Recently, Royal Caribbean rolled out a new feature on its newest cruise ship Star of the Seas. Parents can now track their kids’ locations throughout the cruise ship through the “Find My Kid” section on the Royal Caribbean app. While it’s meant to bolster peace of mind for parents, is this new feature going to lead to more harm than good?
Find My Kid Details
Parents of kids ages 3-12 on Star of the Seas can now track their kids’ locations around the ship:
- Purchase special WOW bands at Adventure Ocean kids club for $14.99
- Pair band to Royal Caribbean app
- Connect phone to Wi-Fi (no internet package required, just the ship’s free Wi-Fi for the app)
- Track location of kids across the ship, including in staterooms and other public areas
This feature was successfully tested on Icon of the Seas and is a more accurate way of tracking compared to Apple AirTags. The bands are waterproof so they do not have to be removed for swimming and water slides. Princess Cruises already has a similar feature for all age groups, but there are far fewer kids sailing on Princess compared to Royal Caribbean.
Benefits and Drawbacks
The biggest benefit of the Find My Kid tracker is that parents can pinpoint the location of a lost child. Star of the Seas is a gigantic ship, and even supervised kids can get accidentally separated from their families. Some positive comments I saw on social media include:
“This is a great idea!”
“It would be cool to expand this to the whole family, any age.”
“We used it on Icon last fall and it was so useful.”
“The more ships the better.”
However, many people, including myself, have concerns about the system. I think it will only encourage more parents to let their young kids roam the ship unsupervised.
“Nope. Will absolutely be used in place of parenting for many. Technology is not a replacement for good old fashioned Parenting.”
“That’s great if the parents would actually police their kids. They usually turn then loose to be rude and do whatever they want on the ship. Unsupervised kids will be kids, and it is very annoying to other cruisers.”
“Heck no! This just gives kids MORE chances to get into trouble and annoy others while the parents enjoy THEIR cruise.”
“Just what we want, more unsupervised kids roaming around. Just because you can locate them does not mean they are safe.”
Believing that a cruise ship is totally safe for unsupervised kids is a bit naive. While it’s rare, bad things do happen on cruise ships, including sexual assaults and fights between passengers. Just last week, a fight broke out on a Carnival ship over chicken tenders!
I used to give my kids some freedom on cruise ships when they were older (10+), but with limited boundaries (i.e. don’t go into any staterooms, only go from kids club to our stateroom). We required them to message us when they were leaving the kids club so we knew when to expect them.
Bottom Line
The new Find My Kid feature on Star of the Seas offers peace of mind to parents of kids ages 3-12. Personally, I think it will encourage more unsupervised kids on cruise ships. That said, I’d love to have the feature for my teens and other adults in my group. Finding each other on a large cruise ship can be difficult!
What do you think of the new Find My Kid feature on Royal Caribbean?
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
I agree with those who wish it was available for all ages. That’s one of the things I love about Princess and my “kids” are all older – ages 22-27 and we love being able to easily find where people are. If someone goes back to read a book, take a nap, etc it’s simple to find the group when you’re ready to!
Sounds like a good feature on paper but I agree with you… this will only give the clueless parents another reason to allow their kids to run amok.