Baarends

We took tho Alaskan cruise to celebrate my parents wedding anniversary. Alaska and the ports of call were great! The shore excursions we booked were awesome an our kids thoroughly enjoyed them. However while on the boat, my children, ages 6 and 10 were bored silly! They HATED the carnival kids camp, the pool although enclosed, was chilly, overrun and not very kid friendly. At one time, we counted 14 kids in the jacuzzi tub meant to hold 8! My kids went to camp on day 2 for an hour and a half. When my son saw me he immediately started crying. They said they were so bored, did not like the planned activity going on and were not allowed to play anything else independently. They had loads of video games an other games around them but were not allowed to play them? Because of her boredom, on day 6 of sailing, the kids decided to give the camp one last try. On the events for the day, there was an hour entitled "cruisers choice". We assumed that meant free play. When we arrived, only the baby section was open and the 3 kids in the camp were watching a movie. I asked if they could play on the other side with the age appropriate toys and they said no that that section was closed? I told them that the kids didn't want to watch a movie but play. The only thing offered was a puzzle. We spoke to the camp carnival director Dorothy who did nothing and dismissed us quickly stating she would get back to us. We never heard back from her or guest services who we also complained to. I think the pool was overrun, because the camp was not popular. The only thing for the kids to do was play board games, where unfortunately we spent most of our time playing Jenga and checkers. This has been our 4th cruise with our kids and this was the first time they did not enjoy themselves or the kids camp. The Camp director said this is always their set up for their camps on Carnival. If this is how they treat the children , we won't be back!! We also found the staff, other than the room steward and one of our waiters, to be very unfriendly and extremely unmotivated. Bar service was always slow and with an attitude. Most of the time it felt like we were bothering the staff if we asked a question or wanted a drink. We wished we would have spent the extra money and went with Royal Carribean or Disney.