traveling with 17 year old - tons of questions

[lifegozon]

This cruise will be a high school graduation present for my daughter, age 17. Are there any activities for her age group. We'll be on the Explorer of the Seas next week. Also, do any of you have feedback on the use of walkie talkies? What about the chairs at the pool - do I need to set the alarm for early to get a spot? Have any of you used the spa facilities for massages? Pricey? Worth it?

[Sonny V]

Hello lifegozon, welcome to Cruise-Chat. There will be lots of activities for her. Walkie-talkies always worked well for us. My wife never used any of the spa facilites; she always thought it was too pricey. We have friends who have done it and thought it was worth every penny. We never had any trouble finding lounge chairs except for days at sea. Make sure you don't miss the ice show. If you want to check out some pictures of some of my cruises you can CLICK HERE. You will see the Explorer amoung them.

Sonny

[Berick1234]

We always use walkie talkies....and for the most part they work just great...we have a set with a 20 mile range, so we also use them off the ship....Lots of activities for teens...or she can just relax and plan her life...what a great graduation present...and congratulations.
Enjoy the cruise and the time with your daughter...

Bob E

[Bkkcollins123]

I'm 17 and I just got home from my cruise and never seemed to get bored at all during the cruise. There is plenty to do and lots of people to meet! Not real sure about the spa. Walkie talkies...we took them to keep in touch and to find each other worked really good except for the fact that no matter what channel your on someone else is using that channel so it gets a little tough to figure out who is talking to who...since everyone else uses them

[goin' cruisin']

And since EVERYONE is using them, the "chatter" tends to be annoying as hell. Just my humble opinion.

[Sonny V]

There's a way to set them so you hardly get any chatter. No, I'm not telling you how!

Sonny

[wilson]

We cruise with our 3 kids ages 17,15 & 12. That is the main reason we cruise with RCI and we love it. This past cruise the two older kids spent most of their time with the teen activity group. They have organized events such as basketball tournaments, rock climbing challenges etc. The kids especially loved the snowball fight the crew organized for them. They have a special area reserved for sunbathing and hanging out and the crew are great to make sure it is just the teens that use it. We only saw our kids in the dining room for dinner at night. They had a great time and made lots of new friends. We sailed the first week of March and were told there were 80 teens on board but they said the following week (which is into spring break), there were going to be 400 teens on board. Your daughter is going to have a great time.

[SailorJack]

W.C. Fields said it best....

get walkie talkies with many channals so you can set it to a rare channal.

[tncruiseman]

lifegozon...although the cruise is a present for your daughter, keep in mind that it is your vacation too! Walkie-talkies can get annoying and cumbersome if used the entire cruise so I would just use them when really needed, like at ports when shopping,etc. We took our daughter and a few of her friends over spring break and made just one rule: "Thou shalt not miss dinner in the dining room...ever!" Not only was it a great "checkpoint" for us but they really enjoyed trying the different things as well. Enjoy yourself!!!!