 3 staterooms get my Castaway Club status, without having one of my kids in a stateroom without me, and thus the original problem of check in time would remain. At least 2 of the staterooms will have CC status.
Another benefit I am thinking about is whether we could pay for the photo package in advance to get the better price, and have one photo package cover all 11 people... If I bought a photo package for stateroom 3 (BAbb) in the last example, could we get photos also covered for stateroom 1 (contains my kids "aaa") and stateroom 2 (contains one of my brother's kids "b")?
I have so much to learn! Do I have this right? What would you do? TIA!