Yikes!!

[ncmomof2]

OK, I knew that a cruise on HAL in late Feb/early March wouldn't have a lot of kids (other reasons for going on this particular cruise -- long story... we'd be on RCCL probably during school vacation if it were a perfect world), but I called today since it's about a month after the final payment date and there's only THREE other kids besides my two between the ages of 3-12 on the ship!!! :eek: They couldn't give me any other breakdown. Not a tragedy, it's still a cruise after all and since we know ahead of time that the kids probably won't make friends (although we could still luck out with those 3... crossing my fingers, especially for a friendly 8-11 yo girl) and that the kids club activities will likely be cut way back, we'll plan according for packing, etc.

 

So besides venting some slight consternation, I was wondering if ya'll have some suggestions for make-your-own family activities on a ship. I know there's always the pool, but even my fish -- I mean children -- will probably want to get out of the water at some point. Especially my DS who may be too short to touch the bottom. My kids are 4.5 yo boy and 9.5 yo girl. We'll be fine in port, but we have 4 whole plus several partial sea days. My DD will probably like some of the adult activities like trivia and maybe cooking demos. She'd probably like bingo, too, if I'd shell out for a card. But any other ideas besides hanging out in the cabin watching movies :rolleyes: would be appreciated!!

[Keith1010]

Our experience when our children were young that if there were just a few children on board that would be fine. So, I would not worry about it.

 

You probably know that HAL is not known for its kids programs. They do have one but not like say Royal Caribbean, Princess and some of the others.

 

But, it is a cruise and I am sure that you and the family will enjoy it.

 

Have a great time.

 

Keith

[cb at sea]

I hope your kids like to read! Bring books!

[cusyl]

Bring a portable DVD player and some kid's movies to watch. They may have ping pong tables and board games as well. How about teaching the 9 year old to knit or crochet. http://www.learntoknit.com/instructions_kn.php3

[crusinmama06]

Yikes is right! :eek: Is it too late to cancel?

 

Kidding, I'm kidding. :p

 

I guess you can look at it this way, when you are on a land vacation you don't call the hotel and ask how many other kids are going to be there...lol....and the kids found lots of ways to have fun. :D

 

How many sea days are there? Obviously you'll be fine on the port days. So how many sea days will you have to fill? Does HAL have a room with any board games?

 

So is there going to be no kids club then?

[6rugrats]

When we were on the Zuiderdam, there were 32 children on board. Activities for Club Hal were not cut back. The kids got loads of personal attention at Club Hal and they had a great time. My eight year old daughter did enough crafts to make Christmas gifts for the entire family, and one of the staff at the club found wrapping paper and they wrapped them together. She loved the attention, even though there were no other girls her age.

 

I wouldn't worry about it, and you never know who will book between now and then.

[c-cruise]

Probably not going to find a lot of school age kids on most any cruise at the end of Feb/early March as it is right between most schools mid-winter and spring breaks. Who knows, your kids might actually enjoy "having the ship to themselves" rather than being on a RCCL ship over spring break with 800 other kids. Our daughter is only two, so not really a god comparison, but she has done really well on her 3 HAL cruises so far. Club HAL is a very nice facility and the kids we have seen there really seem to enjoy it. We haven't used it extensively as the cutoff age for dropping kids off is 3, but they let you use the rooms at earlier ages as long as a parent stays with the child. What ship/itinerary are you on? Might help us suggest kids activities for HAL. We are going on the Noordam in Feb, but over our mid-winter break so expecting quite a few kids onboard.

[ncmomof2]

Bring a portable DVD player and some kid's movies to watch. They may have ping pong tables and board games as well. How about teaching the 9 year old to knit or crochet. http://www.learntoknit.com/instructions_kn.php3

 

Would be easier if I knew how to knit or crochet!!! :p But your point is well taken, I will try to bring some craft kits/supplies and we can do our own "kids club" crafts! And the portable DVD players are already on the packing list!! I can't remember if there are pingpong tables or not -- I think so but that it can be hard to get balls -- pingpong balls now on the list!! :D

 

Yikes is right! :eek: Is it too late to cancel?

 

Kidding, I'm kidding.

 

I know, I know!!! :rolleyes: Like I said in my original post, in a perfect world, we'd be on a completely different cruise, but for complicated reasons, it was this or nothing -- and the itinerary's geat!! See below.

 

I guess you can look at it this way, when you are on a land vacation you don't call the hotel and ask how many other kids are going to be there...lol....and the kids found lots of ways to have fun. :D

 

This is how I'm trying to look at it, except you can leave the hotel to go do stuff, but you're limited to the ship on sea days...

 

How many sea days are there? Obviously you'll be fine on the port days. So how many sea days will you have to fill? Does HAL have a room with any board games?

 

4 full sea days plus several partial ones. I've heard that there are board games in the library -- don't know about ones the 4.5 yo can play. My packing list now has more games on it! LOL :p

 

So is there going to be no kids club then?

 

Don't know. I'm hoping they'll at least show movies in the evenings so we can have a little adult time. Several reviews from HAL sailings in the Carib this fall when there were very few kids mentioned very cut back hours and limited activities because the age groups were combined (3-12 all together), so that basically they were just showing videos. Not really what I want my kids doing on a cruise and I don't know how long they'd be interested anyway. I'll see if I can get more info the next time I call to see if any more kids have booked.

 

When we were on the Zuiderdam, there were 32 children on board. Activities for Club Hal were not cut back. The kids got loads of personal attention at Club Hal and they had a great time. My eight year old daughter did enough crafts to make Christmas gifts for the entire family, and one of the staff at the club found wrapping paper and they wrapped them together. She loved the attention, even though there were no other girls her age.

 

I wouldn't worry about it, and you never know who will book between now and then.

 

I'm crossing my fingers that your right, but it may be that 32 was past a threshold that 5 won't be.

 

Probably not going to find a lot of school age kids on most any cruise at the end of Feb/early March as it is right between most schools mid-winter and spring breaks. Who knows, your kids might actually enjoy "having the ship to themselves" rather than being on a RCCL ship over spring break with 800 other kids. Our daughter is only two, so not really a god comparison, but she has done really well on her 3 HAL cruises so far. Club HAL is a very nice facility and the kids we have seen there really seem to enjoy it. We haven't used it extensively as the cutoff age for dropping kids off is 3, but they let you use the rooms at earlier ages as long as a parent stays with the child. What ship/itinerary are you on? Might help us suggest kids activities for HAL. We are going on the Noordam in Feb, but over our mid-winter break so expecting quite a few kids onboard.

 

We'll be on the Zuiderdam going to Half Moon Cay, Aruba, Curacao, Panama (partial canal transit), and Costa Rica. I'm hoping the kids enjoy having the ship to themselves (at least kid-wise) -- trying to make it more likely by thinking of ways to spend those sea days without adding too much to our luggage!!

[CanadianTwosome]

My first cruises were as a child, age 10 and 12, and at the time, there were no kids' clubs and the facilities amounted to a small room with a few toys and craft supplies and one supervisor. Both of those cruises were over Christmas, and if I had to guess, I'd say the number of kids on each was under 20. It just wasn't the 'family vacation' that it is now (though I don't know why, since it's when I became hooked!)

 

So, what did my sister and I do? We actually did make friends - or at least I did, since I was the more gregarious one. My sister spent a day cleaning and organizing one of the kids' rooms (scary clean freak!). Of course, we were lucky that there were kids our age to meet... TWO on the first cruise (brother my age and sister her age), and I think maybe three or four on the second one. We hung out by the pool, which was about the size of a postage stamp, we read, we played cards, we gazed at the amazing ocean (we're landlocked here), we went to the shows, and of course we enjoyed the ports.

 

I think unless kids are really spoiled, there's plenty to do on a cruise ship, and the kids' staff are going to be there regardless, so while they might do more as a whole than in separate age groups, the facilities will still be available, and they should get tons of attention from the counsellors. There's also going to be a swimming pool... I don't know what your kids are like, but if mine could go swimming every day, she would... and does when we're on a cruise! There are activities all day that they can check out as well. My daughter loves the craft times and we always come home with things like beaded bandanas - and I love doing it with her, too, even if the crafts themselves are of no interest to me, it's just a fun way to spend time together. :)

[CC Help Michell]

To the OP, you are sailing on HAL -- your cabin should have a DVD player in it if you want to save the space/weight on the portable one.

 

It sounds like you have good ideas going for what to bring, and even though you might have chosen differently regarding cruise line and date of travel, I LOVE the itinerary you are taking. I think the adults in your group will have a very memorable trip, and the kids should enjoy being with family (provided you don't forget the board games, hand-held video games, etc!). Bring some crayons and paper, too -- I suspect the crew will dote on your kids, with so few aboard, and the kids might like to write their own thank you notes or draw pictures for the steward, etc.

 

Digital cameras and memory cards are really quite cheap now -- the nearly ten year old would probably have fun just taking photos, and you never know what the child's "eye" might capture that you would have missed. You can also earn "Dam Dollars" (all HAL ships' names end in "--dam," so they are called "the dam ships") on HAL cruises by doing various activities posted in your daily schedule. Then you have a chance to spend them at the end of the cruise on tshirts, hats, etc. It's often activities that would be kid friendly, like pool games, golf putting in the atrium, walking around the promenade deck, etc. Both kids might think it's fun to earn their own "dam dollars" and spend them at the end of the cruise.

 

Have a good time -- I really do think you and your kids will have a memorable, great vacation. I've been doing a photo scanning/archiving project with over 4K family photos the last six months, and it struck me often how so many of our vacations included just my parents and us kids. No kids' club, activities, programming, or babysitters. Yet looking through the pics I've been amazed at how many memories of each occasion have flooded back -- like learning to play rummy and how to braid hair, my little sister and I putting on a puppet show at the beach one time, and so on. Priceless.

[ncmomof2]

Thanks, everyone, for the great ideas!!

 

Things are looking a little better -- when I talked with HAL yesterday, there are now 8 other kids between the ages of 3-12 besides my two. I'm hoping for my 9.5 yo DD's sake that they're not all 3-5 year olds!!! They won't give me more specific info. So 5 kids have booked in the last month -- maybe we'll get a few more still before we sail the end of next month.

[carosave]

We cruised when my daughter was the ONLY kid really utilizing Club Hal (she was 4) and they didn't change a thing, so I wouldn't worry about that. (Unless something has changed with policies..!) It was a fall Med cruise--everyone back in school, and only about three kids total on the ship!!

 

We do well with in cabin coloring, card playing, plus movies--which we bring some as there are not always a lot for kids. Oh yeah, we sprang for a Leapster for her 4th birthday, so that helped, too. Plus we are geeks-she was happily slumbering, and we made her get up to see a volcano...!!Walks around are always fun (I am thinking of your younger child) and climbing stairs...:p (which is the added benefit of exercise for you, after eating all that good HAL food!!)

 

I think if your kids understand, too, up front, what it may be like, they'll be fine!

[ncmomof2]

We cruised when my daughter was the ONLY kid really utilizing Club Hal (she was 4) and they didn't change a thing, so I wouldn't worry about that. (Unless something has changed with policies..!) It was a fall Med cruise--everyone back in school, and only about three kids total on the ship!!

 

Just curious, when was that cruise? My concerns partially stemmed from reviews that came out this Fall, but maybe they were flukes...:confused:

[Kerry's Girls]

I just returned from a 2 week cruise LA-Hawaii r/t with my twin 4 year olds and there were a total of 12 kids on board under 15, and many of them didn't speak English. The twins had a fanstastic time both in and out of the kids club (in fact, I think they really preffered the kids club without all the chaos of being packed with kids). As a previous poster said, I also cruised as a child before there were kids programs (or other kids) on board a ship, and we always had fun.

 

Even with 9 sea days and few children on the cruise we just did, none of us were ready for the trip to end. I think you'll all have a great time.

 

Best,

Mia

[Eeyoregon]

Kerry's Girls:

 

Your picture is soooooooo cute!!! My "babies" just turned 13 and 16 and I am missing the cute diaper butt age!!!

 

gina