Tricky requirements ?

[Geomom]

The Dream/Fantasy have Midship Detective Agency, which is an interactive game you play around the ship, good for all ages. They have 3 different mysteries you can solve. (And as someone else mentioned the 9 hole mini golf). So, there would be more to do on the Dream/Fantasy vs Magic/Wonder if the kids clubs aren't working out.

 

[GirlfromTN]

Well this is eye opening. So I’ve gone from thinking that our experience was atypical I’m beginning to think that it’s not and there has been some kind of policy shift! This can’t be coincidental.
Ours aren’t even tech savvy although perhaps a bit more than they were two years ago but I’d be a bit unhappy to think that all they do in the club is staring at a screen. It’s fine for an hour or two every so often but ours just asked to be picked up. We gave up putting them in at all after day three.

Yes, this is what we do now. He will go to the club for an hour or so a couple times a day, but otherwise we stick together and go to the pools, play family games, go to the sports deck for basketball or ping pong, or relax reading a book somewhere. Kids club is used for when we have a beverage tasting, adult dining, or he gets bored at another activity (he’s old enough to just check himself in to the club now). I’m interested to see if things are better or worse now that they have limited kids club to ages 3-10 only with supposedly special supervision for ages 3-4. I’m not sure if that will end meaning that only age 3-4 have guided activities and all the other kids are left to roam on their own, play video games or watch the movie that they always have playing -
Or maybe it will free up some counselors to do more stuff with ages 5-10?

 

[CarolynU]

Yes, this is what we do now. He will go to the club for an hour or so a couple times a day, but otherwise we stick together and go to the pools, play family games, go to the sports deck for basketball or ping pong, or relax reading a book somewhere. Kids club is used for when we have a beverage tasting, adult dining, or he gets bored at another activity (he’s old enough to just check himself in to the club now). I’m interested to see if things are better or worse now that they have limited kids club to ages 3-10 only with supposedly special supervision for ages 3-4. I’m not sure if that will end meaning that only age 3-4 have guided activities and all the other kids are left to roam on their own, play video games or watch the movie that they always have playing -
Or maybe it will free up some counselors to do more stuff with ages 5-10?

Well I’ll be watching this intently and I really hope that it’s the latter.
I abandoned the idea of sailing this year as a consequence. That’s not because we want to stick them in the club all day but because after an hour in there I just didn’t find enough to do in the cold outside or in the super busy pool if there was a glimmer of sun.
My grandson is also not a fan of craft type stuff.
I’d decided that sailing wasn’t right for us anymore on DCL anyway, but suddenly my granddaughter began asking about The Mickey Boat (ha ha) again and it made me re-think but then I remember our last cruise and I hesitate again!!
So what would I like?
An itinerary in the Mediterranean in their school holidays. That’s not going to happen.
An itinerary that at least visits Spain where it may be sunny. That’s a possibility on the Dream although it’s Northern Spain.
But also in the clubs there are some organised activities rather than the children just roaming around. I’d like the councillors to actively engage, so that it’s a fun atmosphere.
That’s what I’m unsure about.
If that’s not the plan I guess I could branch out into those big ships with other cruise lines with all sorts of stuff going on for children and if it’s an additional cost so be it, but if that stuff exists I can’t think of anything worse than having to line up for each attraction individually for hours as some other people have mentioned here.
My last option is to fly them across the Atlantic and take a Caribbean cruise to at least see some sun and go to some beaches!

 

[DisneyPiPhi]

It sounds like your group might be happier with a Royal Caribbean Oasis-class ship. I'm not sure if they have one in the med during your school holidays, but you could check! Reach out to a travel advisor with your wish list and they will be happy to help you find the best option.

 

[Rex1993]

This thread definitely made me feel better about our experience on our first and only DCL cruise. Definitely a huge part of the problem was having expectations based on marketing hype (I’m looking at you, YouTube bloggers) rather than real world experience. One thing I was told on the ship and has since been drilled into me on this forum is that each ship is pretty unique and that the Wish seems to suffer a lot of shortcomings.

That being said, it definitely seems like there is a shift to using technology as the only medium for entertaining kids. This is obviously society as a whole and so it seems to have logically filtered to DCL. I went on a Princess cruise to Alaska back in the late 90s as a young teen. Our youth director was awesome! She was so full of energy and had so much for us to do. Of course it probably helped that there were maybe 30 people under 18 on the whole boat.

 

[CarolynU]

It sounds like your group might be happier with a Royal Caribbean Oasis-class ship. I'm not sure if they have one in the med during your school holidays, but you could check! Reach out to a travel advisor with your wish list and they will be happy to help you find the best option.

Thank you that’s a great idea.

 

[CarolynU]

This thread definitely made me feel better about our experience on our first and only DCL cruise. Definitely a huge part of the problem was having expectations based on marketing hype (I’m looking at you, YouTube bloggers) rather than real world experience. One thing I was told on the ship and has since been drilled into me on this forum is that each ship is pretty unique and that the Wish seems to suffer a lot of shortcomings.

That being said, it definitely seems like there is a shift to using technology as the only medium for entertaining kids. This is obviously society as a whole and so it seems to have logically filtered to DCL. I went on a Princess cruise to Alaska back in the late 90s as a young teen. Our youth director was awesome! She was so full of energy and had so much for us to do. Of course it probably helped that there were maybe 30 people under 18 on the whole boat.

That the hype that I believed really just on people’s trip reports. I’ve actually cruise DCL masses of times but of course as an adult paid zero attention to the kids clubs. Then when my grand kiddies came along they sailed as pre twos so weren’t able to use the clubs and then the pandemic hit.
So two years post pandemic finally they were both old enough and we honestly thought it would be exciting for them but how wrong were we?
They don’t really use technology in the home and that’s deliberate although finally they do have a bit just reserved for long journeys so it’s a bit of a shame that the vibrant fun games and interaction is replaced by screens.