Sailing with a four year old - just returned Oasis of the Seas

[JillianinMN]

I know a lot of people disagree with doing this, but I paid full price for her at Giovannis. Now, let me explain just a little. I booked it before we boarded, and before I knew she would love Adventure Ocean. So... we just kept our reservation. Now, next time, I may feed her separately and drop her off before I head to a specialty restaurant- who knows for sure. She's a good kid, I enjoy having her around and I still had my alone time... but yes, I did spend the $$. BTW - there was five other kids in there that evening. I counted just for the heck of it. And.. contrary to what I've heard there is indeed a kids menu in Giovannis - sorry I don't have a copy.

 

Adventure Ocean is only open to drop in and register for the program on the first night. They do not offer any true programs or care that evening.

[buried20kleague]

I know a lot of people disagree with doing this, but I paid full price for her at Giovannis. Now, let me explain just a little. I booked it before we boarded, and before I knew she would love Adventure Ocean. So... we just kept our reservation. Now, next time, I may feed her separately and drop her off before I head to a specialty restaurant- who knows for sure. She's a good kid, I enjoy having her around and I still had my alone time... but yes, I did spend the $$. BTW - there was five other kids in there that evening. I counted just for the heck of it. And.. contrary to what I've heard there is indeed a kids menu in Giovannis - sorry I don't have a copy.

 

Adventure Ocean is only open to drop in and register for the program on the first night. They do not offer any true programs or care that evening.

 

 

This is exactly what we did. We took our 4 year old to Windjammer before the evening session of Adv Ocean started, and had reservations at Chops right after that. It worked out great. She was extatic because she got to eat what she wanted at WJ, and got to go to Adv Ocean, and we got our time to enjoy the meal without worrying about keeping her entertained.

 

The meal at Chops took so long that Adv Ocean was about to end and we hadn't had dessert yet, so we sent our oldest daugter to go get her and bring her back to Chops. She got there right before dessert was served, and they were kind enough to bring her her own dessert at no charge. I can't say enough about Chops.

 

Anyway... I would suggest this: Book the specialty dining of your choice ahead of time, INCLUDING your little one, for the third night or later... And make sure your reservation time is after Adventure Ocean's evening session starts. That way, your little one has a chance to check out AO, and you'll know if they like it. If they like it, you can call the specialty restaurant and tell them you'll have one less in your party, and you can enjoy your meal while they're off having a blast at AO. If they DON'T like AO, the worst case scenario is they eat with you that night, and you pay for them (which in my case, would have been just fine too!).

[JillianinMN]

 

Anyway... I would suggest this: Book the specialty dining of your choice ahead of time, INCLUDING your little one, for the third night or later... And make sure your reservation time is after Adventure Ocean's evening session starts. That way, your little one has a chance to check out AO, and you'll know if they like it. If they like it, you can call the specialty restaurant and tell them you'll have one less in your party, and you can enjoy your meal while they're off having a blast at AO. If they DON'T like AO, the worst case scenario is they eat with you that night, and you pay for them (which in my case, would have been just fine too!).

 

Great advice, however you won't be able to make a reservation at a specialty restaurant for a time that matches Adventure Ocean's evening session if you want to include your kids. Kids under 13 can only be on a reservation at a specialty restaurant before 7:00pm, Adventure Ocean's evening session begins at 7pm and is "closed" from 5pm-7pm unless your child is dining with them - no dropping off during these times. Since I wanted to plan before we boarded, I selected all 6:30pm reservation times which included my daughter. After we realized she liked AO I tried to change our dinner reservations to a little later (like 7 or 7:30) so I could feed her and then drop her off at 7pm, but the only other times I could get were 8:30pm or later and then it was messing with our entertainment reservations. This is primarily why we just kept her with us at the special restaurants and then just dropped her off after.

[Dabouys2]

Hey there

My family & I are on oasis on 26 oct 13, 5 & 9 year olds, when is ao open and closed each day? I'm in Australia & travel agent does not know, any advise will be greatly appreciated!!! And do you have to book them in everyday at the beginning of the cruise to make sure you get spots???

 

Any tips you can offer will be great!! Thanks :):D

[ARCruisinNana]

Hey there

My family & I are on oasis on 26 oct 13, 5 & 9 year olds, when is ao open and closed each day? I'm in Australia & travel agent does not know, any advise will be greatly appreciated!!! And do you have to book them in everyday at the beginning of the cruise to make sure you get spots???

 

Any tips you can offer will be great!! Thanks :):D

 

You register on the first day and then the kids can go to all of the sessions, or as many as they want. Adventure Ocean is not open the first night for the younger kids, but the teens have a get together the first night. Normal open hours on sea days are 9-12, 2-5 and 7-10pm. On port days AO is open from 30 minutes before the first excursion and closes 30 minutes after the last excursion returns. If the kids are there early they will take them to WJ for breakfast. Those there at noon are taken to WJ for lunch. There will be opportunities for them also to go to dinner with the staff, usually on Formal nights, but may be on other nights depending on the ship. Late night is available for $6 per hour per child. My granddaughters are now 6 and 7 and LOVE AO. They have been going since they were 3. Age groups are 3-5, 6-8, 9-11. Not sure about the tweens and teens. Hope you have a wonderful cruise!

[riclop]

We just returned from the May 11th, Western Caribbean, sailing on the Oasis of the Seas. My husband and I sailed with our four year old daughter, and my sister. We had a boardwalk balcony room (9725) and my sister was directly across the hall in an ocean view balcony stateroom. We had a great cruise and would do it again in a heartbeat.

 

Overboard!! Anyone traveling with young children will quickly be put at ease once you are onboard. I was worried, almost to a point that you’d wonder why I was sailing, that my daughter would tumble into the sea. Just not going to happen. I thought we’d avoid Deck 16, but I was even comfortable up there. I wasn’t worried with her in my sister’s ocean view balcony, and it really never crossed my mind once onboard. You can set your mind at ease – indeed you would have to work at falling over and you’ll never leave your kid alone on the balcony- no worries here.

 

Adventure Ocean: I came fully prepared that my child may not like it, not sure why but I didn’t count on it when planning dinners and events. Well – she loved it. L.O.V.E.D it. She went up there many evenings and even picked it one sea day over swimming with her dad. Give it a try, it is fun for them and a nice break for you.

 

Food: She never went hungry. Breakfasts and lunches were easy, and they’ll accommodate a child at dinner anywhere. As a matter of fact, our server at Giovanni’s got a WOW card because she was so awesome with our daughter. Most nights they would help us speed her through dinner and we’d walk her up to Adventure Ocean before our main course arrived. We’d then have a leisurely main course, dessert and after dinner fun. The hardest thing was finding a non-sweet snack in the afternoon. Would have loved to find fruit or yogurt at 3:30pm for her, but it was tough. We ended up buying smoothies from Viatality Café – happy it was an option.

 

Labadee: We rented a beach cabana. This was a FANTASTIC idea. We loved that we could get away from the crowd and have a shaded, semi-quiet place to rest. The beach cabanas are set back a bit and out of the crowd.

 

Falmouth: Kind of a bust. We did the trolley tour and she was bored out of her mind. We walked around a bit and went back to the ship to play. As a side note, Margaretville would be awesome if the music wasn’t so gosh darn loud! Honestly I’m not 90, but it was terrible!

 

Cozumel: Did the Dolphin Encounter at Chankanaab Park and it was the biggest hit! She wasn’t scared, and we got to interact a lot with the dolphins. After the encounter we ate lunch, swam at the beach and the pool. Overall, it was a fun day.

 

Stateroom: Yep, the boardwalk balcony rooms can be noisy. We were three from the back and even with the door locked could hear noise from the Aqua Theatre and below. Did it ruin the vacation? No, but it certainly wasn’t quiet. One day when my daughter was tired and wanted to nap we used my sister’s ocean view room since there was a comedy dive show going on. I’m not implying it’s impossible to sleep with the noise, we certainly did, just mentioning that you could certainly hear it. I wouldn’t necessarily avoid these rooms, but know there will be some muffled noise.

 

Movement: We actually felt quite a bit – most days. BUT… none of us are sensitive to it so we were not bothered. I tried the wait and see approach with my daughter and she didn’t just fine. Didn’t hear of anyone complaining of seasickness, just an observation.

 

Will she get bored? Nope. I was worried, but between Adventure Ocean, H2O Zone, breaks to play with toys in her room, ports, family disco, character meets, carousel, Pet’s at Sea … on and on… we were never at a loss for something to do. Sometimes it was simply watching the DreamWorks channel in the stateroom, but it was easy to keep everyone happy.

 

Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll try to answer them!

At what time was there quiet on the broadwalk at night?

[Dabouys2]

Thanks for the quick reply!!!! It's great to get first hand info in regards to the kids club!!! Looks like you're off again on oasis next week!! Have fun again!!:D