Policy change Oceaneer Club and Lab

[Bibbidi_Boo]

I saw this post in a FB group that was then removed so wondering if this is true or not.

 

[sponica]

I've seen variations of that post in other groups as well. But I can never tell where it's originally from because it's being shared as a screenshot.

 

[Bibbidi_Boo]

I've seen variations of that post in other groups as well. But I can never tell where it's originally from because it's being shared as a screenshot.

When I saw it , it was not a screen shot . Large conversation for almost an hour then deleted.

 

[Kwami]

I haven't seen an announcement from Disney. Can anyone onboard confirm the change, or is this just some nonsense from Facebook?

 

[dcassetta]

@Mags2002 Did you hear anything about a new policy for the clubs?

 

[_auroraborealis_]

If it's true the concern isn't 11-12 with the 10 year olds, although that's collateral damage. It's the fact that having 3-12 in the club as a single group has always been a really broad age range and not necessarily a good idea given supervision limits.

It was only a thing because some families were getting upset that their children of disparate ages weren't allowed to be together.

 

[Lolabear_la]

I saw the original discussion and while it was on Facebook, the OP seemed genuinely frustrated at their situation and others chimed in about a situation that led to this being genuine. That being said, I haven't seen anything directly from DCL though and no one who's corroborated the one post. I'm anxious to figure out if it's real or not. We have a B2B2B booked for February purely to give our DS12 one last cruise in Oceaneer & making up for the lost 2 years of cruising (our first cruise was supposed to be 2020 and it took us until early 2023 to finally feel like cruising was a good idea both from a safety perspective AND we'd get our value/full experience). He picked the Wish for all the Marvel & Star Wars fun in their Oceaneer Club/Lab.

We also have a DD10, DS6 and DD4. They've all gone together to the kids club on the 2 cruises we've been on so far and DS12 has always, always hung out with his siblings especially DD10 and if it's true that the 10 and 12's can't be together then it will be a huge bummer.

I can see the wisdom in not having 11-12's with 3-4's but they shouldn't punish the kids in the middle/fringe. And we do know DD10 can waiver into Edge to hang out with him (we waivered DD10 into it it on our 2nd cruise for them to check it out) but they said it was lame compared to Oceaneer.

And I'm most mad that if it's changed and suddenly without notice that we can't cancel or adjust (past PIF for almost 30 days now). DD10 will be 11 before DS12 is 13 so if that had been a proactively communicated change we could've adjusted to sail in the 4 months that they are 11/12 & they could be together & we would roll right along with the change.

Ugh. Hopefully it's just facebook nonsense, but until I know, I'll be waiting to hear from anyone who actually knows someone who can confirm.

 

[Bibbidi_Boo]

I saw the original discussion and while it was on Facebook, the OP seemed genuinely frustrated at their situation and others chimed in about a situation that led to this being genuine. That being said, I haven't seen anything directly from DCL though and no one who's corroborated the one post. I'm anxious to figure out if it's real or not. We have a B2B2B booked for February purely to give our DS12 one last cruise in Oceaneer & making up for the lost 2 years of cruising (our first cruise was supposed to be 2020 and it took us until early 2023 to finally feel like cruising was a good idea both from a safety perspective AND we'd get our value/full experience). He picked the Wish for all the Marvel & Star Wars fun in their Oceaneer Club/Lab.

We also have a DD10, DS6 and DD4. They've all gone together to the kids club on the 2 cruises we've been on so far and DS12 has always, always hung out with his siblings especially DD10 and if it's true that the 10 and 12's can't be together then it will be a huge bummer.

I can see the wisdom in not having 11-12's with 3-4's but they shouldn't punish the kids in the middle/fringe. And we do know DD10 can waiver into Edge to hang out with him (we waivered DD10 into it it on our 2nd cruise for them to check it out) but they said it was lame compared to Oceaneer.

And I'm most mad that if it's changed and suddenly without notice that we can't cancel or adjust (past PIF for almost 30 days now). DD10 will be 11 before DS12 is 13 so if that had been a proactively communicated change we could've adjusted to sail in the 4 months that they are 11/12 & they could be together & we would roll right along with the change.

Ugh. Hopefully it's just facebook nonsense, but until I know, I'll be waiting to hear from anyone who actually knows someone who can confirm.

And not everyone wants a 10-11 year old in edge with kids that are high school freshman (age 14).

If this is real it will likely change our plans next year and likely not cruise.

 

[CisforCookie991]

There's someone on Reddit who said they just got off the Dream and this was the policy.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dcl/comments/18bgf9w

Edited to remove my speculation. But I tend to agree (partially) with the commenter on Reddit who thinks this has to do with ratio.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I'm somewhat surprised they haven't encountered issues with inappropriately mature 12 year olds and the Pre-K set prior. Especially when so much of the Club is unstructured activities with odd lines of sight.

 

[Disfamwa]

It’s a sad and upsetting topic, but a significant amount of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by older children. I just sat in on a safety session put on by our school and they mentioned that early adolescence is the peak age for child offenders—increasing at age 12 and the then plateauing and dropping after age 14. They also said that juveniles are responsible for about 40% of the assaults on children under the age of 6.

Age 3 to 12 is just way too big of developmental range, and no matter where you cut it off, some siblings are going to have to be separated. Safety needs to come first.

 

[Bibbidi_Boo]

I'm somewhat surprised they haven't encountered issues with inappropriately mature 12 year olds and the Pre-K set prior. Especially when so much of the Club is unstructured activities with odd lines of sight.

They probably have, but some probably went un known since not all kids will tell, and also not all parents will sue or even contact Disney.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

They probably have, but some probably went un known since not all kids will tell, and also not all parents will sue or even contact Disney.

I feel like they'd have gone down this path faster if they'd seen/known of issues.

3-12 was always whack, and I know so many parents have claimed "oh my 12 year old is totally checking in and playing with his 4 year old cousin," but I have some doubts there.

 

[RedHead0186]

I saw this in a couple social media groups as well. One person commented on one of the posts that it was true-their friend worked in YA and had mentioned the policy change. Still far from a direct statement/policy change from DCL, but that's the closest I got to any sort of verification.

 

[Bibbidi_Boo]

I feel like they'd have gone down this path faster if they'd seen/known of issues.

3-12 was always whack, and I know so many parents have claimed "oh my 12 year old is totally checking in and playing with his 4 year old cousin," but I have some doubts there.

I don’t care if there is separation but if they are doing it where 11-12 are stuck as a group on one spot while the rest bounce around I have issues with that. And there are many 11-12 (especially 11 yo) year olds enjoy the club/lab and prefer it. Maybe better do do club/lab to 11 which better reflects elementary school.

 

[Mags2002]

@Mags2002 Did you hear anything about a new policy for the clubs?

I haven’t heard anything but I don’t have much to do with Youth Activities. I’ll ask some Counselors and get back to you

 

[Mags2002]

It seems they are trialling having some separate programming for 11 and 12 year olds as not all of them feel comfortable in Edge

 

[Bibbidi_Boo]

It seems they are trialling having some separate programming for 11 and 12 year olds as not all of them feel comfortable in Edge

From another group I am in , sounds like honestly they would rather have 11 and 12 go to edge, but trying to find a solution to keep them in the club but more supervised. I am fully expecting by summer 11/12 won't be allowed in the club anymore .

 

[Mags2002]

From another group I am in , sounds like honestly they would rather have 11 and 12 go to edge, but trying to find a solution to keep them in the club but more supervised. I am fully expecting by summer 11/12 won't be allowed in the club anymore .

From what I was told, some parents do not want their kids in Edge (too much freedom) and some kids themselves don’t want to go.
Then you have other parents complain about the older kids being in the Club/Lab (even though from experience, most problems occur between the younger children not between an 11/12 and a younger child).
Then you have other parents who complain their siblings/friends/cousins can’t be together. It really is a No win situation

 

[Dug720]

It really is a No win situation

Yeah. Disney let the Genie out of the bottle when they caved in the first place by merging the Club and Lab and allowing ages 3-12.

The lines that do have strict age groupings are not hurting for business - and in fact I've seen on other forums that there are families intentionally choosing those lines because they get that there are reasons for age separation and don't demand that their 11 year old be able to stay with their 3 year old (and insist that the 11 year old willingly plays with the 3 year old).

I love Disney, but they created this issue when they caved originally.

(As an aside, I don't get the "11 is too young for Edge". Isn't 11 the age a lot of kids are when they start Middle School?? Middle Schools tend to be 6th-8th grade which would be 11-13/14.)