Kids Club Worry

[JillianLeigh]

We're taking our kids (7&5) on their first cruise in June, and I'm already getting a bit worried about how things work in the Kids Clubs. They won't be old enough to check themselves out, so how reliable are the alerts on the app/Wave phones when it comes time to get your kids? Is one device more reliable over the other? Should I carry around both? Am I going to have to be glued to my phone and looking at it every second my kids are in the clubs so I don't miss an alert? I don't always notice calls or texts on normal days at home, so I can't imagine being aware of an alert every time on the cruise unless I'm physically holding my phone all the time.

 

[Ladybugx87]

As of last summer, we found the app to be slightly more reliable than the Wave Phones but only by about 30 seconds. Sometimes, we were in our room when our daughter signed herself out and the app on cell phone would tell us shortly before the Wave phone pinged.
The other thing to note is that they likely won't have to reach out to you too often - last cruise, our younger daughter (4) only requested to be picked up once on an 11-night cruise. On previous cruises, we have only been texted twice at most.

 

[Glenn3484]

We kinda worried as well the first time... they were 3 and 6 at the time. There is SO much to do there, your kids will be busy busy. We never got a single call or alert. We brought wave phones with us.

 

[Marc D]

In 11 cruises, we were texted twice that our son wanted to be picked up. It is a rare occurence. It is much more likely you’ll have to insist for them to leave. We never use the phones, only the app, and it is reliable enough.

While waiting, the counsellors will pay special attention to your little ones.

 

[Budzooka]

3 cruises and they have never asked to leave. I always show up before they are ready.

 

[T & R]

Our kids never want to leave. They actually plow through dinner so that they can go back to the clubs.

 

[KT2038]

We're taking our kids (7&5) on their first cruise in June, and I'm already getting a bit worried about how things work in the Kids Clubs. They won't be old enough to check themselves out, so how reliable are the alerts on the app/Wave phones when it comes time to get your kids? Is one device more reliable over the other? Should I carry around both? Am I going to have to be glued to my phone and looking at it every second my kids are in the clubs so I don't miss an alert? I don't always notice calls or texts on normal days at home, so I can't imagine being aware of an alert every time on the cruise unless I'm physically holding my phone all the time.

Don’t worry about missing alerts. Wanting to be picked up isn’t an emergency and we will distract the kids while they wait for you. If they are upset or hurt we will ring you.

 

[MomOTwins]

I think this must pretty variable in terms of experience because we found the wave phones to be significantly more reliable than the app. On several occasions on our November cruise there would be a substantial delay between the time the same message came through on the wave phone and when it would finally show up in the app.

We learned this the hard way early in our cruise when we relied on the phone app and the message came through 30 minutes after the fact (I did have the app open in front of me the whole time), and we got to the club to find one of my kids bleeding from a gaga ball incident and bawling that we had abandoned him and were the worst parents in the world. ​

Other times it was instantaneous so maybe it depends on the strength of the wifi signal in various parts of the ship, or maybe it is just spotty.

It also depends a lot on your kids. My kids (aged 7 and 4 at the time) are very accident prone and easily upset (see illustration above), so we pretty much never went more than 30-60 minutes at a time before one of the kids had to be picked up due to an injury or being upset about something. Other parents' kids seem to be okay in the clubs for hours at a time, but it never really worked for us except when we had Remy brunch (and I secretly suspect that our kids probably did ask to be picked up then but the club didn't tell us because we had said we'd be in Remy). So I definitely found it useful to carry the both the wave phone and my phone/app with me at all times, but maybe you should just do that at first and then decide what works best for you..​

 

[JillianLeigh]

Thanks for all the responses so far! I'm hoping my kids will be like the majority and not want to leave the clubs and we'll have to find a happy medium between family time and the clubs.

 

[Disneyfamforsure]

My kids never asked to leave early. The kids clubs are amazing and super clean. They have lots of activities for them to participate in and areas for them to just relax and watch movies. I don't think we even had the wave phone or a cell phone with us during the times they were there. You are able to check it all out during the open house on the first day and you will get a feel for whether or not your kids will enjoy it. Love the handwashers!

 

[Spiffy MacSpiff]

I've heard about issues with texts being delayed on the app, but that's not personal experience since our phones go in the safe when we're on vacation. We've had no problems at all with the wave phones.

 

[bumbershoot]

This isn’t going to make you feel bettter, OP. Sorry.


Please check the app and wave phone often. Just because the batch of responses here are positive doesn’t mean they are all positive.

I haven’t gone since they started notifying on the app, so I can’t speak to that. But we had the lovely time of the kid club calling our ROOM phone and leaving a message, rather than the wave phones we were carrying. This wasn’t about leaving, but about him eating (they wanted to verify he’s vegetarian before letting him have a cheese sandwich? Because we were not in the room and didn’t get it, we picked him up at the pre-arranged time only to find out he hadn’t eaten because they wouldn’t let him.)

His second cousins another time wanted to leave. The younger one almost immediately. The older one not that long after. Their parents were not paying attention, and my aunt was watching over the younger one who was taking a nap after being picked up from the kid club, so the older one couldn’t leave. And was miserable. And so my son wanted to leave, too. But we hadn’t thought to put all adults on the other account, so we couldn’t take the cousin. We hung out chatting with him while he paced like a caged animal on the other side of the gate. It was awful.

While waiting, the counsellors will pay special attention to your little ones.

Maybe it’s because the child in question was 9ish and not a “little one” but they certainly didn’t pay ANY attention to him. He’s on the spectrum, too, so he was freaking out at having to be where he didn’t want to be, and no CM tried to help at all (and not before we came, either, as reported by my son).

If they are upset or hurt we will ring you.

Just be sure to try the wave phone. Not room phone.



OP my son was older than 7 when we did this, but we ended up sending him with an old phone that connected to WiFi. Got him set up with the app. So instead of alerting the CMs (who had proven to be less than helpful more times than I’ve mentioned in this post) he just texted us directly. When on Dream when without a member of the family I checked it often so we got those messages quickly and got him.

 

[mab2012]

It also depends a lot on your kids.

This. My kids like the clubs to a point, and will go for a bit, but we've never had trouble getting them to leave, and usually they would ask first. They are well old enough to self-check now, but they were 5 and 8 on their first cruise, and this has always been true. Younger than that and they probably wouldn't have gone at all.

OP, if your kids are the type who adjust reasonably easily to new situations, like a lot of stimulation, and/or make new friends easily, they'll probably love the clubs and want to stay all day. But not all kids love them.

Having said that, I never felt the need to be glued to a phone. I didn't necessarily always notice the moment a message arrived, but I would just check periodically. If there's a reason a child really needs to leave immediately, I imagine the staff will track you down.

 

[DisneyPiPhi]

I'm just off the Wonder, and I thought that the texting and alert features on the app were MUCH more reliable than they used to be. As long as the app was open on my phone, I got alerts very quickly. Just keep your ringer and vibrate on, and you won't miss much. The only time I missed an alert from the club was when I was showering. I noticed it about five minutes later, though.

 

[Ladybugx87]

One other thing (i responded earlier) is to check out what activities might be happening that your kids wouldn't like - we are going on cruise #6 and the only time one of our kiddos REALLY needed picked up was our first cruise- at the time, we had only one daughter and she was just barely 3 years old. She had really wanted to go to the club for "Toy Story Boot Camp" and I didnt think twice....well CMs dressed as army men came in for 'boot camp' and she freaked out! They took her to the art corner but she was still cry-ey when we got her less than 10 minutes later. That was the 'worst' of it for us. Every other time they texted us it's because a kiddo is just 'ready' - I still try to get there quickly but wanted to give some more details on what to ask about when you drop off in case worried about activities.

 

[MissyMouse77]

Our daughter was six on our first cruise and she is an only child but pretty outgoing. We went to the clubs with her during Open House which got her excited to visit. However, we were gone pretty much all day the first full day of our cruise and so she didn’t return to the clubs until Day 3. She had an okay time. She said she made a friend but then they got picked up. When we came to get her she was doing a craft with one of the Kids Club staff. She didn’t ask to go back but she was cool with going while we went to Palo on our last night. Not a bad experience but not a home run.

We went on our second cruise (Med itinerary) last June (she was eight at the time) and I really wanted her to feel like she had some buddies. I ended up spearheading a Pen Pal group for kids in her age range via the Facebook Cruise Group page for our sail dates. It was a hit and she ended up with about about 20 kids she exchanged letter with, and spent quite a bit of time with about five of them throughout the cruise in the clubs. She really bonded with two sisters and we are still in touch with that family today. She is looking forward to our next cruise because this was such a good experience.

As others have said, some kids love the clubs, and others not as much. We’ve never had issues with them contacting us via the wave phones but we were only called once during our first cruise. I suggest dropping them off for an hour that first day and seeing how they do. Then trying for a bit longer the next time. I think it’s easier if they make some friends while there so try and time drop off during an activity they might like to try or possibly try and connecting with a few families via your cruise group in advance.

 

[hcox31]

The app was super glitchy on our last cruise (March 2019). My son had been requesting pick up and neither myself nor my husband got notice on the app (we were doing our own thing and weren't together and didn't have the wave phones). It was only when I returned to the room that the wave phone called and said he was requesting pick up. TWO HOURS later we got notification on the app. TWO HOURS. We complained about it at guest services because he was hysterical at pick up, as he waited almost an hour for us to get him.

 

[SusannaBanana]

Yikes! The negative stories on here are not very reassuring. I'll definitely be carrying both the wave phone and my own phone and checking often.