How do teens find their family onboard?

[lilacbirman]

There are six of us, me, hubby, 13 yr. old, mother, sister & her hubby. Since our son will probably spend some time in the teen club, is there a way that he can contact us if he is bored there and wants to find us onboard?

 

I understand that cell phones either don't work or is pricy. What do other parents of tweeners/teens do in these situations?

 

(I've posted this in "family cruisers" as well)

[BobT172]

I've seen where some families have used walkie-talkies to keep in touch.

 

In fact, this topic has been posted for the past day or two.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1218911

[TracieABD]

That depends on whether they want to be found!:rolleyes:

 

Seriously. post it notes, prearranged meeting times, giving a general daily agenda...

[Toddy709]

When I cruised with my teens, every time I saw them I gave them a pre-arranged time/place to meet up with us again. My guys know I mean business and don't deviate from the plan;)!

[spittler]

I took 2 cruises as a teenager, and we found what worked best was to leave notes for each other in the stateroom. Every couple hours we would just swing by and leave a message, it was pretty easy and that way we could be in touch. Below is an example of what a diologue may be...

 

3PM: Steve we are going up to the pool, let us know your plans before dinner

 

4:30PM: Mom, just checking in, been in the teen club all morning, making some friends

 

5:00PM: steve, glad you are having fun. be sure to be back at the room by 6:30 to freshen up for dinner.

 

I'd come back to check in again at 6 and just start getting ready. Just make an agreement that they will check in every so often and things will work fine. I have seen the walkies, but they are rather annoying to carry around considering you go on a cruise to relax, and other passengers may find it annoying if it's beeping or loud at meals or at a show. hope this helps, Steve;)

[Canuker]

I take yellow sticky note squares, to leave messages on cabin doors, etc.

These are also useful if you want to write a note to that nice couple you met yesterday in the bar...

[SandG]

We often use the telephone answering system to leave messages, that way we can leave a message from anywhere if we are running late, for example. There are phones all over the ship. (You still have to go to the room to receive the message though.)

 

Sue

[Colo Cruiser]

We leave a notepad in the cabin mailbox for messages.

[Shelly97060]

we bring sticky notes and highlighters. We all have a different color highlighter and mark what we are doing on our Patter or on the teen club activity sheets so it is easy for anyone in our party to know who is where.

 

If plans change, or what we are doing is not on the patter, we leave sticky note msgs for each other. More importantly we always agree on what time we will all meet back for dinner.

 

Have a fun trip.

[PatriciaF]

When my kids were younger, we would just make plans to meet somewhere at a certain time. My social butterfly, was usually very busy with the kids club, so she would check in and say bye again. My much more quiet son would many times just veg out by the pool or in the cabin or the movie theater.

 

Although the ship is huge--they could probably find you at the pool or in the cabin on most sea days.

[chipmaster]

A reasonable question and concern, but as big as a ship sounds with thousands on it the reality is that there really are very few places people can actually hang out or hide out. Sure if your family is doing something odd the likely places; pool, lido deck/food, stores, cabin, a few lounges, arcade, kids club, the places people/kids hang aren't many nor far from each other.

 

As others suggested just agree on set time or place, or in our case we usually had someone at an anchor place usually me reading/napping in the pool area :p

 

Walkie talkies sound like a good idea, but dont work so well in the bowls of the chip given all the metal, YMMV.

[Colo Cruiser]

Believe me when you try and find them and you have no idea where they are its not that easy. :)

[captainron]

Try Bungee Cords!!! Instead of jumping we'd have bungee parenting. :D

 

Ciao for now!!!

[notentirelynormal]

When I cruised with my teens, every time I saw them I gave them a pre-arranged time/place to meet up with us again. My guys know I mean business and don't deviate from the plan;)!

 

This was our way of doing it too. My first rule, I don't care where you are going but you better be there if I come looking for you. Firm rule, no deviation. I take my 18 YO niece on a cruise with us. She says she'll be with my DD. I pop up about 30 minutes later and she's wandered off with some "friends" she's met. I find her on deck, the bunch of them sitting on lounge chairs. I blasted her. I'm pretty sure she was embarassed. Don't know, don't care. I told her rule #1 was be where you said you were going to be or else. Never happened again. I'm still her favorite aunt. :D

 

The key is to check in with each other. The ship is big but no so big you can't figure out where you are going. I'll be in the casino, you'll be up at the pool, kind of thing.

[pablo222]

This was our way of doing it too. My first rule, I don't care where you are going but you better be there if I come looking for you. Firm rule, no deviation. I take my 18 YO niece on a cruise with us.

 

Why would an 18 year old need to listen to you?

[StAlbert4]

Why would an 18 year old need to listen to you?

 

They listen if they want an opportunity to cruise with you again. :p

 

Seriously, with our girls -- we have separated into different groupings to do a mixture of things. Notes in the rooms and highlighted platters (different colours) has always worked for us. Sometimes finding someone on deck can be a problem, but normally we have an area that we tend to try to find chairs in and the search can radiate out from there.

[Toddy709]

Why would an 18 year old need to listen to you?

 

My daughter was 18 the last time we cruised together. I can guarantee you she listened and always met up with us at the appointed time/place.

 

But as to your specific question: I'd love to let her answer it herself, but since she's not here I can just tell you that until my children are financially independent, they listen to me. I never threatened to take away cars, phones, computer, etc., I actually took them!

[notentirelynormal]

Why would an 18 year old need to listen to you?

 

I paid for her flight, cruise, hotel and all her other expenses. I can guarantee you if she was in trouble and needed help I would be the one she would come to. It was my responsibility to get her home safe to her parents. She didn't have to listen, of course, she could always find her own way home at the next port. If she was a smart a$$ kid then she wouldn't have had the opportunity at all. That was HER cost to travel with me. Manners and rules.

[luvs2travl]

My daughter was 18 the last time we cruised together. I can guarantee you she listened and always met up with us at the appointed time/place.

 

But as to your specific question: I'd love to let her answer it herself, but since she's not here I can just tell you that until my children are financially independent, they listen to me. I never threatened to take away cars, phones, computer, etc., I actually took them!

 

 

Bravo! I doubt that many 18-year olds pay for their own cruises. And if I were paying, they would listen & abide by my rules as well! Good for you for setting down the ground-rules and then actually following through.

 

Kudos to you!! :)

[luvs2travl]

I paid for her flight, cruise, hotel and all her other expenses. I can guarantee you if she was in trouble and needed help I would be the one she would come to. It was my responsibility to get her home safe to her parents. She didn't have to listen, of course, she could always find her own way home at the next port. If she was a smart a$$ kid then she wouldn't have had the opportunity at all. That was HER cost to travel with me. Manners and rules.

 

 

And kudos to you as well!

[DrivesLikeMario]

There are six of us, me, hubby, 13 yr. old, mother, sister & her hubby. Since our son will probably spend some time in the teen club, is there a way that he can contact us if he is bored there and wants to find us onboard?

 

I understand that cell phones either don't work or is pricy. What do other parents of tweeners/teens do in these situations?

 

(I've posted this in "family cruisers" as well)

 

We've cruised a lot with our sons and we've used walkie-talkies (turned down a bit so they don't bother other people) and post-it notes left in our cabin or theirs.

 

Once our kids were about 13 and didn't want to join in on the teen activities, we hung out with them about 90% of the time, so finding them wasn't a problem. Sometimes, we'd set up times to meet - like "back at the cabin at 11am" if we weren't together.

 

You have to know your kids well and be honest with yourself about their behavior. We knew we could trust ours to behave, but some kids don't the minute their parents' backs are turned.

[DrivesLikeMario]

My daughter was 18 the last time we cruised together. I can guarantee you she listened and always met up with us at the appointed time/place.

 

But as to your specific question: I'd love to let her answer it herself, but since she's not here I can just tell you that until my children are financially independent, they listen to me. I never threatened to take away cars, phones, computer, etc., I actually took them!

 

I agree. My 20 yr. old still listens to me if he wants the pleasure of cruising again. It's not a matter of me being the parent and him the child, it's a matter of RESPECT - something many people seem to forget nowadays. Oh - and I try to listen to him too - again, RESPECT.

[GoVikes]

We've cruised a lot with our sons and we've used walkie-talkies (turned down a bit so they don't bother other people) and post-it notes left in our cabin or theirs.

 

Once our kids were about 13 and didn't want to join in on the teen activities, we hung out with them about 90% of the time, so finding them wasn't a problem. Sometimes, we'd set up times to meet - like "back at the cabin at 11am" if we weren't together.

 

We did bring walkie-talkies, but found we didn't use them often. My 13 year old would review the kid zone activities for the day and figure out what he wanted to do. He typically didn't want to do many of the teen activities, so he hung out with us. When he did want to join in, we would arrange to meet in the room in time to get ready for dinner or near the MUTS before lunch.

[DrivesLikeMario]

We did bring walkie-talkies, but found we didn't use them often. My 13 year old would review the kid zone activities for the day and figure out what he wanted to do. He typically didn't want to do many of the teen activities, so he hung out with us. When he did want to join in, we would arrange to meet in the room in time to get ready for dinner or near the MUTS before lunch.

 

We didn't use our walkie-talkies much either. They would cut out in certain areas of the ship and they became more of a nuisance than a help. It was like having your cell phone on at sea and getting lots of calls. :rolleyes:

[notentirelynormal]

We did walkie talkies once and it was more of a pain than anything. We found we spent more time having to remember to bring them (and not lose them) then we did using them. There was also a lot of interference. I'd only bring them in the future for use on land in case we got separated.

 

As Drives said, our kids spent most of their time with us anyway.... we started cruising long before they had dedicated kids areas. However, we just told each other the general area where we'd be and then meet up with them. Dinner was a must. They always did shore excursions with us. As I stated earlier, the kids new the rules: be where you say you are going to be. If I needed them I went there. If they wanted to find me I also told them where I expected to be and they came and found me to give updates.