zuiderdam Thanksgiving Report - final thoughts - long

[hammybee]

 

If you want to stop those 20 or 30 something single (or married) male winners from being "all over" the underage girls in the nightclub, be it the CN or the NL on HAL, it seems to me it's not that hard to accomplish: Take away the targets from the apparently target rich environment. In other words: ensure that those underage girls are not present. No young girls, no debauchery! Getting this done however is a joint venture between ship's staff (card them and make them leave permanently) and the parents (follow the rule and take your young ones out of the club at midnite).

 

My Carnival experience demonstrated a very different shipboard attitude. There was no tolerence for those under 18 with or without parents remaining in their clubs after 10:00 PM. I chose to comply and took my then 17 year old out and called it a night. It was not necessarily what I wanted to do but my job description, as a parent, says I don't always get to do what I want to do.

 

Other parents became furious and it turned physical. Those parents made it clear to everyone that the rules do not apply to their kids. They also made it clear these parents were far more interested in being perceived as the cool parents who partied with their kids and their kid's friends. In other words, it was all about the parents.

 

It sounds to me like HAL needs to beef up their security and enforce their rules, especially on those sails carrying a lot of teens. Too bad- tough toenails, that older teens prefer to avoid onboard structured teen activities.

 

As an aside, I remain at tremendous odds that those 18 -20 are allowed to remain in clubs. It's a huge disconnect to me. And at least one cruise line is now allowing 18-20 year olds to buy and consume alcohol, with parental permission, upon embarkation. I understand the business need for cruise lines to sell alcohol. I do not understand the parents who enable what eventually becomes cultural binge drinking.

[winemistress45]

Winemistress (Kimberly),

 

From one mom to another mom, you seem very generous with what you provide to your daughter. As a mom of a HS jr. myself, I can understand why you want to make opportunities (social, educational, travel etc.) available to your daughter. But, as parents we need to act like parents and not like friends to our kids. Part of that includes making decisions that our kids won't like, but it's for their own good.

 

In an ideal world, a parent would have observed the Northern Lights club situation and when the obvious underage drinking and lecherous behavior by drunken adult men became so apparent that it could not be ignored, then that parent would announce to his or her teens that it was time to go. The kids would protest, but it wouldn't matter. By leaving, a parent is saying that this behavior is unacceptable.

 

 

I see what you are saying, but I should be clear that I was not as concerned about my girls, but more about the young girls who were drunk and being taken advantage of.

 

Unfortunately, this is the real world, not an ideal one, there is no way to fully shelter our kids from the debauchery and promiscuity of people around them. They see it on television, on the news, in videos and yes, even at school.

 

 

I personally talked to the cruise director afterwards and he said he actually thought it was okay for the teens to be staying as long as their was parental supervision -- but he was "doing his job". One, I suspect, he didn't like to do.

 

Personally I think there is a harmony that can be achieved with being a parent and sometimes friend to our children. There was more than one occasion on this cruise when I had to have "the talk" with the girls about one thing or another.

 

Believe me, I make MANY decisions that are very unpopular for my daughter -- virtually every day. But on holiday we all like to really take a break, cut loose a little, and be a little different than we might normally be at home. I know I do anyway.

 

As long as I knew my girls were with me and safe, I felt pretty comfortable.

 

I don't believe the cruise line should have to babysit these kids either, nor do I think I ever implied such -- I think their parents should be sure they are safe.

 

I don't really judge others, except in the case of the adult men who were clearly crossing the line with children. It was disturbing to me more than it was my kids.

 

 

I'm not sure I want my girls to ignore the fact that this type of behavior goes on.

 

it was good for me to observe their reactions to witnessing this sort of thing and we talked about it at length afterwards. It provided a forum for discussion that may not have come up otherwise.

 

Lots of lessons to be learned on all fronts --