A cruise passenger paid extra for access to an adults-only spa, only to find another couple had brought their young child inside. Then staff intervened.
With a few exceptions, most cruise lines allow both adults and children on their cruises. However not every adult likes children. Or maybe they like their own children but not other peoples’ children. Or maybe they always like children, but just don’t want to have to deal with them when they’re on a cruise. 😉
Regardless, every cruise line that accepts children as passengers has developed their own ways to keep children and adults a little more separated. There are kids’ clubs and similar programs designed to keep kids occupied, in their own space(s), for hours at a time. And some lines have made some spaces of the ship or their private islands that are for adults only. Certain pools, certain beaches, perhaps certain eateries after a certain hour, etc.
Most parents respect the “Adult Only” rule and make sure they keep their kids away from them. But every once in a while an entitled adult will decide the rules don’t apply to them and their little angels.
That’s exactly what happened to a user on Reddit, who goes by the monikker u/Unspicy_Tuna on the social media platform, who explained what happened when they were on a cruise last year.
Unspicy_Tuna went on a cruise over Thanksgiving and said they paid an extra $600 so they and their husband could have access to the ship’s adults-only spa for the week.
While they were in the spa, Unspicy_Tuna noticed that another passenger had brought his young child inside. The man was stretched out on a lounger, either sleeping or simply ignoring the kid, while the child, who appeared to be about 5 to 7 years old, was jumping and squirming around.
The child wasn’t making noise, thankfully, but they were clearly bored, very active and, according to Unspicy_Tuna, pretty distracting. Not exactly conducive to the whole peaceful, relaxing spa thing.
Anyway, it wasn’t long before a spa attendant noticed the kid, too.
The attendant approached the man and quietly and politely explained that the spa was for adults only and asked that the child be taken out.
That’s when the child’s mother apparently appeared out of nowhere. She collected the kid and said:
“Oh, honey, THEY don’t want you in here, so now we all have to leave.”
Needless to say, Unspicy_Tuna couldn’t believe it.
As they pointed out, even if the spa hadn’t explicitly been adults only, why would anyone think a quiet, relaxing spa would be remotely interesting to a 5- to 7-year-old in the first place?
And it wasn’t as if the kid had nothing else to do on the ship. The cruise was extremely child-friendly, with an arcade, a kids’ zone, two water slides and bumper cars.
Meanwhile, Unspicy_Tuna and the other adults had paid extra for access to one of the places specifically designated as adults only.
And yet somehow, when the spa attendant simply enforced that rule, Mom’s takeaway was apparently:
“THEY don’t want you here.”
The internet responds
Unspicy_Tuna’s story apparently struck a whole lot of nerves because it got over 20,000 upvotes, on top of just shy 550 comments. Here are some of the better responses:
From pinkflower200:
People think the rules don’t apply to them.
Revevant_Elk_9176 said something similar:
There’s a just a large group of people in the world who believe that the only rules that apply to them are the ones that can be enforced. So they just do whatever they want until someone makes them stop/leave.
avanross said:
They’re bad parents.
It’s the same reason they took their kid to the spa, an activity they wanted to do, rather than taking their kid to the pool or arcade or any of the kid focussed areas
They want to have kids, but still want to prioritize living their own lives outside of the actual responsibility and sacrifice parts of “having kids”
MustardCoveredDogDik said (in reply to the above);
I have two kids and I haven’t done what I want to do in 9 years lol
From VinylHighway:
“Oh, honey, THEY don’t want you in here, so now we all have to leave”.
Correct
Useless980 said:
Why would anyone say that to a child? It’ll make him think something is wrong with him if nobody wants him there. All she had to do is explain that some places are only for grown-ups and don’t have any toys there.
dafyd67 brought something up from a different point of view:
I work for an Adults Only cruiseline.
The number of people who think their kid should be the exception is amazing!
Everything from “they are a baby” to “they are ALMOST 18”, to the ones that “just want a family holiday”.
People do my head in.
So did jt2ou:
The reason why minors are not allowed in the spa is because in some areas, it is clothing optional, ie the mens or women locker rooms… and a business allowing a minor to see unclothed adults is problematic.. to say the least. (Nudist resorts aside)
(signed a former spa worker)
From MyIdExcitement:
My favorite thing to do when children are invading an adults only area is to use every 4 letter word I know. Offended? Too bad. This is an adult area, and this is how adults speak. 🤣🤣🤣
Why did Unspicy_Tuna pick such a kid-friendly cruise line if they were looking for peace and quiet?
They did explain that, later on in the thread:
We usually sail on an older, smaller NCL ship that doesn’t have the water slides and kid friendly stuff, but this trip was way too good of a deal over a holiday weekend. It’s funny because a few other folks in the spa were commenting about how many kids were on the cruise! I mean, I knew going in it would be kid friendly and that’s why we paid the extra to have access to a kid free space!
Adults only means adults only
And that last part pretty much sums up the whole thing.
Unspicy_Tuna wasn’t complaining that children were on the cruise. They knew it was a kid-friendly ship. They knew there would probably be LOTS of kids, especially since they were sailing over Thanksgiving.
That’s why they paid an extra $600 for access to an adults-only space.
And really, it shouldn’t matter whether we’re talking about a cruise ship spa, an adults-only pool, an adults-only beach or anywhere else with an age restriction.
If a place says ADULTS ONLY, it doesn’t mean adults only unless your kid is quiet. Or well behaved. Or bored. Or only going to be there for a few minutes. Or has parents who really, really want to use the spa.
It means adults only.
And I think Useless980 made an especially good point about the mother’s reaction. Telling a very young child, “THEY don’t want you in here” makes it sound as if the mean people at the spa personally rejected the poor kid.
They didn’t.
The kid didn’t do anything wrong.
Mom and Dad were the ones who brought their child somewhere they knew (or certainly should have known) the child wasn’t allowed to be.
So no, “THEY” didn’t make the whole family leave.
The parents did that all by themselves.
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