Need help reassuring my 8 year old son

Thought I would ask here as we, my husband and I, have never been on an Alaskan cruise and our son (8) has never been on a cruise at all.

I guess my fascination with Titanic has impacted my son in a negative way. He's worried about our ship sinking and I have tried and tried to reassure him that the likelihood of that happening is slim to none, but he's a thinker and I know he's still scared. He says he's afraid of not being able to see the shore.

So my question is for those who have been on an inside passage cruise from Seattle. We will be on the Westerdam in a little more than a week. Is the shore always able to be seen from the ship? Not necessarily from both port and starboard, but at least one? I think having that will help him in some way and if we won't have that at least we can prepare him as best we can. I have a feeling that once we have been on the ship a couple of days his fear will subside but I don't want to dismiss them altogether right now.

Thanks for any help you can give me!

No, you will not see land the whole time you are sailing.

No, you will not see land the whole time you are sailing.

Thank you for your reply but this doesn't quite make sense to me unless you are being facetious.

Obviously we will be able to see land as we are nearing ports but I was really wondering if we would be able to see land after we left Seattle on the way to the inside passage and while we are in the passage as well as on our way to Sitka and then on to Victoria.

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No, you will not see land the whole time you are sailing.

Answering two questions with one double negative statement is very confusing.

OP,

You will see land from both port and starboard most of the time and from at least one side all the time.

You probably won't be able to see the shore on the way north to the inside passage and again on the return but most of the time in the inside passage land is visible. Unfortunately that means your first day at sea you won't be able to see land so not sure that helps much. Maybe some of the Club Hal activities could work as a distraction. Once in the inside passage, there is so much to see!! Good Luck and enjoy your trip.

You may also wish to try and prepare him for the muster drill. It is going to be very busy and very crowded. Luckily, you won't have to bring your life jacket so at least he won't get scared that the ship is sinking as soon as he gets on board.

If you do lose sight of land, one option is to try and keep him inside the ship as much as possible. The only time I ever really feel that I am at sea is when I walk on the Promenade deck or visit the back pool. The Lido pool is great when the roof is open as it feels like you are outside but you don't have to be looking at the ocean.

Make sure to bring him to Club HAL also. Hopefully there will be other kids there and that will keep him quite busy and help ease his anxiety.

Best of luck. Alaska is a beautiful destination.

OP,

 

You will see land from both port and starboard most of the time and from at least one side all the time.

Not when sailing from Seattle. The ship will go to the west/outside of Vancouver Island, and will be out range to see land most of those first and last days.

Answering two questions with one double negative statement is very confusing.

 

 

 

 

 

OP,

 

 

 

You will see land from both port and starboard most of the time and from at least one side all the time.

Actually, sailing from Seattle you will be sailing off the west coast of Vancouver Island on the first sea say and the day prior to arrival in Victoria. During most of those two days you will be well out to sea and will se the cost rarely. Late on the first day you will see mountains on the horizon from the right side of the ship. You will begin to see land on both sides the next day approaching Juneau.

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I think the best advice is to get him to Club HAL. He will be with other kids and there will be much to keep his mind occupied with other children He might come home saying "When can we go on another cruise?"

Ooops, I missed "Seattle" and was thinking from Vancouver.

My wife and I have taken our two sons on three Alaska cruises -- one of which was a HAL cruise -- and many other cruises. The first Alaska cruise, our boys were 6 and 9 and the last one (last summer), they were 11 and 14.

Assuming that the weather is clear, you will be able to see land during most (you can almost say, nearly all) of the cruise. And as I recall, the times where you are a bit farther from land occur mainly at night. Additionally, there is a channel on the TV that shows the position of the ship at all times. Even when you can't see land, you are still pretty close and you'll be able to see that by looking at the TV.

One of my son's is very anxious and it's better to prepare him before hand for new things. He was also fascinated by the Titanic. We talked about how the Titanic led to changes in the number of life boats, the muster drill, etc., all to make him feel safer before we started to go on a lot of cruises. Now that's the only type of vacation that he really gets excited about. For a child your child's age, they will put a plastic arm band on his wrist that will stay on the wrist for the cruise. That will let everyone know what muster station he would go to in case there is an issue. You will probably want to prepare him for that. Additionally, you will need to make sure that your room steward brings a child sized life vest to your stateroom for your son. That's likely to happen anyway, but sometimes it doesn't. I would practice putting it on your son. HAL no longer has you wear these to the muster drill because people were hurt by tripping over the straps. It made our son feel safer to get to the muster drill a little early as well, even if that might waste a little time. All of these little preparations, made our son feel safer and less anxious and might work with yours as well.

We have done your Westerdam Alaskan cruise. This is not considered an Inside Passage cruise. Cruises that sail out of Vancouver tend to stay inside for the majority of the cruise.

When you leave Seattle, the ship heads for the Pacific and you are not near nor can you see land.

When you leave Ketchikan, the ship heads out into the Pacific before it heads to Victoria.

Sorry to disappoint you.

I think the best advice is to get him to Club HAL. He will be with other kids and there will be much to keep his mind occupied with other children He might come home saying "When can we go on another cruise?"

Great idea!!

Thought I would ask here as we, my husband and I, have never been on an Alaskan cruise and our son (8) has never been on a cruise at all.

 

I guess my fascination with Titanic has impacted my son in a negative way. He's worried about our ship sinking and I have tried and tried to reassure him that the likelihood of that happening is slim to none, but he's a thinker and I know he's still scared. He says he's afraid of not being able to see the shore.

 

So my question is for those who have been on an inside passage cruise from Seattle. We will be on the Westerdam in a little more than a week. Is the shore always able to be seen from the ship? Not necessarily from both port and starboard, but at least one? I think having that will help him in some way and if we won't have that at least we can prepare him as best we can. I have a feeling that once we have been on the ship a couple of days his fear will subside but I don't want to dismiss them altogether right now.

 

Thanks for any help you can give me!

We will be on the Westerdam in three weeks so I put together some pictures that your son might like to see with the lifeboats near the end of the file:

http://www.rogerjett-photography.com/?page_id=1561

IIRC you will be no more than 12 miles from shore and the lifeboats can get you there in about 20 minutes. There are a number of You Tube videos to see how the life boats perform. Your son will even have his own life jacket that he can wear for the first few hours on the ship to get him comfortable.

When you get to Sitka, he can even ride in one of the lifeboats as they tender passengers to shore.

Being away from the shore is a great chance to see whales and your son could be the "official whale spotter" with a pair of inexpensive binoculars and pictures of whale spouts as reference. As the ship gets closer to shore, he can become the "eagle watcher" spotting their ice-cream cone- like heads in the trees. My website has images of whales and eagles under the Nature menu.

Encourage him to write all of his experiences so that he can tell his schoolmates what he did during the summer. Perhaps a cheap camera to capture his adventures.

Traveling when schools are closed will let him meet lots of other kids his age and to enjoy Club Hal that usually includes:

lots of movies

free popcorn

treasure hunts

reading

cooking classes

art classes

games

ice cream sundae making

swimming

video games

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your reply but this doesn't quite make sense to me unless you are being facetious.

 

Obviously we will be able to see land as we are nearing ports but I was really wondering if we would be able to see land after we left Seattle on the way to the inside passage and while we are in the passage as well as on our way to Sitka and then on to Victoria.

 

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No.

You will not see land the entire time you are on your cruise.

There is a great book by Joe Upton that has a mile by mile guide. I have the very large map on my cubicle wall right now - it is fairly obvious from looking at the map that we will be some distance from land going up and toward the end. A book/map like that might be fun for him - so he can "see" where we are. It is also a good reminder that we will have MUCH better visualization of icebergs with all the radar/sonar/whatever-dar there is

I plan to put the map up in the room so we can mark our coordinates/weather/view etc.

My son when through the exact same thing before his first cruise at age six (12 and a veteran cruiser now). He had picked up a copy of the Titanic at a library book sale a couple of weeks before the cruise and became slightly obsessed about it.

I had long talks with him about the Titanic, and explained that the people who were able to board the lifeboats lived, there were just not enough life boats. I showed him pictures of the ship, with all the lifeboats, and the muster drill was actually comforting because he knew everyone was prepared for an emergency.

The other weird thing that frightened him was the idea of a swimming pool. It turns out that he had an idea in his head that the "pool" was just a big hole, and he would be swimming in the ocean.

Another thing that we told him was that if he ever got separated from us, to go up to anyone in a uniform and they would help.

This really paid off when he was eight, he went up to a server in the Lido who brought him down to the main desk, just as I was frantically giving his description to the front desk.

My son really does love Club HAL now.

Ask any other questions.

:)I have a grandson who has Aspergers and when my husband and I took our first cruise he was 7. He had learned all about the Titanic and was convinced we would sink. :eek: I also told him about how safe boats were now and how they have enough lifeboats for everyone and how we all went to our muster stations right away. Also I convinced him I could swim to shore if need be.:D

He's 14 now and wants to go on a cruise. I think telling him all about the way ships are much safer now will help and once he's on the ship he will soon forget he is even on a ship.

SQUEE

Crew News I'll be on that ship in 596 hours~~~~

In a veranda, yes, we got it~!!!!!

but I'm not excited or anything

SQUEE

 

Crew News I'll be on that ship in 596 hours~~~~

In a veranda, yes, we got it~!!!!!

 

but I'm not excited or anything

Congratulations!!! and welcome to the neighborhood of completely-covered aft verandahs and a good spot for "whale and eagle" watching. Bring binoculars (7X to 8X).

Just in case you forgot:

There are a number of advantages of being in an aft cabin:

1. Very little traffic outside your door.

2. You are a 2-minute elevator ride up to the Lido Restaurant for quick snacks.

3. You are a 2-minute elevator ride down to the MDR.

4. You are a 2-minute elevator ride from the Room Service kitchen so delivered food is always hot.

5. No wind while the ship is moving.

OK its a long walk to the Crows Nest for pea soup but....

Not when sailing from Seattle. The ship will go to the west/outside of Vancouver Island, and will be out range to see land most of those first and last days.

Yes, this. ^^

Or, you could assure him that he's small enough that the giant shark would eat him in one gulp after he falls overboard, and he won't feel a thing! :D

Or, you could assure him that he's small enough that the giant shark would eat him in one gulp after he falls overboard, and he won't feel a thing! :D

Oh my! If I told him that I'd never even get him on the airplane to Seattle. :)

Thank you everyone for your comments on whether we would see land and all of the suggestions for helping my son over his anxiety.

We are definitely planning on taking him to Club HAL as soon as possible. I too, am hoping that having activities and other kids to hang with will help.

We've talked about the advances made since the Titanic sinking and I've shown him YouTube videos of a lifeboat drill on the Westerdam. He did comment on how quickly they were able to leave the ship. :)

Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated. As I said before, I want to validate his concerns but not go overboard (no pun intended).

For a child your child's age, they will put a plastic arm band on his wrist that will stay on the wrist for the cruise. That will let everyone know what muster station he would go to in case there is an issue. You will probably want to prepare him for that. Additionally, you will need to make sure that your room steward brings a child sized life vest to your stateroom for your son. That's likely to happen anyway, but sometimes it doesn't. I would practice putting it on your son. HAL no longer has you wear these to the muster drill because people were hurt by tripping over the straps. It made our son feel safer to get to the muster drill a little early as well, even if that might waste a little time. All of these little preparations, made our son feel safer and less anxious and might work with yours as well.

Thank you for telling me about the wrist band. This is very reassuring to me since I was unsure how they might handle any issue if he happened to be in Club HAL and my husband and I were else where. I like you idea of going a little early to the muster drill as well.

You very may get into fog:eek: and that would make even land very close by "disappear". You might just want to prepare him for that. :)

Wishing you all a great trip!

Kids get a wrist band so the staff will know their correct cabin and muster station.

My kids loved the kids clubs on the various cruise lines we were on. In fact, my daughter made friends with a few girls that she wrote/emailed to for years. In fact, we arranged another cruise to cruise with one of them and her family.

I am sure once he gets involved with the other kids and there will be lots on an Alaska cruise this time of the year, he won't have any worries.

But, I have an adult friend that won't cruise because she is afraid of the ship sinking. I think her husband and I almost had her convinced to try a short one, then the Costa ship sank.