What are your cruise rules for teens?

We used the same rules for teens going on the cruises with us. No visiting or allowing visitors in the cabin. No accepting drinks. Be at dinner every night...on time. Teens aren't allowed to leave the ship when it's in port without an adult. Ours knew not to attempt that one. I was very pleased to see the ship enforce this rule and turn MANY teens back who were trying to head off the ship.

I’d definitely leave my teens on the ship, if we didn’t make it back, they be fine.

I respect that and would probably do it now however our kids were teens in the late 90s, early 00s, no cell phones. Would you do it then.

I would not leave my kids alone in a foreign country and that’s how I view a cruise ship.

We just took our first cruise two years ago when our son was 15. Like the OP, we have always generally stuck together on our vacations, but had never done anything like this. We went with my wife's aunt & uncle, so our boy was the only kid on the trip. Turns out, it left him fairly bored at times. He's not the most social, so he wasn't interested in joining in on any of the Club O2 activities with strangers. We spent as much time with him as we could, just to keep him from being lonely and bored, but there were times when we wanted to do our own thing, too. So once he got comfortable with the ship and knew his way around, we pretty much let him come & go as he pleased. We kept in touch through text messages, usually had lunch together, and always ate supper together. When he wasn't with us, he spent most of his time in the arcade. He saved up money to take on the trip and had a certain amount to spend each day. He was told if he blew through it early in the day, then that was tough luck, so he didn't have much trouble pacing his spending every day. In port, he was always with one or both of us.

For our next cruise in June, we had originally been set to go with some different family members and he would've had three cousins to hang out with, but they cancelled on us, so we decided to let him take a friend. He's 17 now, so we're pretty much going to let them have free reign. They're good kids and can be trusted not to do anything wrong. We'll still communicate through texts and get together for some of the shows and suppers. In ports, they'll stay with us. His friend's parents are trusting us to take their kid out of the country, so we're not going to do anything to break that trust.

I respect that and would probably do it now however our kids were teens in the late 90s, early 00s, no cell phones. Would you do it then.

I think back then, there were a lot more payphones. My friends and I were juniors in high school and went down the shore for a weekend without adults.