One of the best reasons to go on a cruise as a family is you don't all have to be doing everything together at the same time to have a good time.
If I was visiting New York City with my family, I'd spend nearly every minute of that trip with my wife and kids doing the same thing. At best, we might leave them in the hotel room while my wife and I go out.
On a cruise ship, however, it's set up to be more contained and facilitating for families. In fact, there are entire areas of the ship meant to leave your kids.
As my kids have gotten older, I've given them more freedom to be on their own and do what interests them. That isn't to say I'm letting them loose with no guidelines either. I've seen examples of kids with too little supervision, and it's not what I want for my family.
On my latest cruise on Royal Caribbean's Voyager of the Seas, my kids had the most roaming ability that I've ever given them and I think our approach worked well overall.
Here are the five important rules we put into place to ensure they could have safe, and have fun without being obnoxious.
Text when they go somewhere
Communication is so important, so we emphasized early they need to let us know what they're doing.
We told our kids we need to know when they're changing activities or going into a friends' cabin so we're aware of what they're up to.
There are two ways you can stay in contact with kids on a cruise digitally: the Royal Caribbean app or an internet app.
Royal Caribbean's app has a totally free chat feature and it works great. We used it to chat with our friends onboard the ship who did not buy an internet package.
It supports direct messaging as well as group messaging. And Royal Caribbean seems to have fixed the lack of notifications that plagued the chat feature early on.
The problem with the Royal Caribbean app is you need to be at least 13 years old to have your own account. So if you have tweens, the only workaround is for them to sign in as a parent and then you're essentially texting yourself and notifications don't work in that scenario.
The other option is to buy an internet package and use a messaging app, which is what we did.
With an internet package for each kid, they can easily text us with iMessage or any other app you prefer. It's simple, works well, and everyone knows how to use it already.
We had the kids message us when they moved around, or we would let them know if we were changing what we were doing. This also worked well if we wanted to do something they might be interested in.
One issue we ran into early was not them ghosting us. We'd send them a message, see they read it, but not respond.
After a quick talk about how that's not acceptable, they understood and wasn't an issue again. Still, I think we'll need to remind them of that again on future sailings to avoid it.
Bring friends from home
The decision to let them roam was a bit easier given that we were cruising with friends who had kids their age.
I've often joked our kids are too annoying to be kidnapped, and if they're with their friends, I barely want to go near them. They laugh, share their inside jokes, and think they're smarter than everyone else.
By having their friends from home with us, it served two functions: a built-in support system and less reliance on other kids.
I want my kids to make new friends and be social, but just like at school, not every kid is necessarily your ideal candidate for friends with your child.
Plus, having their friends with them kept them more honest because their friends are familiar with me and my wife and won't hesitate to (playfully) tattle on each other.
It's not so simple to have friends join you on a cruise, but it did provide more peace of mind for me that I knew who they were mostly hanging out with.
Set curfew times
One of the first rules we set were curfews for our kids.
We'd set times they needed to be back in the cabin, no matter what. Not only for bed time, but also in the afternoon.
Expectations are important, and we told them how curfews aren't suggestions.
On a couple of occasions, my oldest texted me to ask to have her curfew pushed back. Being able to quickly text made it simple, and we handled it then.
I would never not set a curfew for my kids, and we adjusted the curfew times based on what we had planned the next day. They might think they can go to bed at midnight and be up and ready by 7am for a shore excursion, but I'm not playing that game.
Make sure we have family time everyday
I also made it clear that their roaming privileges don't come at the expense of family time.
We had certain activities that were meant to be enjoyed together as a family. Our shore excursion plans and dinners were the most important, and we planned our day around it.
Since the kids loved sleeping in, there wasn't much of an issue in the morning. So really we had to work around primarily the afternoon and evenings.
I'm no parenting expert, but I think conveying that a cruise vacation is about time together first, and time apart second. They need to understand that and as a parent, I needed to make time for it too.
Point out examples of what not to do
One thing I wanted to make clear to my kids is what not to do, and pointing out examples to my own kids was my best idea.
Inevitably we'll get in an elevator, walk around the ship, or witness somewhere kids behaving badly. Most of it is harmless immaturity, but I'll usually make a comment that they'd better not to do the same thing.
I think it not only shapes their conceptions of what is acceptable or not, but also sets a kind of baseline for themselves. The less they can play the ignorant card, the better.
Did I feel safe letting my kids roam a cruise ship?
Letting my kids be on their own for part of the cruise was different, but overall I felt safe about the whole thing.
I feel there are risks with everything in life, and I can't hover over them every minute. Certain activities were never allowed, such as swimming, eating alone (to prevent choking), disembarking the ship, or roaming CocoCay alone.
We also felt good about putting in time constraints in the form of curfews.
The biggest x-factor are the other kids they'll meet on a cruise and if there are any bad influences. This risk was mitigated by the fact we cruised with friends from home, but it was probably the top concern.
I'm also in a unique situation that both me and my kids have cruised a lot, so they know the layout of the ship quite well. There was less risk of getting lost.
Overall, I thought this foray into independence went well. Everyone's kids are different, so your experience may need to be curtailed in order to match up with your needs.
