Tracking children on board

[Missouri travel girl]

What apps or ways of keeping track of your children do you parents use on board? Asking for my nephew’s family first time cruising with the kids,(8yox2). They don’t plan on losing them😂 but concerned if they get separated.

 Thank you very much.

[cruiserNC]

33 minutes ago, Missouri travel girl said:

What apps or ways of keeping track of your children do you parents use on board? Asking for my nephew’s family first time cruising with the kids,(8yox2). They don’t plan on losing them😂 but concerned if they get separated.

 Thank you very much.

The cheapest would be the Carnival chat plan. Of course, if they have a smart device and understand the concept of texting, it's $5.00 per cruise. 

 

At the age of 8, I would highly recommend Camp Ocean. They will not be allowed to leave camp until an authorized adult signs them out. If they are simply runners, good luck 🙂

[Purvis1231]

I am unsure if the kids can take cell phones into the camps. 

[carohs]

Camp ocean they can't sign themselves in or out and shouldn't have need of a device there. Are they concerned the kids might randomly walk away and get lost? At 8yo the children should be able to find their cabin on the ship. For 1st time cruisers it can be a learning curve, but surely if they can find their classroom in school, they can find their stateroom. The parents can make a plan like meet back in the lobby or in the room if you get lost. Speaking from experience, I have explained to my children multiple times about staying together and needing to know where they are at all times, and yet I have managed to lose them plenty of times. The good thing is, there's only so many places a child is likely to wander off to and they have never stayed lost for long. And if you ask them, they were never lost. It was me who lost them, not them who didn't know exactly where they were.

 

Oh, sorry the question. No, there's no good apps or ways of "keeping track." Gots to rely on old fashioned trust and communication. Really though, once you're on board the ship isn't as big as it seems. You can almost immediately rule out dining rooms, bars, casino, restaurants, and stateroom only floors, which is like 80% of the ship. 

 

Oh man, I'm not very reassuring, am I?

 

Well, my kids get lost (sorry, again they're not the ones lost) because I let them go places on their own not ever because they randomly walked away from me. I have a 10yo and an 8yo. If the parents don't allow their kids to explore on their own there's very little chance they need to be concerned about being separated. There may be thousands of people onboard but it's not so crowded that you'll ever lose sight of one another. We do, otoh, make sure to hold our kid's hands as we leave the theater, for example. 

[geovet]

When my special needs son was younger, we took a photo of him every day in case he got out of camp or lost.

[Missouri travel girl]

Carohs, they might enjoy camp Ocean and I’ll suggest that, thank you. And you are right, they will know the layout better than Dad and Mom the first day! I think once onboard they will see there isn’t anything to worry about. I’ll also suggest they make a meeting place plan in case they do get separated👏

[tree.critter]

Would air tags work for this on the ship?

 

[audcc77]

It appears that I’m in the minority, but I wouldn’t let an 8 year old out of my sight.  
 

Wouldn’t happen.  Ever.  
 

There’s that 1 in a million chance they’d slip away if they were a wanderer, but I’d tell them what to do in that situation.  

 

To presume that there are only upstanding people on the ship is foolish.  

[straitlover1965]

I saw a quick video of a mom with her two kids on a cruise the other day getting ready for the day, and she put (pinned or hooked) some kind of circular thing under their clothes which I assumed was some kind of tracking device in case they got lost or snatched (wasn't listening to the sound). Probably ran off an app and you had to have wifi with it.

[Mike45LC]

I don't think there is any tracking app, but don't kids get wristbands that identify them for crew members?  So the crew members know who the kids belong to?

 

Chat is a good app to buy ($5 per person for the entire trip), but I don't think Chat notifies you of any messages.  But if a kid is separated from parents, I think both kid and parents would be viewing the Chat app feverishly -- if they realize the kid is missing.

 

I'd put the kid in the Camp most days, to play with other age-close kids under the guidance of counselors.  So a lost kid wandering around the ship will know lots of other kids [plus some counselors], whose parents could be enlisted to help reconnect.  

[1025cruise]

Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine a situation where an 8yo (or 2) isn't in the kid's club or somewhere with their parents.

[john91498]

1 hour ago, tree.critter said:

Would air tags work for this on the ship?

 

 

No. We tried and it only registered our last location at port.

[MamaToMany]

1 minute ago, 1025cruise said:

Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine a situation where an 8yo (or 2) isn't in the kid's club or somewhere with their parents.

Then you’d have been shocked on my recent Panorama cruise. Children of very young ages were allowed to roam unattended allllllll week. Some of them were practically feral. We were down in Family Harbor, and it certainly seemed as though many, many children were simply left to their own devices while parents did whatever the heck they did.  

[mz-s]

3 minutes ago, MamaToMany said:

Then you’d have been shocked on my recent Panorama cruise. Children of very young ages were allowed to roam unattended allllllll week. Some of them were practically feral. We were down in Family Harbor, and it certainly seemed as though many, many children were simply left to their own devices while parents did whatever the heck they did.  

 

Common problem during the Summer. Carnival should force parents to put their kids in camp or enforce they are supervised. It's going to take something bad happening to someone's kid on a cruise, heaven forbid.

[carohs]

23 minutes ago, audcc77 said:

 

To presume that there are only upstanding people on the ship is foolish.  

 

You're right, of course. But as the current parent of an 8yo, I can tell you that my child is out of my site 10 hours a day most days of the week between school, afterschool care, visiting friends and other activities. To presume that there are only upstanding people in the world at large is foolish too. As a parent we can only mitigate the risk so much, and trust in stranger danger and similar educational tools for the rest. So while yes, my heart skips a beat letting my 8 yo out of my sight (even dropping off at school when I think about it), I have to also slowly allow my children to gain small bits of independence. They are certainly not given free reign of the ship. 

 

I am in no way advising anyone to let their 8 yo out of their site. My earlier comment was given from experience dealing with my children who believe themselves older than they really are. In theory, I would know where they are 100% of the time. However, practice hasn't always worked out that way. It sounds bad, I know, but up to this point, thankfully, we have always been able to reconnect and it's never taken more than a minute or two. Tools we use are making sure they know where we're headed (in case we get "lost" on the way there), and making sure they know where the cabin is and how to open the door with their card. We also make sure they know their room # and how to call guest services or the stateroom if they need extra assistance, and then pointing out the phones available for them to use. We also show them the deck plans aka maps of every floor, which are usually found near the elevators, and will show them a video tour of the ship we'll be on before sailing. They also know which way is aft, forward, port and starboard. It helps too, to point out the bathrooms closest to us whenever we go somewhere so they can get there and back on their own if nature calls.

 

OP, I apologize for my earlier snarkiness. I'm realizing how utterly unhelpful "there's only so many places" really is. 

[MamaToMany]

Just now, mz-s said:

 

Common problem during the Summer. Carnival should force parents to put their kids in camp or enforce they are supervised. It's going to take something bad happening to someone's kid on a cruise, heaven forbid.

Agreed. It was our Carnival cruise, but by no means our first cruise. Pretty sure I’m not going near a Carnival ship if kids are out of school. We’ve cruised NCL and Royal the last two spring breaks and never at any point experienced what we did on Panorama. 

[john91498]

45 minutes ago, audcc77 said:

It appears that I’m in the minority, but I wouldn’t let an 8 year old out of my sight.  
 

Wouldn’t happen.  Ever.  
 

There’s that 1 in a million chance they’d slip away if they were a wanderer, but I’d tell them what to do in that situation.  

 

To presume that there are only upstanding people on the ship is foolish.  

 

You're not the only one. I've watched my kids like a hawk since they were born. They get driven around everywhere by me or my wife. All parties, get togethers, etc are supervised by me.

 

I watched a documentary several years ago about 2 eleven year old kids lure a 5 year old away from his mom. They tortured that poor child until he died. That just scared the heck put me. There's evil everywhere...be vigilant...  

[Frank12]

17 minutes ago, MamaToMany said:

 Some of them were practically feral. 

This made me LOL! 

[Old Fart Cruisers]

This is probably the best solution I've seen for keeping an 8-year old safe and always knowing their location.

[silvercrikhix]

We look at it as a good size floating city. We personally would not allow any unaccompanied moving around on the ship for an 8 yr old. There are 3,500 to-7,000 people on these ships. Most are strangers.  Either kids club or with us or other adult in our group. They go to Camp Ocean the 1st night and make friends quickly that way. Most kids love Camp Ocean. YMMV 

[vwrestler171]

8 hours ago, Purvis1231 said:

I am unsure if the kids can take cell phones into the camps. 

 

They can.  My kids have taken phones since they were 6-7.  Usually an old one from my wife or I.

 

3 hours ago, Mike45LC said:

Chat is a good app to buy ($5 per person for the entire trip), but I don't think Chat notifies you of any messages.  But if a kid is separated from parents, I think both kid and parents would be viewing the Chat app feverishly -- if they realize the kid is missing.

You have to leave the app open for the notifications to come through.  However, it still isn't the best.

[aborgman]

11 hours ago, audcc77 said:

It appears that I’m in the minority, but I wouldn’t let an 8 year old out of my sight.  
 

Wouldn’t happen.  Ever.  
 

There’s that 1 in a million chance they’d slip away if they were a wanderer, but I’d tell them what to do in that situation.  

 

To presume that there are only upstanding people on the ship is foolish.  

 

I was riding my bike to school, 2 miles away, at age 7.

 

...and that was 1982, when abduction and sexual assault of children rates were much higher.

[audcc77]

10 minutes ago, aborgman said:

 

I was riding my bike to school, 2 miles away, at age 7.

 

...and that was 1982, when abduction and sexual assault of children rates were much higher.

Then let your kid run around the ship unsupervised.   
 

I stand by my opinion that the consequences of some things in life are so dire and so awful that I’m not willing to take a chance on it.  Will something bad happen? Probably not.  As a volunteer for children’s advocacy facilities, I’ve seen too much. 
 

[aborgman]

8 minutes ago, audcc77 said:

Then let your kid run around the ship unsupervised.   
 

I stand by my opinion that the consequences of some things in life are so dire and so awful that I’m not willing to take a chance on it.  Will something bad happen? Probably not.  As a volunteer for children’s advocacy facilities, I’ve seen too much. 
 

 

Well, my kids are 22 and 19... So I'd definitely let them roam unsupervised... They were allowed to go to the park, or friends houses alone on their bikes at 8.

 

The consequences of helicoptering your kid aren't zero either - kids need unsupervised play.

 

...and if something bad happens? There is about a 95% chance it's someone you know and not a stranger.

[mjkacmom]

14 hours ago, 1025cruise said:

Maybe it's just me, but I can't imagine a situation where an 8yo (or 2) isn't in the kid's club or somewhere with their parents.

On our first cruise (DCL) we went to the buffet after boarding. We have 5 kids and my parents were with us. I noticed ds4 was missing, my mom said he went back to the cabin. I immediately went back to the cabin, and there he was (he was #5 and pulled this all of the time, we had to get alarms for our doors after he let himself out at 2 and walked three blocks to a friend’s house and rang the doorbell). I have to say he does have a great sense of direction (he’s 21).