Splash Academy

I mentioned previously that we registered the girls at Splash Academy first thing when we got on board and that was a great decision! Each night after dinner the girls were RUNNING to join the festivities at Splash. The staff were incredible and almost every night they came back to the cabin with some sort of arts and craft project or a lion or panda painted on their faces. As a single mom (even one with extra grown up hands on this trip) traveling with 2 young kids can be difficult to find downtime and it’s one of the primary reason that I fell in love with cruising with my girIs. In general, kids clubs give us grown ups a break but also give our kids independent time to be with peers and counselors who are focused on creating dynamic and fun activities just for them. I can’t say enough good things about the staff at Splash Academy! Naomi and I opted for 1 dinner without the kiddos at Cagney’s Steakhouse and it was so nice to be able to get them fed early and enjoy a nice leisurely dinner as grown ups.

Splash Academy hours will differ from when you are at sea and when you are in port - we only used it at night. We focused on hanging with the kids during the day and using it for grown up time in the evenings. A note for parents sailing during school breaks - we waited on line every night to drop off - we sailed out of NY in the end of August, right before kids in the Northeast went back to school so there were tons of kiddos on board. I’ll be talking more about Splash Academy procedures in an upcoming blog about our trip on the NCL Escape in November 2023 but suffice to say that NCL has changed check in and IMO not for the better. On this trip we had no problem at all and the girls went to Splash all 5 nights. Not so on the Escape. Look for that insight soon!