Siblings in different kids club groups?

[wesnliz]

Hoping someone can share some experience here, my kids are 3 and 6, the 3 year old doesn’t want to do anything without the older one. I know carnival has a policy about not mixing ages but then it says that often the groups are mixed anyway.

 

does anyone have experience with this?

[nydney1]

Our kids were 15 months apart, before Covid, they were pretty flexible about which clubs they were in. 
 

Allot depends on the number of kids on the ship, the camp counselors and to be honest your kids. 
 

Sometimes when the kids were that small they were all in the same room anyway. 
 

All you can do is ask.

[vwrestler171]

While they are in the same group(Camp Ocean), they have separate subgroups.  2-5 6-8, and 9-11 are the groups.  Sometimes they will combine them and other times they won't.  All depends on how many kids are onboard in those age groups.  

[Eli_6]

I agree with what others have said.  It depends on the ship and how many kids are on board. An Alaskan or Europe cruise is totally different than a carribean cruise on one of the giant ships where there are 500+ kids on board.  However, I will say that in all my cruising I don't think I have seen the youngest child group (2-5) ever combined with the 6-8 or 9-11 age groups. When my kids were 7/9 and 8/10, their groups were combined all-the-time when we were in Europe cruising, but the 2-5 were in a completely different room and never combined with the older kids.

 

Your best bet might be to ask if the 6 year-old can be in with the 2-5 (Penguins). [2-5 are Penguins, 6-8 are Stingrays, and 9-11 are Sharks.]

 

Only time I saw the youngest combined with older kids in all my cruising was on an Alaskan cruise where there was only one 4 or 5-years-old and all the kids were combined in the same room because there was only about 8-10 kids on the entire cruise. 

 

 

[DukeASUGirl]

It all depends on how many kids are on the ship that week.

 

The last cruise my kids went on, the older was 13 and the younger was 11. That should have been two different groups (the younger one still in the kids club and the older one in the younger teen club). But the age groups were skewing really young in Camp Ocean that week, and many fewer preteens, so the counselors allowed all older 11-yr-olds to choose which group they'd prefer (those who were 11.5).

 

They sort of hinted he'd probably hate Camp Ocean because the 9-11s were being combined with 6-8s and it just wasn't going to be age-appropriate. Sure enough, he chose to be with the Teens.

 

Now 11 to 12 is a much smaller difference than 3 to 6. They might allow your 6-yr-old to go down to be with their younger sibling, but I can almost guarantee they won't allow a 3-yr-old in the 6-8 group. And keep in mind that your 6-yr-old might really resent being with "babies" - the activities wouldn't be age-appropriate unless they did an official combining, and even then it could be boring for the older sibling.

 

I've seen 6-8 combined with 9-11, but I've never seen 2-5 combined with 6-8. So take that as you may. 

 

Edited May 9 by DukeASUGirl