The Lollipop Road

You can read more about this topic, as well as many other family cruising topics, in our new book–Cruising With Kids: A Guide To The Perfect Family Cruise Vacation. Visit our dedicated Cruising With Kids website for more details.

Earlier this year, Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) announced its partnering with Nickelodeon to offer year-round Nick themed activities and entertainment onboard the Norwegian Jewel and Norwegian Epic. This was perceived as a significant addition to its existing Kids Crew program and a move toward appealing to the market that Disney Cruise Line has cornered for the last 10 years (ie character themed cruising). After having sailed on the Norwegian Jewel Nickelodeon themed cruise this week, I can tell you that Disney has nothing to worry about.

Let me start by saying that the Nick crew leader onboard the Jewel was excellent. He worked hard and did his best to get the kids involved and make the most of the experience. Unfortunately, the program design is a bit simplistic and scattered. The Nick themed activities, although well done, are either too short (ie 15-20 minutes), too infrequent (none other than Slime Time Live during our day in Nassau) or revolve around limited character appearances. The only time that all of the characters actually appear all at once is at the character breakfast ($15 adults and $10 children – infants/toddlers free), which lasted almost 2 hours (not a good thing). They also offered Nick programming on television (2 channels), but the repeating loop was too short and the same programming played every day. So, if you are planning on taking one of these cruises because of the Nickelodeon offerings or you have sailed on Disney Cruise Line, you will be disappointed. If you want to sail on the Jewel or Epic anyway, then look at this as a little extra bonus.

NCLs traditional kids program, the NCL Kids Crew is separated into several age groups (2-5, 6-9 and 10-12); they essentially share the same spaces onboard the Jewel. There are a few tables, a cool padded maze with slides and a movie room with a few bean bag type chairs. Each age group has their own structured schedule of activities, with intermingled Freestyle Play (all ages). For each age group, there were about half a dozen listed activities in addition to Freestyle Play. The offerings were quite basic and definitely geared toward the more independent child. Sprinkled in between were family events, such as Family Lego Hour, Family Pictionary, Family Charades and Family Pizza Making. Despite the seemingly family friendly nature of these activities, the Kids Crew staff did a mediocre job at making them fun and engaging. For example, Family Pizza Making consisted of an assembly line of ingredients with no organization and little interaction from the staff to the group. Honestly, the Kids Crew staff was rather uninspiring. Unfortunately, on one evening we also encountered a Kids Crew staff member who was outright rude.

While in port and after 10:30PM (until 1:30AM) each evening, expect to pay a fee to have your kids participate in the club. The fee is $6/hour for the first child and $4/hour for each sibling. You will need to carry a beeper if your toddler isn’t potty trained as they don’t change diapers. NCL also offers a dedicated area called the Under 2 Zoo. On the Jewel, this consisted of a conference room with about a dozen toys (pop up tents and Leap Frog items); all children must be supervised by an adult. This area was available from 9AM-6PM each day, but was of little entertainment value other than connecting with other families – we had more (and better) toys in our cabin. Parents pretty much agreed that this was an afterthought on the part of NCL.

You also must know that adults are not allowed into the kids area at any time – no exceptions. This means that if you have a shy or hesitant child that needs transitioning, you will be out of luck. Their reasoning was that if they let an adult into the club, that person would be a stranger to the other children (hmmm…what about the kids wandering the pool area amongst all those strangers?). They also indicated that the counselors are background checked whereas the parents are not. I take exception with their reasoning – let us take a look at club safety and security.

When registering our child, we had to sign a form; there was no bracelet issued. Each time during pickup we supposedly had to present an ID with a signature that matched the form. We wondered how this worked when they didn’t require a signature for grandma – security flaw number one. We were also a bit disturbed by their policy of relaxing this requirement once the counselor KNOWS the family member (their caps – not mine) – security flaw number two. Having spent quite a bit of time at the kiddie pool, we noticed a door leading to the kids area that we presumed was locked…until we saw several Kids Crew staff using the entrance. They did something that appeared to lock it each time, but we soon learned that the door was still unlocked when two staff members from the maintenance crew went right through the door – security flaw number three. We also had the opportunity to observe the activities in the club from this area and it was frequent chaos, perhaps from a high participant to counselor ratio. So, you can decide for yourself what their real reasons are for not allowing adults (even for transition)..

Activities for the teens were a bit more limited and their space adjoining the Splashdown Kids Club was uninspiring. The family activities, however, were definitely geared more toward teens and tweens, but I’m not sure that is where they wanted to spend their time. From my observations and conversations, it seems like they were running in the corridors or public areas at night or watching movies.

Overall, we wouldn’t recommend cruising NCL just for the kids programs. Although we feel that the Nickelodeon themed activities are a great bonus, the sacrifices you’ll make aren’t worth the limited Nick activities. Needless to say, we were really disappointed.

You can read more about this topic, as well as many other family cruising topics, in our new book–Cruising With Kids: A Guide To The Perfect Family Cruise Vacation. Visit our dedicated Cruising With Kids website for more details.

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