3 night cruise, kids and shows?

[PRINCESS VIJA]

We are on the 3 night cruise, our first cruise. I know my kids will love going to the clubs, but what about the shows? We will have early seating. Originally we were going to have them eat dinner with us, and then send them to the clubs. We would watch Disney Dreams at the end of the cruise together. But now with the new show, how do you combine kids club time with watching the show? Sorry if this was confusing, I just wasn't sure how to word this.

 

[westjones]

The shows are wonderful! The Golden Mickeys is just as good as Dreams. I love Hercules too (I think it is funny). My kids love all of them. We just got off of the 3 night last week and they had Hercules the first night, the Golden Mickeys the second night, and Dreams the last night. They may switch the order around, but all three shows is worth seeing.

The kids can go to the club/lab after the shows and dinner. My kids love the lab too, but we had dinner and went to the show together every night and it was one of the best parts of the trip for us.

If you have an early dinner time, just take them back to the room and let them change clothes before the show. Then go to the show and as soon as it is over let them go hang with the kids for a little while before bed time. That's what we did every night and my kids loved the shows (and it was our 4th cruise, so they had seen Hercules and Dreams three times already).

DJ

 

[PRINCESS VIJA]

Thanks westjones! How old are your kids? What was their favorite part of the clubs?

 

[6915meh]

We always choose late seating for dinner and work around that. My dd7 was four when we went on the 7-day and still taking naps. We would let her take a late nap and order room service and wake her up and feed her dinner around 5:30pm. Then we would all get ready and go to the the 6:30pm show.

After the show she would go straight to the kids club and we would enjoy a late dinner alone. This seemed to work out well for everyone as she loved the club and could have cared less about sitting through a multi-course meal. Also, I don't think she would have enjoyed the shows as much at 8:30pm as she would be getting a little sleepy by the end.

We are going on the three-day on 10/9 with dd7 and dd-18months. I am going to try to get reservations at Flounder's for the baby each night at 8pm and follow the same routine we did before.

Good luck!

 

[Karel]

I think it comes under the 'you can't do it all' category. I don't think my daughter (7) saw any of the shows; she even missed the Prem-ear of Monsters Inc. She wanted to be in the club and that was her choice. I think the boys watched a couple of shows with us though. They checked the schedule to see what they were missing and if they wanted to do a particular activity or not.

 

[westjones]

My kids love the special programs they did in the lab (my kids are 9 now, they were 6 on our first cruise and we have gone on one per year since then, always on their birthdays---twins).

We like late seating because it is easier to find food around 6:00 (pizza and burgers on deck 9) to hold us over until 8:30 dinner. We also like ordering room service (now that I know it is free--we do tip the person who brings it to our room).

On a 3 day cruise, you just have to accept that you won't be able to do it all, so just try to do a little of everything. The ONLY time my girls made it to the pools on the ship was on the first day right after we boarded (they had swimsuits on under their clothes). That was also the only time the pools were not crowded (most had to wait for suitcases to be delivered to their rooms which is anywhere between 1:00 and 5:00 I believe).

I would suggest looking at the kids navigators at Barb and Tony's site:

http://www.castawayclub.com

and then picking the things they want to do. My girls had never done the kids programming at Castaway Cay before, and this time they wanted to do the whale dig (it was the last year before they move to an older kids group and the 10-12 year old don't do the dig). They LOVED it! I am SO glad we let them do this.

The other thing my girls did not want to miss was the Friday morning Princess greeting. So those were the things we went knowing we wanted to do for sure.

After that, we had them go to the shows and dinner with us every night. Then we just sort of went with whatever we wanted to do after that.

You will have a great time, and you will come off saying that 3 days is not enough. BUT it's a start! Each time we go we try to do things we haven't done before. This time we tried out the treadmills in the spa and we visited the adult beach at Castaway Cay for the first time.

We already know that on the next cruise we want to try the banana boat rides!

Have a great trip!
DJ

 

[musicgirl]

We've done the 3-night twice. The first one the deal with our ds11 (at the time) was that he had to see the shows with us and eat dinner with us. Otherwise, the time was his. He was given the responsiblity of being on time. He even beat us getting dressed and arriving for the shows before we did! He enjoyed the shows.

The second time around, he didn't have to see the shows since he had already seen them. He had enjoyed them so much the first time that he came anyway!

My niece-12 and nephew-7 also really enjoyed them.

Have fun!