Camp Carnival

Cruise vacations can be fun for chilren. One thing to keep in mind is that the cruise is your children's vacation also. Sure mom and dad need to have some rest and relaxation on their vacation but the level of fun and excitement for the little ones can help increase their parents fun too. Afterall, it is not much fun having to discipline the young ones when we are on vacation.


Some children are shy and reserved while others have already honed their socialization skills. Magically, in most cases these two groups blend well so much that by the end of the cruise vacation your children may have new friends that they find hard to say good bye on that last day. A friend they shared a craft with or a friend they got silly and danced with or one that they found all the items on a scavenger hunt with. Memories that will last them, well, until the next cruise vacation.

To have the best opportunity for success with the Camp Carnival program, it is highly recommended that the parents and the children attend the program's mixer/party held on the sail night. This offers parents the chance to meet the camp staff and observe how the staff interacts with the kids. Most importantly though, is that it gives the children the chance to meet the other kids that will be in the camp with them. The mixer has music and dancing and games for the kids to get involved and smiles are seen all around the dance floor.


My wife and I have two children that are about as opposite as possible. My son is a reserved analytical who hangs on the fringe checking everything out before he gets involved and his little sister is the social butterfly; jump right in with both feet and get the party started. At the sail-night Camp Carnival get together it is no surprise that my daughter is the first one out to the dance floor whooting and singing and dancing her tail off. My young man slowly works his way around the perimeter of the dance floor checking out everyone and everything then after about ten minutes he will get his groove on. From that point on both kids are in their vacation zone and will spend at least as much time with their pals at Camp Carnival as they will with the "old folks" that dragged them along on the cruise.

As a parent, it is very difficult to let go of the reigns of control and turn your children loose with unfamiliar counselors and other kids. Understandable. The first cruise that my wife and I brought our kids who were 7 and 9 years old at the time, we were quite over-protective we did not give either of our children the authority to check themselves out of the program. Given their ages I still think it was the right call. We (the wife mostly) regularly returned to the camp to make sure the kids did not want to leave and each time we got the eye-darts, the silent look of "what the heck are you doing back here again?". It took about 4 days into the 8-day cruise to really let go, knowing that our son had a walkie talkie that he could contact us whenever he wanted to get out of Camp Carnival. The final 4-days of the cruise my wife and I had plenty of adult only time. Could it really be that easy? We love our kids dearly but they couldn't wait to ditch us and get to the camp. We went into the first cruise with our kids thinking that we would ahve to ditch them in the kid program just to get some together time.

The control freaks that we are, my wife and I had to implement a rule that the family will eat dinner together each night of the cruise which did work to some extent. The kids would inhale their entree and skip desert to get back to their friends. After dropping them back at the camp, us poor lonely parents had desert and coffee uninterupted. Then we enjoyed taking in the show and tempting fate in the casino and even taking a few spins around the dance floor, or in my case repeating all three steps that I know over and over. You know I just realized something, I think my wife loves to dance with me because my lack of dance skills makes her look like the most trained dancer on earth.

After an exciting Mexican Riviera cruise, visiting three exotic ports and having some exciting excursions, what is it that you think my kids loved the most about the cruise? The Camp Carnival. So I ask my daughter what she enjoyed the most with the Camp Carnival and she recited a grocery list length of activies but the most favorite were the dance video games, the movies and the kids talent show. My son was asked the same question and his favorite activies were the scavenger hunts and the late night pizza party.

Now my kids have two cruises under their belt and both their cruises the Camp Carnival was a big hit. Really, as a parent I can't ask for much more than a program that engages my children to the extent that they want to participate in the program each day. There may be children out there who don't connect and have a good camp experience but my children and my wife and I are very pleased with the Camp Carnival program. My kids are already planning their must-do activities in the camp for our next cruise.