Parents can track their kids on Legend of the Seas – should it be a fleet-wide initiative?

• After an initial pilot program on Star of the Seas, Royal Caribbean will officially introduce kids tracking wristbands on Legend of the Seas.
• This will involve kids wearing a wristband that connects to an app, so parents can see where their kids are. 
• Complaints of poorly behaved children have been raised and some believe this new initiative will help rein in naughty kids.

Following a pilot program on Icon of the Seas and further tweaking on Star of the Seas, Royal Caribbean has decided to officially add child tracking to Legend of the Seas. 

How this will work is that parents can download the official Royal Caribbean app and purchase a wristband; then, once the kid is wearing this wristband, the parents will be able to see where their children are on the app. 

Parents will need to pay US$14.99 for the wristband at the start of the cruise, and then navigate to ‘Find My Kid’ in the official application. However, this is only a one-time fee, you can even keep the wristband and use it on future sailings. 

WiFi is not needed to support the tracking device.

It’s been a long-standing discussion in cruising circles about how to better rein in misbehaving kids on cruise ships and ensure that they don’t disturb the experiences of other passengers. While child tracking on its own is unlikely to solve this problem, it does give kids an extra sense of accountability that they might not have if they think their parents don’t know where they are. 

It also allows parents to be able to see if their kids have left the kids club, which they are of course allowed to do on their own accord, even if their parents have told them to stay. 

It is of course also a useful tool to have in case of emergencies of any kind, such as medical problems, evacuations or more.

In the past, cruisers have seemed to agree that the tracking wristbands could have some positive applications and help tone down wayward behaviour on ships. 

With the tracking now seemingly set to roll out through the entire Icon-class, it remains to be seen whether Royal Caribbean will look to install this technology on other ships across the fleet, or it will simply be something for Icon-class. This would also make sense due to the size of the ships, that Royal Caribbean could simply view it as a necessary tool for parents and kids to be able to find one another. 

However, it’s likely that many families will be hoping that it becomes a fleet-wide feature, given that its utility expands across reigning in kids, offering emergency support, helping families meet up and more.

In terms of the issue of controlling kids in general, this will need to be managed in various other forms as well, such as adjusting curfews, enforcing punishments for poor behaviour, extending kids clubs later into the night and more. 

What do you think? Should Royal Caribbean expand its wristband tracking devices for kids across the entire fleet?