Lisa F
is a very wise woman
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2000
So I also wanted to post about our experience with the Edge on our cruise.
I had read some of the recent reports and tempered my 11 year old son's expectations about it, but it was still not great and is definitely Disney's weakest area. I just want to stress that it did not in any way ruin our cruise except for a few brief moments of feeling bad and honestly I did not mind that it encouraged my ever increasingly independent 11 year old to want to spend time with mom but I would say it was a pretty poor experience overall (and I did express that on the survey.)
My son is on the spectrum but super high functioning and seems to do pretty well in most social situations, but is also exceedingly kind and caring toward others and has zero understanding or tolerance for mean kids. He has run into relatively few here at home but we do run into more outside of home.
I was still hoping he'd make a friend or two. We had late seating and the first icebreaker session was during late dinner. I think this is exceptionally poor planning on the part of Disney - why would they do that especially when older kids are more likely to have later seating? I overheard another mother commenting the same thing and sounding a bit distressed about it - presumably she had read the same things I did about how critical those icebreaker sessions are to a kid's overall experience.
There was another one at 10am the next morning and I made sure the kiddo was there but he came back a half hour later saying "It didn't happen." I am not sure what that means, he is a man of few words lately but regardless of what actually happened he didn't seem to get anything out of it.
He still went to the edge a few times and mostly played video games (as I've seen reported here) which was fine for a little bit when I was off doing my adult stuff, as long as he was happy I was happy (he does not get a ton of down time at home and I kind of took the attitude of "it's vacation, whatever you feel like doing is fine!" rather than trying to squeeze every bit of value out of the cruise) but that came to an abrupt end when some kids were mocking him for using Pichu on Super Smash Bros. Again I was not there, I have no idea what really happened but that pretty much brought an end to free time at the edge and he instead preferred to stay in the room and play how he wanted to by himself on his own switch while watching disney shows on the tv. This is not as bad as it sounds as he is an only child and down/alone time is valuable to him but of course it made ME feel bad, he seemed to shake it off pretty quickly.
I did also encourage him to do some of the scheduled activities because he liked the couple he did at the kid's clubs 2 years ago (but hated open play - the screaming littles was just way too much chaos and sensory overload for him and he flat out refused to go at all even for scheduled activities because of that this time.) He was looking forward to Brains and Brawn and being a bit of a self proclaimed "nerd" wanted to be a Brain but was assigned to be a Brawn. He claimed he asked to be a Brain but again I was not there, I do not know how much he advocated for himself, but regardless he has poor muscle tone and coordination and did not have fun being a Brawn. I got texts from an upset child during the end of one of my brunches that he had been "abandoned" by his team because he wasn't any good at it and that was the end of Edge for us. I tried to get him to do other activities he had been excited for before the cruise but he was too afraid of it going south after that.
Again this did not ruin our cruise at all, he snapped out of it pretty quickly and he hung in the room for any other scheduled adult activities I had (and seemed happy to do so.) I did not get any more time in the spa outside of a scheduled massage as he wanted mom time (and again I can't say that selfishly I did not mind that he wanted to spend time with me.)
But I would say I am super unimpressed with the Edge. I try to let him be as independent as possible and advocate for himself so I did not get up there and make a special case out of anything... at this age he would rather just not participate than have a mom who does that, so we just let it go and did other things and had a great vacation (just like last cruise 2 years ago when he didn't care for kids clubs it was no biggie.) I also don't have first hand knowledge of how aware the staff was of what went on (the mocking during the video game - I think he was abandoned outside of the Edge space during Brains and Brawn) or how strongly he advocated for himself about what he wanted so I hesitate to lay it at the feet of the staff. I know it is a tough age. But last year he went to sleepaway camp for 2 weeks and the staff there was able to navigate that age and make it a positive experience for the kids so I don't think it is impossible - but at the Edge I would not expect that level of supervision/intervention.
I am very glad I read some not so great reviews recently because my expectations were in check and I believe this allowed us to move past any negatives very quickly and not let it impact our vacation in any way. My kid just shrugged and said "this is a tough age" (I know he was parroting me when I had a talk about it beforehand with him.) If I'd been expecting a better experience it might have been harder to make the shift. We had an absolutely amazing vacation and the great thing about the Disney cruise is even IF the kid activities are a bust there are so many other fun opportunities, it really is just a blip!
I had read some of the recent reports and tempered my 11 year old son's expectations about it, but it was still not great and is definitely Disney's weakest area. I just want to stress that it did not in any way ruin our cruise except for a few brief moments of feeling bad and honestly I did not mind that it encouraged my ever increasingly independent 11 year old to want to spend time with mom but I would say it was a pretty poor experience overall (and I did express that on the survey.)
My son is on the spectrum but super high functioning and seems to do pretty well in most social situations, but is also exceedingly kind and caring toward others and has zero understanding or tolerance for mean kids. He has run into relatively few here at home but we do run into more outside of home.
I was still hoping he'd make a friend or two. We had late seating and the first icebreaker session was during late dinner. I think this is exceptionally poor planning on the part of Disney - why would they do that especially when older kids are more likely to have later seating? I overheard another mother commenting the same thing and sounding a bit distressed about it - presumably she had read the same things I did about how critical those icebreaker sessions are to a kid's overall experience.
There was another one at 10am the next morning and I made sure the kiddo was there but he came back a half hour later saying "It didn't happen." I am not sure what that means, he is a man of few words lately but regardless of what actually happened he didn't seem to get anything out of it.
He still went to the edge a few times and mostly played video games (as I've seen reported here) which was fine for a little bit when I was off doing my adult stuff, as long as he was happy I was happy (he does not get a ton of down time at home and I kind of took the attitude of "it's vacation, whatever you feel like doing is fine!" rather than trying to squeeze every bit of value out of the cruise) but that came to an abrupt end when some kids were mocking him for using Pichu on Super Smash Bros. Again I was not there, I have no idea what really happened but that pretty much brought an end to free time at the edge and he instead preferred to stay in the room and play how he wanted to by himself on his own switch while watching disney shows on the tv. This is not as bad as it sounds as he is an only child and down/alone time is valuable to him but of course it made ME feel bad, he seemed to shake it off pretty quickly.
I did also encourage him to do some of the scheduled activities because he liked the couple he did at the kid's clubs 2 years ago (but hated open play - the screaming littles was just way too much chaos and sensory overload for him and he flat out refused to go at all even for scheduled activities because of that this time.) He was looking forward to Brains and Brawn and being a bit of a self proclaimed "nerd" wanted to be a Brain but was assigned to be a Brawn. He claimed he asked to be a Brain but again I was not there, I do not know how much he advocated for himself, but regardless he has poor muscle tone and coordination and did not have fun being a Brawn. I got texts from an upset child during the end of one of my brunches that he had been "abandoned" by his team because he wasn't any good at it and that was the end of Edge for us. I tried to get him to do other activities he had been excited for before the cruise but he was too afraid of it going south after that.
Again this did not ruin our cruise at all, he snapped out of it pretty quickly and he hung in the room for any other scheduled adult activities I had (and seemed happy to do so.) I did not get any more time in the spa outside of a scheduled massage as he wanted mom time (and again I can't say that selfishly I did not mind that he wanted to spend time with me.)
But I would say I am super unimpressed with the Edge. I try to let him be as independent as possible and advocate for himself so I did not get up there and make a special case out of anything... at this age he would rather just not participate than have a mom who does that, so we just let it go and did other things and had a great vacation (just like last cruise 2 years ago when he didn't care for kids clubs it was no biggie.) I also don't have first hand knowledge of how aware the staff was of what went on (the mocking during the video game - I think he was abandoned outside of the Edge space during Brains and Brawn) or how strongly he advocated for himself about what he wanted so I hesitate to lay it at the feet of the staff. I know it is a tough age. But last year he went to sleepaway camp for 2 weeks and the staff there was able to navigate that age and make it a positive experience for the kids so I don't think it is impossible - but at the Edge I would not expect that level of supervision/intervention.
I am very glad I read some not so great reviews recently because my expectations were in check and I believe this allowed us to move past any negatives very quickly and not let it impact our vacation in any way. My kid just shrugged and said "this is a tough age" (I know he was parroting me when I had a talk about it beforehand with him.) If I'd been expecting a better experience it might have been harder to make the shift. We had an absolutely amazing vacation and the great thing about the Disney cruise is even IF the kid activities are a bust there are so many other fun opportunities, it really is just a blip!
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