what do 18 year olds like to do?

[Dee_B_1967]

My daughter is 18 and I'm wondering what 18 year olds like to do on the ship. 18 is too old for the youth clubs. I know she will do the pool and layout, and the shows and I suppose she can get into the adult clubs, although not drink. Do they have activities for this age?

 

[Hundredacre]

My daughter is 18 and I'm wondering what 18 year olds like to do on the ship. 18 is too old for the youth clubs. I know she will do the pool and layout, and the shows and I suppose she can get into the adult clubs, although not drink. Do they have activities for this age?

Yes there is an 18-21 group. Advertised in the navigator. But it is informal and in our experience no one showed up. We asked about it at guest services and they did not even know what we were talking about. Hopefully this is not the norm, but we have looked for it on two cruises.

 

[WIFamily]

We have a freshly minted 18 year old, and leaving for our cruise in about a month. Interested in this as well. We're aware of the 18-20 club, our cruise in 2014 had this and our now 22 year old attended the first night. From what he said there were two other young adults there and it kind of broke up without much activity planned.

Hopefully the club is a little more active on this cruise - I think the 22 year old plans on going to the first meeting as well as our 18 year old. I doubt there would be an issue with this as it's quite informal. But I am interested in hearing what previous cruisers have done to ensure their 18-22 year olds had an enjoyable cruise.

 

[DSLRuser]

well. when I was an 18 year old boy. If I was on a cruise. I would try and find a 17-20 year old girl with the same interests as me and hang for the week.

 

[lanejudy]

"1820 SOCIETY" should be listed on the first day's Navigator, usually with a meeting around 10pm. It's important for the young adults who are interested to attend that first night, because if no one shows up there won't be anything the rest of the cruise. Their activities may or may not appear on the Navigator after that. It all depends what the group depends is their interest. It may be simple stuff like meeting for lunches, afternoons by the pool, evenings at one of the night clubs, etc. Or some have more activities like activities at Castaway Cay, ice cream social, smoothies, game night, etc.

I believe this group used to be called Club 18*21 but has recently changed name to 1820 Society. They may or may not be limiting to the "underage" (non-drinking) adults; I've read differing reports of those 21+ joining.

Enjoy your cruise!

 

[wcw57]

I know what 18 year old like to do but I can't post it here............

 

[Hundredacre]

Just to provide more feedback on our experience-- and hopefully our experience is not the norm but we did have the same experience on both cruises within the last year- there seems to be no organization other than the announcements in the navigator. Our 18 year old went to the first meeting both times (btw we had to initiate this as he was not really interested). There continued to be advertised meetings daily without people showing up. We figured we messed something up on our first "with an 18 year old" cruise, so on the second such cruise we went to guest services right after getting gingerbread house making tickets after getting on the ship. Even though it was advertised in the navigator for that evening, guest services could tell me nothing about it. Did not know anything about it at all. Or even that it existed. I showed them the navigator and they were like oh I guess that's it. Weird, but we moved on. This cruise we went with him to that first meeting just to see if we could figure out what was going on. No one showed up. No cast member. Nothing. No one in the restaurant new anything about it. He tried showing up for subsequent meeting just like the first time- no one, and no cast member. So, basically, I guess if you get lucky and other people show up, it may work out. I suspect other people don't bother showing up because they have had a similar experience to ours. Obviously I would not expect Disney to babysit 18+ years olds, but it seems like an icebreaker of some kind would be cool, especially when they have an entire dedicated space for youth up through 17 years.

 

[Dee_B_1967]

Thanks all....I will be sure to let her know about the 1820 society may be an option.

And I'm sure she will find a "friend" but I'm not trying to encourage that!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I'll just chime in with our experience. We took our then 19 year old, and the first night the "group" met with the DCL CM that was supposed to facilitate the group. There were about 11-12 over 18's there. They did lots of things, and we only saw our son at dinner and most nights he was coming back to the room around 2 am.

They had lunch with ship's officers; participated in the Pinewood Derby type race (they made race cars out of veggies); every night they went to the adult show in the lounge and then "hung around"; midnight swims. Often the group would just meet up and hang out, sometimes in smaller groups of 4-6 (not always the same 4-6 people) and went to the sports deck.

 

[Hundredacre]

I'll just chime in with our experience. We took our then 19 year old, and the first night the "group" met with the DCL CM that was supposed to facilitate the group. There were about 11-12 over 18's there. They did lots of things, and we only saw our son at dinner and most nights he was coming back to the room around 2 am.

They had lunch with ship's officers; participated in the Pinewood Derby type race (they made race cars out of veggies); every night they went to the adult show in the lounge and then "hung around"; midnight swims. Often the group would just meet up and hang out, sometimes in smaller groups of 4-6 (not always the same 4-6 people) and went to the sports deck.

This sounds great. And exactly what we were hoping for. We are going on dcl again this month. Hopefully it will be more like this! I will come back to this thread and let everyone know.

 

[WIFamily]

I'll just chime in with our experience. We took our then 19 year old, and the first night the "group" met with the DCL CM that was supposed to facilitate the group. There were about 11-12 over 18's there. They did lots of things, and we only saw our son at dinner and most nights he was coming back to the room around 2 am.

They had lunch with ship's officers; participated in the Pinewood Derby type race (they made race cars out of veggies); every night they went to the adult show in the lounge and then "hung around"; midnight swims. Often the group would just meet up and hang out, sometimes in smaller groups of 4-6 (not always the same 4-6 people) and went to the sports deck.

Yes, does indeed sound great - hopefully ours is like this as well. I do know there's another 18 year old boy in our Meet and Greet, so hopefully they can get things organized.

 

[Anisum]

I went on a Disney cruise when I was 18 and I liked to stay with my family and attend whatever events were going on. This was before the 1820 club came about but I enjoyed going to do the 'adult' shows because the idea of being an adult was still new and cool.

 

[nzdisneymom]

This will be our first DCL cruise since our boys have aged out of the youth club - we are hoping that there will be some others onboard in their age range AND some DCL-led/started activities for them to participate in. Neither one are really good at initiating with people they don't know, but when there's someone to facilitate that at the beginning, they do ok afterwards. They have grown up on DCL so they are used to having activities to attend (or skip if it's not their cup of tea). They do like to participate in some of the family activities and go to the trivia, for example. We'll be on the Magic (first time since she got the aquadunk) so we're interested to see what changes there are - but it will be nice for them to have a few activities that are specific to their age group. They'll be 18 and almost 20 when we sail this summer.

Thanks for the tip about looking for the 1820 Society.

My guys are also planning to watch several movies - thank goodness for the movie theater

 

[jrabbit]

the idea of being an adult was still new and cool[/B].

And then reality sets in and you find out that you have to get a job (not high paying), get a place to live (small and icky), pay your own bills (this sucks too) and no one picking up and cooking and cleaning for you, discovering that you can afford to eat the generic top rammin and not much else. ...

 

[dyson0715]

I know what 18 year old like to do but I can't post it here............

I was gonna say the same thing...

 

[NZMUM]

My daughter has been to the 18-20 society (& 18-21 club before it changed) meets the last 2 years on the Fantasy. There have always been others there, as well as a CM to help organise. She hasn't got super involved (she's not a partier & is fairly quiet), but has always found at least one other girl to hang out with. She would go to meet up with the group at night in one of the clubs. There was usually a lunch & something in the afternoon, but she didn't attend those. I don't think the groups were large, but we were cruising in January, so maybe not as many onboard as other times of the year.

But she also hangs with us. Uaually in the adults only area sunbathing, reading, listening to music, as well as going to movies & shows.

 

[Hundredacre]

Forgot about the trivia. Ours loved that and got us to go to it. Movies too.

 

[scgustafson]

I know what 18 year old like to do but I can't post it here............

Join the verandah (or any other place they can find) club is a good way to put it.

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

I was on the Inaugural Disney Cruise and I was 18, I hung out with my family and had a blast doing all the shows, movies and clubs. We ended up at a table close to another family with a girl my age and we would chat in the evenings after all went to bed and we still keep in touch now....100 years later Cruising is such a great way to meet friends. My sister was much younger and went to the teen club and is still friends with kids she met there.

 

[WDWJonasGirl]

The last two cruises I did I was 19. I hung out with my family, went to Palo, saw characters, did the aquaduck and lots of fun things. In addition, I had just graduated HS on the second to last cruise I did