Caution re: Kids Program Age Groups

[Mrs_Tiki]

We were on the Golden Princess 3/20 Eastern Caribbean and wanted to share a word of caution regarding age groupings for the Kids Programs onboard.

The staff on the ship may adjust the age level groupings based on the numbers of children of a particular age on the voyage. My daughter is 10 (turning 11 in May) and expected to be with the 10-12 group. However, since there were a huge number of 11-year-olds on our sailing, they adjusted the age groups to 3-7, 8-10 and 11-12. Because of capacity issues, they were unable to make exceptions. My daughter did not participate as much as she normally would, because she did not want to hang around with the "little kids."

Did this ruin our cruise? No way, just a minor disappointment. However, my humble advice to other parents is to be aware that the groupings can vary from cruise to cruise and to try to manage your child's expectations accordingly.

Mrs. Tiki

Golden Princess 3/04
Constellation 12/03
Millennium 12/02
Constellation 10/02
Norwegian Sun 4/02
Grand Princess 12/01
Sea Princess 11/00
Disney Magic 11/99
Sea Princess 4/99
Dawn Princess 3/98
Leeward 4/97
Royal Majesty 1/96
Horizon 11/94
Viking Serenade 7/94
Westward 7/93
QE2 11/84
QE2 6/79

[Coral]

I am sure many will appreciate knowing this. A lot of people try to plan and think that the siblings may be together when in fact, the age groups may change.

[Jacqueline]

Its a good point to raise for new cruisers. Sometimes the age ranges are very large, other times quite small depending on the demographics of each individual sailing.
Sounds like you handled it well- being on the cusp of an agegroup is always hard- and its got to be somebody.

Jacqueline
Constellation 3/20/04
HAL Westerdam 7/30/04
Tahitian Princess August 2003
Grand Princess Western Caribbean 2003
Brilliance of the Seas Baltic 2002
Ocean Princess- Alaska 2001
Celebrity Zenith- Bermuda 2001
Grand Princess Med 2000