Cruising with teen and tween

[alexney]

My son will be turning 10 while on the cruise and my daughter will be 13. They are already excited about going to the kids clubs and activities, so that will be great. But I wonder how I will communicate with them. If they check themselves out of the clubs, how will they know where we are? Should we tell them they cannot leave the clubs until a certain time? If any parents have any suggestions that would be great!

[laumicmah]

You can bring walkie talkies or have them meet you at a certain place at a certain time. We're cruising in August with our DS-13 and 2 DD-11 (plus their friends who are also 13 and 11). We'll tell them where we'll be at all times and have them come to us after they leave the club(s). I have walkie talkies that we took on our Disney cruise, but they were very ineffctive (there are more expensive ones that do work- search CC and you should find recommendations for good ones). Disney gave us a pager and when the kids wanted to leave the club, we were paged to come get them (they were 8 and 10, so we didn't let them sign themselves out). This worked perfectly well. Our kids stayed in the clubs for long periods, so we weren't running to the club every 20 minutes- or anything like that(and aside from my DH and I, we had the inlaws to go get them). Not sure if CCL gives out pagers.

[gone_cruisin]

If you are wanting/willing to give your kids a little freedom, walkie-talkies are your best bet. Even with my two 15 year olds, I get very frustrated when I can't find them. We will be buying ours for this upcoming cruise.

 

If you you're not ready for that much freedom, then you can try the method of letting them have an hour at time to theirselves. Say your lounging by the pool, just have them check back in with you by the hour.

 

Sticky notes and dry erase boards are popular for the room doors. It lets everyone know where everyone is at any given time.

[vavasmom]

I have cruised with my now 14 yo since she was 10. We use two methods - the first is a small white board I found at Office Depot (or Staples). We write each other notes as to where we will be (she used this to find me also). The second is a pad of post-it notes (but we have had an over zealous steward throw some out). She knows there are consequences (having to say with me) if I can't find her (and yes I do check from time to time).

[april_4_us]

We cruised last year with my now 14 yr old and then 9 yr old. Our rule with the 9 yr old since we let her check herself out was that she g directly to the room and wiat until one of us checked the room at half hour intervals. My 14 yr old we just said he had to check in but we would see him with his friends around the ship doing scavenger hunts etc.

Having said that this year we will take the walkie talkies. My now 10 yr old didnt like all of the activites so we just made sure that we knew in the am what their plans were. You gotta give the older ones a little freedom they really cant go that far and they do make friends and they usually hang out as a group.

hope that helps

april

[bankerbabe]

We too took the walkie talkies, and they came in very handy. We kept our conversations super-short (I recommend you do the same, or you coudl REALLY annoy the folks around you). They didn't work EVERY time we tried to use them, but when we weren't getting a good signal, we just stepped outside or moved around a bit until we could clearly understand each other.

 

I would recommend the walkie-talkies, but do buy fairly good ones or you will be disappointed.