very young 3s in the club

[disneymagicgirl]

My little one turns 3 on our cruise and I am trying to make tentative plans since we sign up for activities in a month.

Can anyone share how their young 3 year old did in the chaotic clubs? She has been on the Fantasy several times and the nursery staff even remembered her from one year to the next. It is so calm and quiet in there. I am leaning towards leaving her in the nursery even after her bday instead of switching her to the clubs. However, she would have her 2 older brothers in the clubs with her, but that may annoy them for obvious reasons.

She has been potty trained since she was 16 mths, so that is not a consideration. She goes to preschool but that is obviously a much smaller group of kids.

I think I may just keep her scheduled in nursery slots the whole trip in case I need them. Then once onboard and she turns 3 if we decide to move her over to OC then I can just cancel the nursery reservations.

 

[eva2015]

My daughter turned 3 yr about 10 days before we left for our last cruise. She has never been in daycare etc. She loved the OC! We dropped them off the first time and checked back in an hour. Our 5 yr old was participating in the scheduled activities, the 3 yr old was running room to room taking it all in. Neither wanted to leave. They had a lot of fun on CC at Scuttles Cove too.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

My daughter turned 3 yr about 10 days before we left for our last cruise. She has never been in daycare etc. She loved the OC! We dropped them off the first time and checked back in an hour. Our 5 yr old was participating in the scheduled activities, the 3 yr old was running room to room taking it all in. Neither wanted to leave. They had a lot of fun on CC at Scuttles Cove too.

Ok, good to know! Thank you!

 

[MomOTwins]

Are you on the Magic/Wonder or Dream/Fantasy? There are so many more kids on the bigger ships that that club can get very very crowded and chaotic, with pushy older kids (think Chuck E Cheese on a weekend), and I'd be a bit nervous about a three year old feeling overwhelmed. But during the shore days it is much quieter (at least until mid-afternoon when everyone is back from excursions. If you are planning on mornings for a couple of hours it is probably fine, but for afternoon evenings you might want to do the nursery.

 

[Spotthecat]

We did some open houses first so he could explore with us there. And then we tried signing him in and kind of hung in the hallway portholes for like half an hour, see if it stuck, lol. Sometimes he'd come screaming out just for a hug, but mostly he was fine. We left him there max 1.5 hours though at any one time. If there is a specific activity that you want your child to do, come back right before it and they will let you go in and find her to let her know to come to that specific area for that fun time. As young ones don't always hear announcements. And if you want her to eat in the club, they will not force her to come to the food area to eat - she has to be aware and want to...so snacking before is good!

 

[PurplePencil]

Also, the clubs sometimes do Preschool Playtime, a time specifically for 3-5 years olds, so lookout for that.

 

[Trera]

Keep in mind that potty trained means they can go in and use the restroom unassisted. Cast members are not allowed to help with restroom trips.

 

[brussrus]

My suggestion is to make your nursery reservations and then cancel them each day if necessary. My 3 year old has been in day care since he was a baby, so I thought he would love the kids clubs. And he really loved the toy story playground (we were on the Wonder) and how cool all the rooms were, but he was very intimated by the older kids. The main thing that was the problem for him is that the kids clubs don't really have a lot of toys, rather they do activities, more like a day camp. He was still just too young to really participate. After seeing he was was kind of withdrawn the first day in the kids club, we took him to the nursery the next day and he loved it. He loved the quieter atmosphere and all the toys to play with. 3 is a hard age in general, and I think it helped for him to be a "big kid" in the nursery rather than the little kid in the kids club. The staff in both places were super accommodating. The nursery staff would take him to the potties in the kids club (they don't have kids potties in the nursery) and even let him go down the slide a few times while they were over there. They are great at keeping everyone happy!

 

[mmouse37]

We will be cruising with our 3 year old granddaughters (one turns 3 this month and one turned 3 in June) and we cruise at the end of September. They will be together (cousins) and also with two friends who are 4 and 5. We are hoping for happy times in the club. They all have been going to preschool and enjoy lots of kids so we will see. The 3 year olds are potty trained but just for the last few months so we don't plan on leaving them for long lengths of time.

MJ

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Keep in mind that potty trained means they can go in and use the restroom unassisted. Cast members are not allowed to help with restroom trips.

She has been doing it all herself for over a year now.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

My suggestion is to make your nursery reservations and then cancel them each day if necessary. My 3 year old has been in day care since he was a baby, so I thought he would love the kids clubs. And he really loved the toy story playground (we were on the Wonder) and how cool all the rooms were, but he was very intimated by the older kids. The main thing that was the problem for him is that the kids clubs don't really have a lot of toys, rather they do activities, more like a day camp. He was still just too young to really participate. After seeing he was was kind of withdrawn the first day in the kids club, we took him to the nursery the next day and he loved it. He loved the quieter atmosphere and all the toys to play with. 3 is a hard age in general, and I think it helped for him to be a "big kid" in the nursery rather than the little kid in the kids club. The staff in both places were super accommodating. The nursery staff would take him to the potties in the kids club (they don't have kids potties in the nursery) and even let him go down the slide a few times while they were over there. They are great at keeping everyone happy!

I think mine will be like yours and prefer the nursery. We shall see. The fantasy does have a potty in the nursery though, so that is nice.

 

[Carrie in AZ]

We will be cruising with our 3 year old granddaughters (one turns 3 this month and one turned 3 in June) and we cruise at the end of September. They will be together (cousins) and also with two friends who are 4 and 5. We are hoping for happy times in the club. They all have been going to preschool and enjoy lots of kids so we will see. The 3 year olds are potty trained but just for the last few months so we don't plan on leaving them for long lengths of time.

MJ[/QUOT

We will be cruising with our 3 year old granddaughters (one turns 3 this month and one turned 3 in June) and we cruise at the end of September. They will be together (cousins) and also with two friends who are 4 and 5. We are hoping for happy times in the club. They all have been going to preschool and enjoy lots of kids so we will see. The 3 year olds are potty trained but just for the last few months so we don't plan on leaving them for long lengths of time.

MJ

I wish we were cruising with you again this Fall, MJ!!! How fun for all of you!!

 

[crichardson11]

My daughter turned three on our first cruise and did great in the kids club. We never left her in there for more than 45 minutes at a time though. Small doses worked well for us. My only advice would be as long as you are confident that your child would tell a counselor when they wanted to leave then go ahead and do it. The counselors can contact you when they wish to be picked up.

 

[arlopop]

Our youngest turned 3 two days before we boarded our first cruise. She was a tough kid (we used to joke that if she had been our first we would never have had another.) The night my wife and I scheduled Palo we went to drop our kids at the club and our 3 year old melted down at the entrance. She just came undone. We tried calming her but to little effect. I finally said we had to cancel - we couldn’t leave her like that - wouldn’t be fair to her or the staff. The CMs told us to go - they said it would be ok and not to worry. We finally agreed but told them to call us on the wavephone if she hadn’t calmed in 15 minutes.

We ate dinner staring at that phone on the table between us. It never rang.

When we went to get the kids she was sleeping soundly in the lap of a CM. They said it had taken about 10 minutes to bring her down but after that she had played and enjoyed herself before crashing (probably in exhaustion).
After that I never worried about her in the clubs again. The staff there know what they’re doing and there’s not much they haven’t seen before. I trust them as much as I trusted our preschool staff - stress-free.

 

[deanimal]

We have cruised on the Wonder and the Dream when both our kids were barely three. They were both confident and outgoing at that age and had been in group daycare settings before with no issues. They did okay, but it wasn't ideal. I felt that the classic ships with the two separate areas (with one more appealing to little ones) worked better than the newer ships with the big open free for all. As much as we love Disney, I personally feel that the kids clubs for 3-5 year olds is a real weakness since the layout and programming style is really more suited to school aged kids. My kids enjoyed the clubs overall, but I really felt that they were happier in the clubs on other lines at that age, where there was a separate pre-school area with higher staff ratios and more adult led activities.

I remember once going to the open house for the nursery when my kids were one and three. My older daughter immediately started playing with the push toys and dolls and seemed much more relaxed than when we went to go check out the clubs. I got the sense that she was attracted to the "big kids" area, but would have been happier if we had kept her in the nursery with her brother.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

We have cruised on the Wonder and the Dream when both our kids were barely three. They were both confident and outgoing at that age and had been in group daycare settings before with no issues. They did okay, but it wasn't ideal. I felt that the classic ships with the two separate areas (with one more appealing to little ones) worked better than the newer ships with the big open free for all. As much as we love Disney, I personally feel that the kids clubs for 3-5 year olds is a real weakness since the layout and programming style is really more suited to school aged kids. My kids enjoyed the clubs overall, but I really felt that they were happier in the clubs on other lines at that age, where there was a separate pre-school area with higher staff ratios and more adult led activities.

I remember once going to the open house for the nursery when my kids were one and three. My older daughter immediately started playing with the push toys and dolls and seemed much more relaxed than when we went to go check out the clubs. I got the sense that she was attracted to the "big kids" area, but would have been happier if we had kept her in the nursery with her brother.

I wish they’d split it up too. My boys didn’t love the clubs as preschoolers either but now that they are school age they love it. It really isn’t set up well for preschoolers.