Ncl vs RCCL children's programs

I am trying to decide between NCL Gem and RCCL Grandeur of the seas 10 day Caribbean cruises with our three year old. We just got off the Carnival Dream and my son loved Camp Carnival!!!! Unfortunately, Carnival no longer sails the itinerary we are looking for out of the north east in January, so it comes down to the two listed above. I have cruised NCL before, and loved it, but know nothing of their children's program (our son was too young). I'm an RCCL virgin.

Anyone cruised both/either line with a pre school aged child??? I'm basing this choice purely on the children's program so I'd love to hear your thoughts!!! TIA

I am trying to decide between NCL Gem and RCCL Grandeur of the seas 10 day Caribbean cruises with our three year old. We just got off the Carnival Dream and my son loved Camp Carnival!!!! Unfortunately, Carnival no longer sails the itinerary we are looking for out of the north east in January, so it comes down to the two listed above. I have cruised NCL before, and loved it, but know nothing of their children's program (our son was too young). I'm an RCCL virgin.

Anyone cruised both/either line with a pre school aged child??? I'm basing this choice purely on the children's program so I'd love to hear your thoughts!!! TIA

We sailed on Grandeur twice with our son - he was 3 (but one month shy of 4, so an older 3), and the second cruise when he was 5. He loved both cruises - see my signature for links to my review for both cruises. On the first cruise, we went during non peak times, and there were about 40-50 kids on board, and only about 10 or so in the 3-5 range. When there were kids in the kids club, he loved going in. When it was empty, he did not. The Grandeur does have a gated, shallow area of the pool - so if your child is potty-trained, they will love this area. Our son lived in that pool. The kids area is small, but they had slide and councillors were excellent. We also looked at Gem, and I think it has water slide, so if I were a kid that would be awesome.

The NCL children's programs were excellent. My son greatly enjoyed all of his time in the 3-5 year old room, and he never wanted to leave. They made lots of great arts and craft projects, had a treasure hunt, and even put on a show in the main stage, where the 3-5 year olds dressed up like tigers and jumped through a hoop.

There has been a substantial issue raised in the NCL forum: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2213057 , and I would post a question on the NCL boards asking if children are routinely turned away from the kids clubs on their ships prior to booking a cruise on NCL. I don't have any personal experience with this, and cannot offer you any advice about this situation.

The only downside for my family on our cruise last August were the hours of the kids club. On sea days, the club is closed from 12-2, and 5-7. My son usually naps from 2:30-4:30, and on our earlier HAL cruise, he would wake up right before HAL's kid club was about to close and be really disappointed that he couldn't go to the kids club. Last summer, I was looking at cruises and decided against sailing the NCL Breakaway even though it seems like a great ship and it is based in our home port, because there are a lot of sea days. Since the itinerary of the Breakaway wasn't that interesting, I figured it wasn't worth the potential frustration about not being able to attend the kids club after nap. Ironically, it was avoiding the NCL Breakaway that led us to the NCL Star, since the Baltic cruise only had two sea days, and we had no idea what our son's nap schedule would be like in Europe. The kids club had a ton of really interesting activities, and since our son's sleep was a little screwed up from the time zone change we finally let our son's nap time be dictated by the kids club hours. We moved his nap to the hours when they were closed. It wasn't ideal, and he was crankier at night, but he really didn't want to miss any of the kids club activities and he was very happy at the kids club.

The Star is an older ship, so these other issues may not be relevant: the small kids pool was very crowded during the times the kids club was closed on sea days, and there were very long lines and waits to sign your kid back into the kids clubs since everyone was trying to put their children in the kids club at the same time. We didn't experience these issues on Princess, where the kids club was only closed an hour for lunch and dinner.

Wow. That topic above is "closed" and the latest posts were from May. Does anyone know if that limit rule is still in effect?

I honestly have no idea, and only sailed NCL in August of 2014, so I'm hoping someone can tell me. If I were seriously considering a NCL cruise, I'd post the question on the NCL forum to hopefully sample parents more recent experiences.

The OP came back (on a new thread) to say that she had reached someone from NCL and they were going to make changes.

Others on the NCL boards more recently have reported receiving emails prior to cruising warning of high numbers of kids on board during their (August) cruise and that they should register kids with Splash Academy as soon as they board and that Splash Academy may reach capacity.

However, in threads on this forum and the NCL forum, parents have reported isolated kids club capacity closures on various lines. Other than that one report from the Gem, I haven't seen anything on the NCL boards about closures. While there was discussion in late July about the emails for August cruises, no one followed up to report any issues.

Thanks - I hadn't followed it (I have a newborn) but meant to keep an eye on the situation, since my family would need to avoid any line that consistently has that problem - my son is happiest when surrounded by lot of other kids, and he'd never leave a kids club if we let him!

Wow. That topic above is "closed" and the latest posts were from May. Does anyone know if that limit rule is still in effect?

I was on the Gem in June right after that debacle occured (And the Gem was the ship it occurred on). At the time we were on there was no longer a limit and no children were turned away HOWEVER they made it very very very difficult to check children in. I've been on many other cruiselines and it was always as simple as drop your kid off, swipe your card. On the Gem, it was wait in line. Speak in person with a staff memeber who swipes your card for you, seperately for each kid. Now sign 12 forms and fill out this other form telling where you will be in case of an emergency. I asked about the debacle during one of the quieter times when I was picking up my kiddos and they said that there are guidelines as to how many kids they're allowed to have and that allowance is based on number of staff and space. HOWEVER usually they did not follow it because NCL was not enforcing it. But that week they really started to feel as if conditions were unsafe, and not fun particularly should there be an emergency (of note a child drown on the ship right before this happened) so the STAFF decided that since there officially was a capacity rule, they would simply start to enforce it, Based on staff and room, that capacity was around 75 so they were turning away a LOT of kids and those cruises weren't even during "kid season" They felt they were doing the right thing, however the parents of those turned away were POed, honestly as they should be, because the kids club is something that they felt they had paid for. Well the passengers raised heck with NCL and NCL came in and strong armed the staff into ignoring NCL's own rule about capacity in the kids club. The week we were on, there were times they were over capacity, but not by much. We happened to be on an extremely kid lite sailing. I never once went to the kids club and felt like it was really unacceptable... however during the peak season, I could see it getting utterly out of hand if they really aren't allowed to turn people away. The kids club on the gem is not that big.

So when I was on in June, it was not in effect. But who knows?