Recent experience's in the tween clubs

[AZMermaid]

Oh they also loved taking over the kids club and vibe. There was a time they took over the Vibe pool but it was at the end of Castaway Day. Our parasailing got cancelled so my son hustled to it, but there weren’t many kids there.

 

[obsesseddisneyfan]

My kids were in the Edge on the May 25 fantasy. I have a 12 year old daughter and 13 year old son- going into 7/8 grades. They loved it and made tons of friends. My son would like me to report that he only played video games for 2-3 15 minute sessions all week.

My daughter brought beads with her and the girls made a million bracelets. She also liked all the trivia and heroes vs villains. She was really excited for the scavenger hunt but then none of her friends wanted to do it so she didn’t. They went and did midship detective agency instead so she wasn’t too bummed.

My son liked the foosball tournaments, 4 square, heroes vs villains. He even did the pirates flash mob after telling me he wasn’t so we missed it! We barely saw him all week. He did meet us for dinner as required but he was 20 min late the first night- which made for some awkwardness with the servers when we were like he’s busted. We adjusted the meeting time earlier and told him if he’s late again- he’s taking an evening off. He was not.

The events were in the app. I think there were more but the main ones you could track. I took some pics- I’ll put on the next post.

Thank you. The beading is exactly what my kids would want to do. They will be in 5th grade on our cruise and I am a little concern of more "grown up" conversations being in edge, then they are used to in elementary school. It sounds like kids will just be kids and make friends and have fun. Thanks for this feedback it makes me feel better.

 

[AZMermaid]

Thank you. The beading is exactly what my kids would want to do. They will be in 5th grade on our cruise and I am a little concern of more "grown up" conversations being in edge, then they are used to in elementary school. It sounds like kids will just be kids and make friends and have fun. Thanks for this feedback it makes me feel better.

She did bring them from home but I’m guessing they attracted some like minded friends! She was given a free castaway cay activity package by a CM for being generous with the bracelets. But she didn’t tell me or understand so we didn’t use it. I went to the port desk that evening and was like uh, we didn’t sign up for this. They said, oh we gave that to her. Doh!

 

[Chrislovesdisney]

This is such a great idea. My dd is finishing up 5th grade and I was worried about the same thing. I’ll have her pack some!

 

[obsesseddisneyfan]

I thought I would do an update on my last cruise. My kids were 11 and had a Blast at EDGE on our Norway cruise this fall. The edge was split into two clicky groups. We had some issues with some of the kids telling my child over a whatsapp group that "they would not care if they were dead". The Edge team took this very seriously. We were called in to speak to the head safety officer. the child who said that wrote and apology letter and was no longer allowed in the Edge for the remainder of the trip. Her dad worked at Disney and they got lots of free/ discounted cruises so I am sure the parents were not happy. It was explained to me that the child in question is usually the leader of the Edge group and she did not like that my daughter was organizing game for everyone. My daughter is still friends with some of the kids from that cruise that got along well and we are in the beginning of planning a transatlantic cruise to get all of the kids together again.

 

[Chrispy97]

Our kid was Edge eligible for 4 cruises (next will be first Vibe only.) First one she had no interest, and the first time she went to check in we failed to realize we had to set her up in Edge so they couldn't let her in. That didn't go well. Also came just after a death in the family, and while my wife and I just pushed it aside for the week we didn't consider that she was still processing.

Second one she met a friend via my wife's Facebook interactions when we arrived at the port. They ended up inseparable for the cruise, so the fact they were wandering the Magic as a duo instead of in Edge meant very little to us.

Third one was Treasure. She was slow to pick up on that cruise as well. First few days were rough. She finally got into a group for the last few days, went to shows with some of them, and ended up out until midnight on the last night saying good-bye to them. Was good to see.

Last cruise on the Fantasy started the same though. Hesitant to do the icebreakers and meet people. Not too interested in Vibe. She liked the concept of the Fantasy's Edge/Vibe sun deck but didn't use it as often as we thought. Met parents of a girl with similar hesitancy during an embarkation day champagne tasting (as an aside, we LOVE this tasting on embarkation day. Nice celebratory start and we often meet people we will hang out with during the cruise.) Shoved the girls together on the pool deck and said "Talk to each other." Worked out well after that.

Hearing "kids" makes me think it will go better for them in Edge if they get along well with each other. At a minimum they have each other when they go in there and it's less intimidating.

Could be rough at age 11? Possibly. But I think it's just generally rough at those ages to throw them into a room of tweens they don't know.