Kids charging privileges

[Soleil's Mom]

This is only my second cruise with kids, so please bear with me. On the last cruise, the kid was 8 and didn't have charging privileges, but this time he will be 11. I will also have an almost 6 year old along for his first.

 

My question is this: I don't want them to have open charging on their cards, so can each boy put his saved money on their card, and when that is gone, it's gone? The 11 year old will be able to sign himself in and out of Camp, and I want him to be able to go to the arcade if that is his choice, or to grab a soda. It's his money, and he can spend it how he wants, I will just impress on him that if he blows his $50 the first sea day, the second will be pretty boring. As far as the almost 6 year old, I want him to be able to say he wants something, and pay for it himself to help him start learning the value of his money. Will he have to sign his own receipts? I can just see his little printed name on the bottom of his papers. LOL

[AngAndBoys]

You can set limits on their cards. I do it at guest services, but you may be able to do it at the kiosks as well. I do same as you, give them a set amount and when it's gone, too bad, so sad. You may not want to put it all on the card though. I leave some cash for them to spend in port as well.

[cruisecraze96]

For DD 12 I just set a limit and once she hit that she was done, it took her the entire 7 days to hit that limit so she did pretty good :). The cash money she saves throughout the year she uses for ports and it was the last port day before she really spent that money buying some things to bring home to friends.

[thomarvin]

My boys have been cruising since they were about 11. I recommend giving the older one the "Bottomless Bubbles". Its only $4.50 a day for him so if he buys 2 sodas a day it is paid for. I like the fact that if he puts his soda down while in the kids place to do something else, he can just get another one and not worry. I always told my kids if they lost sight of their drink they are not to drink it. Get a new one. They will put a sticker on his S&S card and he just has to show the card and he can get a new soda.

[ASchaff]

My mom never gave me charging privileges, and I was a teenager. Lol.

I had the soda card when we went one year, but after that I just had what I had. I brought cash and coins for arcade etc and kept myself busy without spending lots of money. Im pretty sure that you can put a limit on the card, possibly per day.

[CatlinSTJ]

Guest Services to set the spending limits is always our first stop. You have to wait to do it until you are on the ship to do it. You can set it either by day or for the entire trip - we always do the whole amount so if they want something that's a bit more they can do it. My kids have never needed more than $50 and they haven't complained.

 

 

Next cruise: Carnival Vista - July 2016

[DobberDog]

You can use the kiosks to set their spending limit or deny them charging privileges. Super easy. You cannot however do daily limits. If you want to do daily limits you have to set it each day. On our Jan 2015 dream cruise, we gave our 10yr old and 14 yr old $15 a day on sea days.so Monday morning we set the limit to $15.00. We had Tues-Thurs as port days. On Friday, we set the limit to $30.00. On Saturday we had to set it to $45.00. See the picture I'm painting? we did this each morning at the kiosks. The kids do have to sign for their purchases.

 

I agree with other posters, bottomless bubbles is worth it for the kids.

[bm6pm5]

We got our 12 yo daughter the bottomless bubbles card also so she could always get a drink when she wanted. Went to guest services and put the money that she had saved for the cruise on her S-S card. She also saved some back to get her friends something in ports. She understands that when it's gone it's gone and we wouldn't add any more to it. She did really well. Figured what she could spend each day on whatever she wanted. Even got us each a souvenir from the ship which she hid from us until Christmas when she gave them to us.

[tamirpr]

I know it might seem tedious, but we did the daily limits for our kids. We toyed with doing the entire thing, but I'm glad we didn't. At $1.25 a pop in the arcade, they would have been through their whole $75 in the first day without realizing it.

 

We set a $10 limit each day. We just went to guest services and had them up it by $10 each day. The 7yo bought one stawberry daiquiri the entire cruise, so we never had to up his. But the two older ones went through their money each day between frozen drinks, arcade, Cherry on Top or souvenirs.

 

If you are platinum, remember to go to the casino cage and receive the free cards (it was either $5 or $10). We have three kids, and they gave us a card for each one of them.