How safe are cruises for kids? Can they fall off the boat? Is it safe to leave them in the kids activites?

Let’s break it down:

(1) Cruises are generally safe, but as with anything else you still have to keep your eye on them because you have the usual hazards and some you may not expect, like slippery decks and porthole-type doors where you have to remember to step up to go through. You don’t need to worry about children being abducted — where would the abductor escape to? — but you do need to watch them in the pools and on the decks.

(2) Yes, it’s possible for a child to fall off the boat IF the child is climbing on the boatrails. The voyage on a cruise ship is very smooth (they can put out stabilizers in rough seas), so there’s really no danger of a child being tossed over the rail in rough water, but it’s not like the ships have 8 feet high plexiglas walls to keep people from falling in. As long as your girls are not engaging in horseplay or goofing around on the boatrails, they should be fine.

(3) The children’s activities on cruise ships are VERY safe. The people who work in those areas are screened very carefully and they watch the children very closely — the cruise lines don’t want a lawsuit, or the negative press a lawsuit would generate. It’s funny because my six-year-old niece and eight-year-old nephew weren’t too crazy about the idea of going to the children’s play area, but when my brother and sister-in-law went back to get them two hours later, they didn’t want to leave!