Everything You Need to Know About Each Cruise Line’s Kids Club

Cruise line kids clubs are a great selling point for parents, grandparents, and guardians who want to travel with children while also enjoying some alone time—after all, they’re on vacation too.

Most—but not all—cruise lines welcome children, with many offering discounted or complimentary fare for guests under 18 years of age. To keep these youngsters entertained, many cruise lines provide supervised kids-only spaces and activities. Camp at Sea, Squok Club, or Oceaneer Club—although they may have different names, these youth programs all have in common dedicated facilities, staff, and activities to occupy passengers under 18 years of age.

While cruises are a fun (and safe) option for parents traveling with children of all ages, from infants all the way up to nearly adults, the experience can differ dramatically from ship to ship.

• Carnival Cruise Line
• Celebrity Cruises
• Costa Cruises
• Disney Cruise Line
• Holland America Line
• Margaritaville at Sea
• MSC Cruises
• Norwegian Cruise Line
• P&O Cruises
• Princess Cruises
• Royal Caribbean Cruises
• Luxury, river, and expedition cruises

Cruise lines with kids clubs

Carnival Cruise Line: Carnival offers year-round, fleet-wide daytime youth programs for guests 6 months to 17 years old. These are split into multiple categories, based on age. Parents can register their children pre-cruise as capacity is limited.

The program hours vary based on daily itineraries but generally run from morning into the evening, with breaks for meals. Parents are encouraged to pick up their children for lunch and dinner. On port days, kids can be left on board while parents go on shore excursions. (A kids-only lunch is offered on port days as well.)

Carnival also offers an after-hours Night Owls program for an additional fee. The program is for children 6 months to 11 years old, and runs from 10:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. each evening.

Celebrity Cruises: Celebrity offers guests a youth program for passengers 3 to 7 years old. Called Camp at Sea, these are split into four categories based on age. The children’s facilities are available from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. daily, and there are nightly slumber parties (sign-up required). On port days, there is an additional fee during meal times ($6 an hour per child from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.).

Celebrity offers an education STEM at Sea program on two ships, Celebrity Equinox and Celebrity Edge. STEM at Sea entertains young passengers while teaching them about subjects like the environment, and was developed in collaboration with The Frost Science Museum

For parents traveling with neurodiverse children, Celebrity offers autism-friendly cruises with sensory-friendly toys, films, and meals, as well as priority check-in and boarding.

Costa Cruises: Italy-based Costa features a kids club for ages 3 to 17. Adorably called Squok Club, it’s divided into three categories: Mini (3 to 5), Maxi (6 to 11), and Teen Zone (12 to 17). Programming runs from 9:00 a.m. until midnight. Children can be left onboard while parents go on excursions as long as the club is notified at least 24 hours ahead of time.

Costa also offers The Baby Squok Club on Costa Toscana and Costa Smeralda. This nanny service is available for guests ages 1 to 3 years of age, for an additional fee.

Disney Cruise Line: Oceaneer Club/Lab, Disney Cruise Line’s youth program, is available on all ships and is open to guests from 3 to 17. The facilities are each themed to a Disney brand, such as Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar, and the specific offerings differ from ship to ship. Hours are typically 9:00 a.m. until midnight. Youth activities are also offered on Disney’s exclusive port, Castaway Cay.

Disney Cruise Line also offers a daycare service (Small World Nursery) for babies and toddlers on its ships for an additional fee. Ages start at 6 months old. Space is limited and pre-registration is required.

Holland America Line: Guests sailing with Holland America have access to a daily Kids Club program, with dedicated facilities for children and teens. Split into three rooms based on age, the program is offered on a first-come, first-served basis with limited capacity. The hours vary, but generally, the club is available during the morning and afternoons.

Holland America’s Kids Club does not operate during meal times, so parents/guardians will need to pick up their children for lunch and dinner.

Margaritaville at Sea: The new Margaritaville at Sea, which just launched summer 2024, features the Jolly Mon Kids Club. Hours and activities vary daily, but generally speaking, complimentary supervised programming is available in the afternoons, with evening childcare for 3 to 12s available for additional cost.

MSC Cruises: Children of all ages can enjoy MSC’s complimentary kids club. The children’s programming is divided into five categories based on age, and unlike most cruise lines, drop-off baby care is included. Kids club hours are generally from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. with occasional breaks during meal times.

The ships feature a variety of spaces and activities for kids in each age category, although offerings vary across the fleet (e.g. MSC Grandiosa has a drone obstacle course for teens). MSC Cruise’s World America will feature the largest kids club in the fleet, spanning 10,000 square feet across seven spaces.

Norwegian Cruise Line: NCL’s youth programming is split into two options, Splash Academy (3 to 12) and Entourage (13 to 17). This kids club is available on most ships (Norwegian Spirit excluded) and is a daytime program. Neither Splash Academy nor Entourage is available on port days. Evening drop-off activities are offered for an additional fee.

Norwegian also has a primary program for infants 6 months to 3 years old (Guppies) that requires parental supervision.

P&O Cruises: P&O offers kids club activities for ages 2 to 17, split into four categories based on age. The programming schedule varies but is generally daytime hours split in two to five-hour blocks. Space is limited, so parents are encouraged to register ahead of time; the registration window opens 14 days before the cruise departs.

For parents traveling with kids under 2, P&O also offers a nursery space for baby play. Parental supervision is required in the nursery.

As a bonus, the UK-based cruise line has a deal with Aardman, the studio behind “Shaun the Sheep” and “Wallace and Gromit,” allowing guests (young and old) to enjoy character meets and themed activities.

Princess Cruises: Princess’ children’s program Camp Discovery is a partnership with media company Discovery (hence the name). It offers kids 3 to 17 fun and educational activities themed to the great outdoors. The programming is split by age, with three rooms for kids (3 to 12) and a teen hangout space. Infants and toddlers (aged 6 months to 3 years) are invited to use the Camp Discovery facilities but must be accompanied by a parent.

Camp Discovery is available generally from 9:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. with breaks for meal times. Space is limited, so the service is not guaranteed.

Royal Caribbean Cruises: Royal Caribbean boasts an award-winning Adventure Ocean youth programming for kids 3 to 12, as well as a separate teens club. The youth programming is available during the day and into the evening. Most ships also offer a nursery for children 6 months to 3 years old.

Adventure Ocean is notable for including dedicated rooms for science-based activities (Adventure Science Lab) and art (Imagination Studio).

Luxury, river, and expedition cruise lines with kids clubs

Luxury cruise lines Cunard, Crystal Cruises, Explora Journeys, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises, and Regent Seven Seas all offer youth programs.

Paul Gauguin has partnered with Te mana o te moana, a South Pacific marine education and conservation foundation, to deliver a nature-based interactive learning experience called the Moana Explorer Program.

Fewer river and expedition cruises will have dedicated facilities for children but may have supervised activities. HX Hurtigruten will have planned activities for children on some sailings, for example, but doesn’t have a dedicated space for them.

Some river and expedition cruises have specific sailings geared toward kids that include youth programming. For example, AmaWaterways technically offers kid-friendly river cruises via its Adventures by Disney partnership. Lindblad has an exclusive National Geographic Global Explorers kids program for select sailings.