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What's it like sailing with kids right now???


Jzx1103

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So anyone sailed a RC ship with kids lately? Is the Adventure Ocean open? Are you allowed to get off the ship with kids since kids are unvaccinated? I've seen on the Carnival forums that Kids seemed to have a horrible time on Carnival ships. Wonder how folks experience with RCL is? We do have a sailing booked Thanksgiving Week out of LA on the Navigator. I'm assuming this will be a fully vaccinated cruise (sans kids under 12) since it leaves out of California. I'm sure a lot can also change between now and Nov

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Our last sailing in August had kids everywhere. Adventure Ocean is open although you must schedule for it and it is size restricted. Kids can get off the ship for shore excursions but they must be through the ship. Everyone I saw was having a good time and enjoyed their cruise. We are also on the Thanksgiving cruise on Navigator.

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I haven't sailed yet, but just sharing my thoughts ( and these are totally my opinions and anyone should do whatever they are comfortable with)

AO at this time scares me. Im not sure how great it is having a bunch of unvaccinqted kids together. I was telling myself that I was questioning if we would send our daughter there and then one of the members here had their son quarantined due to a contact at AO. Thats sealed the deal for me that they our daughter would stay with our vaccinated travel bubble.

That being said we have since decided to not bring her at all to be safe. Just can't take the chance and its a problem with her returning to Canada after anyways.

Again...just my opinion.

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The biggest issue with AO was that they used the strictest, over the top March 2020 rules (thanks to the CDC).

 

Kids had to stay 6 feet apart. No sharing of any supplies, not even toys or balls.

 

The AO crew did the best they could, definitely not their fault.  Our son had fun, but outright said it just wasn't the same and sure hoped it changed for next time

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Just sailed on Adventure with two 14yr olds and a 10 yr old.

Got off the ship in Cozumel and did RCCL excursion no problem.

Don't use adventure ocean so can't comment.  Pools, slides, flowrider...all still fun for the kids.

CoCoCay still fun for the kids

Only real 'negative' was some of activities our 10 yr old wanted to do were 'vaccine only' so she couldn't do rock and roll trivia and a few other things.

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Just got off Symphony today and I traveled with my 2 and 4 year old kids.

Pre-cruise - had to register them to get tested at the port. We all also had to show a negative PCR test from no longer than 3 days out as well. 
 

Terminal - kids had to get the Nose swab at the port. The test itself was well organized (crazy for how bad the rest of the Miami port is). They then process you through but you have to be put in a waiting area until your test results emailed to you. Took at 45 mins for us. Then we were allowed onto the ship.

Ship - Didn’t put the kids in AO since I wanted to spend as much time with them as possible and they wouldn’t be in the same program at their ages. But it was for sure open. No problem with any dining and splash pads and pools all open. Some shows were vaccinated only though. Only real problem was 1 studio B ice show. I am not sure if Aquatheater was vaccine only since I watched the show from a balcony. 
 

Ports - currently, you have buy through royal for unvaccinated to get off the boat. However, Royal does workaround excursions (at least it felt like it). For example, at Costa Maya, they had a $10 bird experience that was in the port town and nobody tracks you after the excursion. Coco cay no restrictions.

prior to disembark - kids had to get an antigen test (nose swab but not the one that goes into your brain) the day before disembark. They make you do reservations though so try to be first to book or grab the time that works best for your family. Got the results a few hours later and no problems getting off after that 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/21/2021 at 2:34 PM, Boneric said:

Terminal - kids had to get the Nose swab at the port. The test itself was well organized (crazy for how bad the rest of the Miami port is). They then process you through but you have to be put in a waiting area until your test results emailed to you. Took at 45 mins for us. Then we were allowed onto the ship.

Was the pre-cruise port PCR test a brain-tickler or just a nose swab? Trying to prepare my five-year-old for the process. 

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I just sailed 8/22-8/28 on Odyssey with 2 kids ages 2.5 and 3.5.

We got their pre-sail test done at the pediatrician without an issue.  We had 12pm boarding time, so when we got to the port there was no lines to start checking in or to get their at-terminal test done.  The nose swab was quick and easy.  At first the kids were intimidated by the tester's outfit, but we told them it was just going to be "nose tickles"  and thats exactly what it was.  It wasn't a deep swab at all.  We got our results in about 40min and got right on the ship.

Our on-ship departure test for the kids was very similar to the at-terminal one.  We booked an appointment for 10:45am (iirc) on day 6.  We wanted to get tested earlier since that was the day at CocoCay and fortunately they called us at round 9am saying there was no line and to just come down.  Again the test was a not-deep swab for 10s and the kids had no issue.

Adventure Ocean was available but we didn't use it.  The SplashAway area was great with the limited capacity on the boat.  On embarkation day, one of the splash pads was empty except for my kids.  Throughout the week, the most kids I saw in one of the Splashaway areas at any given time was maybe 6-7.  There wasn't any apparent limit set by Royal, but the limited ship capacity seemed to help keep it pretty empty.  

Since the kids were young, they weren't up late enough for any shows.  Pretty much any time they weren't at the pool, they were either in the room or in a dining area.  The kids did really well with the masks since they really only had to wear them in the hallway for a few minutes at a time.  

We only took them off the boat at CocoCay which was great.  We were the only Ship in port so the island felt completely empty.  We are from Florida, so we didn't think it was worth it to book an excursion just to go to a beach at the 2 stops in Mexico.  Instead, we planned to enjoy the even emptier ship, which worked out as planned.  It felt like we had private splash pads during the port days.

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