Reaching your kids in Kids Club

[Clojel]

Our first cruise is less than 2 weeks away! DD will be 7, almost 8. She's very independent and social and I'm assuming she'll want to be in Kids Club more often than not For those of you that have cruised before with same aged kids, what do you generally do re: communication while they are at KC? Do you give them a wave phone? Or just tell them to talk to a CM while in Kids Club if they need to reach you for any reason and have the CM text the wave phone? Curious to hear what others have done

 

[SteveMP]

Our first cruise is less than 2 weeks away! DD will be 7, almost 8. She's very independent and social and I'm assuming she'll want to be in Kids Club more often than not For those of you that have cruised before with same aged kids, what do you generally do re: communication while they are at KC? Do you give them a wave phone? Or just tell them to talk to a CM while in Kids Club if they need to reach you for any reason and have the CM text the wave phone? Curious to hear what others have done

What we did was give them a time where we were coming back. Say they were doing the science lab for 1 hour. We would tell them we would be back in an hour and to let the CM know if they wanted to get a hold of us to call our wave phones. Never got a call.

 

[bumbershoot]

At that age if she needs to contact you, she talks with the CMs and they call you. And you can check up on her every so often.


Later once she's using a cellphone she can have a wifi-connected device to use the Navigator app to connect with your Navigator app. But a 7 year old likely isn't there yet.

 

[JW9DVC]

We allow our boys to hold onto their phones. They each have an older IPhone 7 Plus with the app and used it for messaging us. They could also ask a cast member to use the phone and call us. It worked well. This was if they needed something or whatever.


Edit. Our kids are 7-10. Plenty old enough for a phone. Yet you know your child.

 

[Mousequake]

We didn't need the wave phone-- if our kid needed to contact us, the Oceaneer Club crew members texted us through the Navigator app.

 

[KalamityJane]

We told our kids to tell the CMs if they wanted us. They called us when they wanted to be picked up - worked great.

 

[Clojel]

Thanks for the feedback everybody!

 

[MASrules]

If you have an old ipod or cell phone that is not activated you can still take it and put the cruise app on it and they can txt you with it. We did this with our similar aged child and it worked out great, without the risk of them turning on the cellular and running up a huge bill. I think wave phones are too big, too expensive if lost (150?), and too difficult to use in this age group.

 

[RedStars]

If you let your kid use an old iPhone, did they keep it in their pocket? Use a phone holder?

My oldest is 9 and I'm very interested in letting him use an old phone for the cruise (for pictures and texting us on the DCL app). I'm just worried it will fall out of his pocket (or he won't have a pocket!)

 

[cmph]

My kids carried their own devices. DD (11 at the time) had her ipod with her room key in a small cross-body bag (actually a DCL one that was a Christmas present, super cute). She always had some other small something or another in there too. DS (8 at the time) had an old Samsung that my MIL gave us to use, loaded with the app and a few extra games. He carried it in his pocket. Even athletic shorts for boys seem to have nice deep pockets, whereas hardly anything aside from jeans that I own has a usable pocket! If he lost it, oh well, life went on. But he didn't, b/c he liked being able to text nonsense AND having those games for the 30min pre-show waiting period. They have a lot of cute Disney things in the texting portion of the app, and it is kind of a bummer when all those texts got wiped out when you disembark!

 

[bumbershoot]

We didn't need the wave phone-- if our kid needed to contact us, the Oceaneer Club crew members texted us through the Navigator app.

I'm not sure that's the norm.

If you let your kid use an old iPhone, did they keep it in their pocket? Use a phone holder?

My oldest is 9 and I'm very interested in letting him use an old phone for the cruise (for pictures and texting us on the DCL app). I'm just worried it will fall out of his pocket (or he won't have a pocket!)

Mine carried his in his pocket.