Squok club experience

I have posted under roll call for the December 9th cruise on the Pacifica and have received no replies......

My 8-year old will be traveling with us-- he is afraid there will be no english speaking children.

For people that have traveled with children can you please describe your experience?

Thank you.

First time cruisers here:p

You don't indicate what the itinerary is for this cruise. If it is in the Caribbean, there will be more Americans. If not, there will be fewer. And a December 9 cruise will have far fewer children than in the summer or during school breaks, because most kids will be in school.

That being said, I've found that most eight year olds don't talk to each other much when they play. When my daughter was that age, some of her best friends in the Squawk Club couldn't speak a word of English.

We are just back from the Costa Serena. Our children are 8 and 6 and they loved Squok club. We sailed from Venice to Greece, Turkey and Croatia and it was certainly a very international kids club with children from several countries. The children's supervisors all spoke good English and the children never had a problem with language. They made friends from the UK, France, Germany and Holland. The children earn Squok money and on the last day they exchange their money for prizes. My two got a Squok baseball cap and a Squok bag/wallet as well as stickers and some crayons.

The programme included a visit from the captain (they each got their photo taken with him) and a visit to the kitchens, again with a photo with a chef. Another activity that our 8 year old enjoyed was the treasure hunt. They have organised activities and then some free time/play and some video time. They had an English one in one room and a French one in another.

I am happy to answer any more questions you have. :)

Early this year we sailed to Caribbean, and most of the kids were from Canada.:p Kids program staffs were Italians. They all spoke English.

Every morning, the first thing my son (9-year-old) asked was to go Squok club. He even asked if he could stay on the ship when we took shore excursions.:eek: (certainly we denied his request)

Squok opening hours are long! It starts at 9am non-stop to 11.30pm!! You just drop off and pick up when it is convenient to you. On port days if you are leaving early and not taking the children the club will open 15 minutes before your Costa excursion. We didn't use this as we stayed together as a family for the port visits however many people did particularly when we went to Izmir and they took a trip to Ephesus. I spoke to a French family who did exactly that and both adults and children had a great day.

Children can have lunch at 12.00 with Squok, you just need to sign up before 10am on the day and then at 4pm they go for snack. Snack is actually pizza and was extremely popular with our two. In addition, there are two Squok dinners which are the same night as the gala dinners. The children receive invitations to the Squok dinner in the cabin. Our children went to the first but came to the gala dinner on the second. After the gala dinner they went back to Squok so they didn't miss out on the Pirate Parade later in the evening where they all dressed up as pirates and did a mini-parade on deck 5, it looked great.

I have posted under roll call for the December 9th cruise on the Pacifica and have received no replies......

 

My 8-year old will be traveling with us-- he is afraid there will be no english speaking children.

 

For people that have traveled with children can you please describe your experience?

 

Thank you.

First time cruisers here:p

Jeff&Mel,

We are getting on the Pacifica on 10 Dec at Savona...

We have a 5 yo girl, 7 yo boy, 11 yo girl and 14 yo boy. I'm guessing there will be additional English speaking children on the boat. I just learned about this post thread today and we just booked the cruise last week.

Looking forward to finding the other English speaking cruisers to set up excursions with, etc.

Cruisingwith6

We were on the Pacifica last January. When we cruised there were 4 English speaking children on our ship. 2 from the US and 2 from Taiwan. DD was 9 and had a great time. If they were showing a movie they always tried to show DD one in English in another room. It worked out fine for her. She had a lot of fun in the kids club. There was always an instructor in the kids center who spoke English.

Cruisingwith 6 we are leaving from Savona on the same day that you are. Also, Jeff and Mel, I've got 3 kids, and their ages are dd 11, ds 7, and dd 3. I am sure that we will meet each other at some point. My kids will want to play DS games if there is nothing else to do, but this thread encourages me that they can stay busy without electronic entertainment during the days at sea. Look forward to seeing you on board!

Classica was NOT open all day on sea days. They closed during mealtimes. On the last formal night they didn't open till 6:30pm and we were on first sitting so we brought our son. Some nights they had a special Kids Buffet and Pizza Nights.

Good news is that they will allow you to go on Shore Tours without your child. Some of the more strenuous/long ones we were grateful for that option

We spoke to some of the staff there, this cruise there were only 7 kids in total. However they have had upwards of 300 before so we were very lucky

All staff spoke English fine. Our 5 year old son had no issues with other kids not speaking English at all (I don't think there were any, anyhow)

I have posted under roll call for the December 9th cruise on the Pacifica and have received no replies......

 

My 8-year old will be traveling with us-- he is afraid there will be no english speaking children.

 

For people that have traveled with children can you please describe your experience?

 

Thank you.

First time cruisers here:p

Hey Jeff & Mel - I responded to you in the roll call forum - sorry you did not see it. My son is has just turned 10 and we are Canadian so he speaks English. If you check the threads in the roll call for Dec. 9 you will find that there are at least 2 other boys close to your sons age who speak english, as well! We are getting on the boat in Savona, so my son will be in the Squok club on the second day of that cruise. Also, my sister's family has dd 9, ds 13 and dd 16 - all who speak english (and a little French).