What should my family use on a Cruise?

[deontebolawghh]

My mom, dad, brother, and I are going on a cruise. My parents want to be able to communicate with us. The cruise ship will have walkie-talkie type radios to rent. My question is will a walkie-talkie from Radio Shack or some place like that span the 989' ship. Including all the floors.

[Jan115]

I hated walkie-talkies and I think you will find many other cruisers are not fond of them either. To be honest, we took walkie-talkies on our kids' first cruise, and they were pretty useless. It was hard to understand each other, causing shouting and repeating ourselves over and over (which I am sure annoyed the heck out of our fellow cruisers). After the first couple of days, we put them away and relied on the old-fashioned way: setting limits, meeting times, meeting places, post-it notes on our doors, and just common sense. It worked out very well, the kids became very responsible and everyone was happy. Perhaps your parents will agree and set some limits while at the same time give you some freedom and responsibility.

With that said, however, if your parents still would prefer to use them, they should buy the best ones they can afford in order to be heard clearly.

[WeCruiseToo]

Never used them ourselves but we’ve seen plenty of people using little radios they brought with on all sizes of ships, so they must work okay. That being said, you’ll be surprised how often you keep bumping into the same people. Even though the ship is huge there are only so many place you can go at any given time and there are house phones all over so it’s easy to call someone’s room. Have a great cruise!

[agentjoey]

I'm sure a good set of radios would work fine, but for me, I personally don't want to be bothered with them. I have kids and have taken kids on a cruise. We just made sure we knew where they were, what they were doing and who they were with. Then from time to time would check up on them. The ships are large but you don't have to taxi to get to the other side. We had no probelms.

[DebbieandJerry]

Have to agree with Jan's comments. We, too, set meeting places and times. Most of them are centered around eating (go figure!!!). If I leave the cabin and Jerry is sleeping, I leave him a note where I am (usually at the pool). He has always been able to find me.

Our best cruising buddies have taken their kids on cruises with us and we have always used the "where are you going" and "what time will you be back" method and it has worked beautifully.

We never even worried when they went to "their nightclubs". We knew they had to return to the stateroom sometime ...