Kids Club Question

[JMHDisney]

After being loyal to DCL, the expense is now pushing us to try RCCL and we will be on Explorer of the Seas this spring for a short 4 day Pacific NW cruise. The plan is that if we like our trial run on RCCL, we will book Europe for 2017 with them rather than DCL.

I saw some Navigators for another RCCL cruise (I'm sure that's not what RCCL calls them but you know what I mean) and it didn't have any schedule of kids club activities. How can you find out the schedule of activities for the day in advance? My son usually goes to the kids club for specific activities.

Also, if anyone has any other tips on the Explorer, we would love to hear them!

 

[DnA2010]

How old is your son? My SD was 9 I believe on our RCL cruise- she loved the kids club, but we were on Oasis. I hope someone else will clarify, but I believe there was a schedule for the clubs.

 

[JMHDisney]

He's 7. I'm assuming they must have a schedule posted somewhere but I always like getting the DCL navigator the night before and being able to figure out what he will go to and what I will do. I thought it was weird that the RCCL schedules didn't say anything about the kids club. I was also hoping to see a schedule to get an idea of the activities on the Explorer for his age group. I'm a little worried that he's not going to like this as much as Disney!

 

[bumbershoot]

They have completely separate daily activity sheets (Compasses) for kid clubs.

 

[bumbershoot]

And my son reports that all the kids (but a few who wanted to do nothing but play video games and weren't allowed nonstop access to them) in Adventure Ocean seemed to be having fun. Both royal sailings we've been on, they've combined the 6-8s and the 9-11s so he's been with your son's age.

He's done a pirate parade on both sailings. There was a talent show on one (which had THE most heartwarming moment...a young but very tall girl was going to sing but got stage fright when up there and was just swaying. After a minute a few boys went up, stood *behind* her, and started singing the song. Almost all the kids there followed suit (not my stinker kid though) so she swayed while quite a few kids including boys sang "let it go" for her...many tears of "awwww" were shed). Lots of gagaball. Some videogame. Biggest thing that makes ds love royal's program is that the counsellors engage with the kids. It's not just a relative freeforall like on dcl.

The kid compasses are left in the rooms with the normal compasses. They are also available near guest services.

 

[eskimoinparadise]

RCL has age-specific Cruise Compasses (navigators) for each age group. Your cabin steward will deliver the kids compass each evening along with the regular one so you'll know each evening what's on the schedule for the next day. They also have them in a rack by guest services along with the regular compasses in several different languages as well. The day's schedule of events also plays continuously on one of the channels on your stateroom TV.

We've taken both our 7YO and 12YO grandsons on RCL, and we couldn't pry them out of the clubs.

 

[JMHDisney]

Thank you everyone! This is so helpful!

 

[bumbershoot]

We've taken both our 7YO and 12YO grandsons on RCL, and we couldn't pry them out of the clubs.

So true.

Thankfully Royal has more limited club hours than Disney does, so unless you want to pay money, they have to leave every so often.

 

[HappyPeach]

The "compass" for the kids clubs are completely separate. The kids clubs are more separated by age... instead of 3 - 12 like at DCL, it's 9 - 11 for example. So the separate kid's compass will list what's going on with each of the age groups.