Which cruise ship has the best structured kids program?

I am looking for a cruise that has a great structured kids program. I have 3 boys that will be 10, almost 8, and 4 at the time of cruising. The older two have ADHD and some sensory issues. The oldest also has emerging OCD. My boys require good structure in order to be successful. They do not do well in a free for all situation. Neither boy is allowed to go outside at school during recess since they cannot handle the chaos of kids all running around doing whatever they feel like.

We are planning travelling in Jan or Feb since there may not be as many kids as there would be during school holidays.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Try NCL. While there are a few "freestyle" sessions each day, most activities are structured. If you let the kids club know about your kids' needs, they can likely plan for more 1:1 time with them as well.

Our son has been in both the DCL and NCL kids clubs and he seemed to get more involved during the NCL activities. With DCL, he ended up playing video games a lot and would not get involved in many of the activities, since they seemed "optional" to him. NCL does a better job of getting everyone involved, IMHO.

Disney is the LEAST "structured"....RCI, NCL Carnival and Celebrity get high marks from kids!

Stay away from Disney! It is the definition of "free for all"

I would recommend Holland America or Celebrity.

Keep in mind that there may not be too many kids (which may be a good thing for you). The camper/instructor ratio is excellent.

Both camps tend to be very structured, while still giving the children some time for free play.

Keep in mind also that your kids may not be all in the same group. However, on cruises with small numbers of kids, they do tend to group them.

I might recommend Celebrity in your case, as the instructors are all Autism certified. This tells me that they will be more educated/patient/attentive for the special needs that your boys have.

I would reach out to Celebrity (try their contact us email) and see what they can do assure you that they will be the right fit for you.

I agree with the others that Disney is not a good option. It is very much a free for all.

RCCL had structured programs (DD was in the nursery when we sailed them, but all the programs were structured).

While we did not like the cruise, the kids program on MSC was very good and structured.

I am looking for a cruise that has a great structured kids program. I have 3 boys that will be 10, almost 8, and 4 at the time of cruising. The older two have ADHD and some sensory issues. The oldest also has emerging OCD. My boys require good structure in order to be successful. They do not do well in a free for all situation. Neither boy is allowed to go outside at school during recess since they cannot handle the chaos of kids all running around doing whatever they feel like.

 

We are planning travelling in Jan or Feb since there may not be as many kids as there would be during school holidays.

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

We liked NCL very much for the kids club. I thought the staff were all wonderful and invested in making sure the kids had a good time. My sons, 7 and 10, wanted to spend as much time there as we would allow! Disney was a madhouse.... Would never do again. We are trying MSC next year and I have read some very good things.

Of note, you may want to stay away from Presidents week in February as that is when many northerners like myself, take their families on winter break as kids are out of school.

Disney's kids clubs group children together from age 3-12, which has the advantage of letting most sibling/friend/cousin groups stay together in the kids clubs. With such a wide age gap, it is understandable that the activities will need to be less structured.

Another factor to consider is the number of children on the cruise. When we sailed the 10 day partial transit Panama Canal on Princess, there were only 9 kids onboard on the sailing that departed on January 3rd. On the previous cruise, there had been 150 kids and the staff told me that this cruise had completely structured activities. With so few kids onboard, the activities were very unstructured during our cruise since they wanted to do whatever activities the few children who showed up were interested in. The staff will have a lot of time to work individually with your children. On my cruise they spent a lot of time helping my then 2 year old do whatever arts and craft projects they had set up for the older children. I don't know if your children would do better in a more crowded, highly structured kids club or one in which there are only 3 or 4 kids there with 3 counselors who can help lead them through activities.

My son loved the kids clubs on Princess and NCL, and seemed happy on HAL.

Confirm the check out policies of each line for each age group.

The 9 and olders on Carnival have at least one activity where they are unsupervised--the scavenger hunt. The parent does make the decision is the child can participate.

At the first meeting you'll get the cruise's camp schedule. You can simply not go to this event, so there's no stigma.

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I would sail on Holland, Princess or Celebrity if you need more structure. These cruise lines tend to have fewer children onboard. However, Caribbean and Bermuda cruises always have a lot of kids during school breaks. So you may want to do an Alaska cruise or New England/ Canada or take them out of school for the cruise.

I know that crowds make me nervous, but so does the shipboard stimulation. I think Celebrity, Princess and Holland are much more low key than some of the other lines. Carnival, NCL and Royal will have more announcements and are louder ships.

I am looking for a cruise that has a great structured kids program. I have 3 boys that will be 10, almost 8, and 4 at the time of cruising. The older two have ADHD and some sensory issues. The oldest also has emerging OCD. My boys require good structure in order to be successful. They do not do well in a free for all situation. Neither boy is allowed to go outside at school during recess since they cannot handle the chaos of kids all running around doing whatever they feel like.

 

We are planning travelling in Jan or Feb since there may not be as many kids as there would be during school holidays.

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

If the boys are athletic, they may like Princess. My youngest (now 12 - sailed at 8 and 10) preferred it to Carnival for this reason. Now they are going to play things like dodge ball - which is a bit of a free for all in and of itself. He didn't care for our last Carnival cruise where most of the activities were either preparing for the Christmas show or arts and crafts.

That said, my oldest is now 18, has been cruising since 8, exceptionally bright, highly ADHD and also has sensory issues (loud noises in particular drive him nuts - he sticks his fingers in his ears at the movie theater). He has done both Carnival and Princess and enjoyed Carnival more. Both programs are structured (more alike than different) and he prefers Carnival (he was 14 when we cruised and the extra number of girls in bikinis was a plus:rolleyes:).

Here's the reality one parent to another - kids like yours and mine HAVE to learn to function in a world that often contains too much sensory information even for "normal" people. A cruise is a great place to learn to adapt - its no harm no foul where as situations that may happen at school can impact them for years be it academic or social.

As parents, we prefer Princess - we are in our mid-40's and it is more "our crowd" - more people relaxing at wine/ martini bar and comedy vs more pool hairy chest contest, dance club and party til 2 am. Though you will find both on each line. Both have a strong family vibe on 7 day cruises, especially during school breaks, Princess just has a more mellow feel.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for asking this great question - I, too, am on the hunt for the perfect kids club! :p My kids (now 9 and 5) have been cruising since the oldest was 10 months. We have stuck primarily with Princess as we were happy with the clubs and activities they planned for kids. Sadly, as my youngest has got older it has become apparent that he just doesn't deal well with "chaos" and we need to find structure, routine, and rule based programming. While Princess does offer that for the most part, when there are LOTS of kids onboard (which seems to be more and more common as Princess markets so well to families) things have started to slip!

In our quest to find that perfect program, we have tried Disney (NO NO NO - run for the hills if you need structure!:eek:), RCI (quite good programs for the kids but I wasn't in love with adult stuff...), and recently Carnival (surprisingly, both kids really enjoyed the programming and did great - but we were only on a 4 day cruise so not sure how it would compare on a longer trip).

I am surprised to hear the positive comments about Celebrity - I had always thought of them as the LEAST family friendly line. Maybe this will be the next line we try!

Thanks everyone, I will be watching this thread eagerly!

We have cruised with our kids (now 9 and 6) since my oldest was 13 months old. RC and NCL both have structured children's programming and not a madhouse, even with several dozen kids checked in at once. Very highly recommend either.

Believe it or not, our favorite kids club is on Holland America. Every day is fully structured for 12 and under. You receive an itinerary for the next day in your mail slot. Fantastic activities including arts and crafts, sports, games, movies, parties, etc Club Hal is one of the line's best kept secrets.

Our daughter hated Disney after 1 day and she was a huge princess fan. Our son was bug eyed due to way too much computer play.

We just got off the Splendor and my kids had such a great time at camp carnival they didn't want to go home. Dd was with the 2-5 year olds and they did lots of arts and crafts and face painting. DS was with the 6-8 year old group and they also had scheduled activities, crafts and contests and some video game time. They had dinner with camp for nearly the entire cruise and we were able to have some time to ourselves.

Although I would not recommend them for much P&O kids programme is very structured. Away from the clubs the is not much for kids but the clubs are very structured.

Might be worth looking at their newish ship Britannia...assuming as a mainly UK based line it can fit in with your plans.

Looking at taking my 3 year old on a four night Princess Cruise out of Los Angeles, CA. While I have cruised on Princess this would be the first time with my son. Will the children program be available on the four night cruise? I find the web site to have some info but not enough for me. Appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.

Believe it or not, our favorite kids club is on Holland America. Every day is fully structured for 12 and under. You receive an itinerary for the next day in your mail slot. Fantastic activities including arts and crafts, sports, games, movies, parties, etc Club Hal is one of the line's best kept secrets.

 

Our daughter hated Disney after 1 day and she was a huge princess fan. Our son was bug eyed due to way too much computer play.

Absolutely agree with HAL. I was not impressed with carnival or RCI. My daughter wanted to go back to HAL's kids club, the rest were more free for all with less things she liked to do.

Looking at taking my 3 year old on a four night Princess Cruise out of Los Angeles, CA. While I have cruised on Princess this would be the first time with my son. Will the children program be available on the four night cruise? I find the web site to have some info but not enough for me. Appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.

Yes, they run a program on all cruises. I would ask on the Princess board for details and program information for the specific cruise you are looking to take.

Good luck. Most cruise ship kids clubs have been far less than willing to deal with my autistic child and my younger adhd child. One or both will usually get kicked out at least once, and usually for something trivial because they don't want to deal with them. I've been on a lot of cruises and have yet to find a kids club that my kids love.

We disliked ncl we found it well not well run. Leaders not interested and my son stepped in pea twice. They went for maybe a few hours. On celebrity not as well known for this club and never wanted to leave so we were so surprised when they refused to go back to the ncl one. We are doing oasis in a few weeks and I have been talking it up. Have heard good things. My dd has some sensory issues and found celebrity much quieter and more to her liking

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So much depends on staff as well as individual child.

In 2013 we did a 14 night Disney transatlantic, spent 3 nights in Barcelona, then 12 night NCL Barcelona to Venice. So essentially two cruiselines in same 30 day timeframe.

Our youngest would not stay in Disney's club - she spent a grand total of 3 hours there as we had adult dining at Palo. 3 hours over 14 nights (couldn't pry out our other daughter who was 4 years older) then on NCL almost immediately afterwards we could not pry either child out - they both loved it.

My youngest has 65+ nights on Disney now (first grader) but it can definitely vary based on staff interactions and child.

A couple other times they chose to avoid NCL kids club and hang out with us the entire week. Baltics they did kids club a lot though for that one.

Last month on Celebrity for Panama Canal, our kids closed down the club at 10 each night and both cried when we had to say goodbye. Just varies for sure. They each have over 120 nights on ships now (4th and 1st grades) and I can never predict it so pack games we like as a family just in case