safe to leave kids on ship at port?

Is it safe/ common for parents to leave younger kids on the ship in the kid camps while they go off on an adventurous excursion? We have a 4 and 8 year old that we are considering leaving on the ship in St Maarten. Please offer some advice if you have done this.

This is a much debated (often heatedly) topic. Here's my attempt at a non-biased answer....

Yes, parents do leave children on board when at ports. Things to consider:

- Pagers may or may not work off ship. This means that in the event of a problem you may not be informed until you return to the ship.

- If an emergency did come up would you want complete strangers making decisions on the care of your children? Even if a page did get through the time it takes to get back to the ship could be too long.

- Is your child the type who needs a parent or familiar adult around if they have a problem? IE, if they get a minor injury can someone else comfort them if you aren't available?

- What kind of excursion and when is it? Many have said DCL will not leave a port if the child is on board and the parents are not, however I'm not sure this policy has ever been confirmed. An excursion close to sailing time may be risky if something goes wrong and you cannot get back to the ship before it has to leave port.

Biased part of the answer: :)

I wouldn't leave my child alone with anyone (not even the grandparents) unless they had emergency contact numbers to reach me at. Accidents happen and I want to be the one making the decisions on my child's care and want to know immediately if something does happen. The only way I would leave my child alone on board ship was if my cell phone worked in the port and the staff had that number to reach me at.

Jim

I wouldn't, I'd be too nervous especially in case I missed the ship!

Besides the issue of the child possibly getting hurt and you not being available, have you considered the possibilityof something happening to you?

What if (for whatever reason) you don't make it back to the ship? What would happen to your child? While going off ship on an excursion any number of things could happen.

Unless you have other people on the cruise with you who could care for the child should something happen to you or the child while you are separated I wouldn't go on any excursions.

This actually happened to my sister but not on DLC. Her son was a pre-teen. She missed the ship and her child was on board. They did get the port agent to arrange for the coast guard to get them to the ship, but she was lucky! In some instances the fines can be very substancial if the ship does not leave on the scheduled times and Disney or not you cannot have confidence that they will hold the ship for you should a situation occur.

If you decide to do this though I would test and be sure to first check that my cell phone works at that Island.

Brilarso -

It sounds as if you and I are in the same boat (pardon the pun):). I too will be taking a 4 yr old (DD) & 8 yr old (DS) to St. Maarten this June & had briefly considered leaving 1 or both of them on the boat as well. However, after giving it more serious thought, I have decided against it for many of the same reasons posted in this thread. Unfortunately, I now have the dilemma of deciding what type of shore excursion to do with all 4 of us while in that port. (We're all definitely going to Trunk Bay while in St. Thomas, so that will cover the snorkeling trip arena.) I'd really like to go to Loterie Farms & do the zip line course & have done some research on it, but am still unsure whether it's suitable for my 4 year old. She'll be just shy of 5 when we travel & is quite a little gymnastic daredevil, but I don't know how many hours that trip would last & is the kids area at Loterie enough to keep her occupied? Besides the butterfly farm, what else would be a good excursion option for us as a family?? I thought the old fort ruins would be neat to see & I saw some cool youtube videos taken on Moho Beach of the airplane landings/takeoffs but that's really not something you make a complete day trip out of. Any suggestions from folks who've been to St. Maarten with kids of this age?

Okay, I will post without trying to get into a debate either. This tends to be a "hot topic" on the other boards. When we first started cruising Disney in 2001 (we go once a year once not getting there until month 18 though); we were told that parents could not leave the kids on the ship while we go into POCs. When we were there in 2006, was the other time that we overheard a CM telling parents no as well. Well, on the "other boards" about 6 months ago, an ex CM got on the boards and said that it was okay with the staff when she was working there. She went on to say they just like to be told. SHe went on to say that the kids could not get off the ship without a parent, so they would be safe. Now my opinion is, I would not get off in another country and leave my child. What if you missed the ship or what if the child got sick while you were in port and your pager was not working. What if something happened to you on-land. Now on the other boards, someone commented that if you were not on the ship and your kids were in the club that they would hold the ship until you arrived back...... Well I will be honest, I doubt this. They get find tens of thousands of dollars if they are late leaving a POC and I just doubt that DCL would just wipe their hands and say oh well, we will just eat the fine because we are feeling pixie dust.... Also, we use to sail and choose our side of the ship according to which side they were using for the most debarkations in port. We love (in a sick way) going to our verandah and watching the people run for the ship as it starts to pull away. We have also seen people miss the ship and are standing there with bags looking confused. A little funny if you consider so many DCL cruisers have the "princess/prince" mentality and always think they are the exception to the rule. Check out You Tube, there are a lot of "people who miss the boat" videos. Also I think of the time my DD had a reaction on the ship and I was in Palos and missed the page as we went up to the buffet. So if I can miss it on the ship, what the heck, I can miss it for sure off and on an excursion. Just MHO!!!;)

Hi guys, I am aware of the typos above, but for some reason it is not giving me the edit option. :mad: I think the post is still clear though. :(

Is it safe/ common for parents to leave younger kids on the ship in the kid camps while they go off on an adventurous excursion? We have a 4 and 8 year old that we are considering leaving on the ship in St Maarten. Please offer some advice if you have done this.

I wouldn't.

I wouldn't go on an excursion leaving them on the ship.

However, when we cruised on the Magic, we went ashore to the Straw Market while they stayed aboard in the kids' clubs. We were in pager range in that one paged us so he could go swimming.

I would go ashore but I wouldn't go out of close sight of the ship.

Do you believe that the ship wants to accept responsibility for your children in the event YOU FAIL TO RETURN TO THE SHIP?

This can happen for a hundred different reasons while you go have "an excursion"

SURE...Your kids will be happy as the ship sails away and YOU ARE ON THE PIER...

Sorry folks....seen it happen...it DOES HAPPEN.

DO NOT DO IT.

Thanks for the feedback - my wife and I have opted to NOT leave them on the ship. There are more important things in life than shore excursions.

Thank you everyone