What Happens if Your Child Gets Lost on a Cruise?

If you are searching this term because your child is lost onboard your cruise ship, PLEASE stop reading and go to guest services right now.

For everyone else, settle in to discover what happened when I (temporarily) lost contact with my teenage son on my last cruise. (Spoiler alert – he was totally fine, even if he almost gave his mom a heart attack.)

How do you lose your kid onboard?

I’m sure this is the first thing you are thinking, possibly with some judgment in your thoughts, and rightly so. How the heck do you lose your kid on board a cruise ship? Believe me, it can happen to anyone.

Ok, so here’s the story. I was traveling alone with my son, who is a teen, and he had made friends in the teen club. On the last night of our cruise, I spoke with him around 12:30 AM as he was hanging out with them in the library. They weren’t being rowdy, just playing cards. He said they were going to hang out a little longer. Curfew is 1, so I said, “OK, see you in a bit.”

1:00 rolled around, and he still wasn’t back. I thought, “they’re probably just in the library and lost track of time. Security will eventually end up there and send him back.”

I took a shower, got ready for bed, and settled in with a book.

Then 1:30 rolled around. Still no kid. So, I decided to go get him myself. Got dressed, made my way to the library. There were a few people in there, but not my kid and his friends.

I started thinking like a teen and immediately decided, “pizza. I bet they went go get pizza.”

Made my way to pizza, no sign of him and his friends.

This was when I started to be less calm. But I didn’t want to be “that mom,” so instead of going to guest services right away, I took my own tour of the ship, looking everywhere I could think of where a small group of teens might go on board. I checked all the public lounges, then went outside and searched all the decks and the helipad.

No kid.

By now it’s after 2:00 and the cruise is pretty much empty. I thought, “maybe he just want back to the room.” Checked the cabin, no sign.

Ok, by now I am starting to actually panic. Of course, this whole time I am sending him messages through the app. I also started calling him via WhatsApp, hoping his 24 hours of wifi hadn’t run out yet.

Around 3:00, I start thinking about all the Dateline episodes that started this way. Flashes of Keith Morrison blend with memories of my own wild youth, and I start feeling like I am going to vomit. This is when I make my way to Guest Services.

Go to Guest Services

So, if you think your kid is missing, I recommend taking this step sooner than I did, and you will see why in just a second.

I rang the little bell sitting on the counter and tried to keep my composure as I explained that my son had not returned to his cabin when I expected him to. The woman there was very nice. She asked a few questions and gave me a form to fill out. Within about 60 seconds, a team of security agents was swarming the lobby with printouts of my son’s face and description.

I will admit, this is when I really broke down and thought, “OMG, he might actually be missing.” I also realized how much of a troublemaker he looked like in the picture we had submitted in the app, just after he buzzed off all his hair and got a black eye from a soccer match. Not a great look for either of us. But, here we were.

The process

The head of security explained to me that he was sending his team out to check all the public areas. He also sent someone to our cabin to search it. That person was stationed outside of it in case my son came back. Basically, they had a team of 4 people doing in about 5 minutes what I had spent the last hour attempting on my own.

Then, he asked me an extremely reasonable question: “What was your son wearing when you last spoke to him.”

Without hesitation, I responded, “A grey shirt, grey shorts, and crocs.”

SUPER confident.

He explained that someone from his team would be able to get camera footage from the library around 12:30, when I had last seen him. It took a good 10 or so minutes for them to find it, and that’s when he asked, “Is it possible he was wearing a black shirt, blue shorts, and black tennis shoes?”

Whoops. yup. Once I thought about it, I realized that was extremely possible.

Fortunately, my son has a defining feature of being extremely tall and skinny, so that combined with his buzz cut helped identify him. But I suddenly have a newfound appreciation for witnesses who get seemingly obvious facts wrong when they talk to the police. Had I not been so quick to answer his question, I might have remembered what he was wearing or that I had taken a picture of him earlier that evening in those clothes. If you ever find yourself in this type of situation, I highly recommend doing a quick look through your photos to see if you have a recent pic from that day.

The good news is they were able to identify him, and there are cameras everywhere on the ship, so all they needed to do was track his movements from the library to see where he ended up. This is where the timing comes in — had I gone to guest services at 1:30 they would only have an hour or so of footage to look through. By now, it’s just about 3:30, so he could have gone a lot of places by then, and someone had to track his movements.

Know that time is of the essence

As I was pacing around nervously, trying not to throw up or think about all the things that could have gone wrong if he ended up in the wrong person’s cabin, the head of security explained the timeline to me. They have one hour from the time someone is reported missing before they have to involve the police and the Coast Guard. The clock was literally ticking, and he kept saying into the walkie-talkie, “We are running out of time.”

As we passed the 30-minute mark, the head of security explained that they are getting ready to turn the ship around to where it was the last time I saw him, 12:30. This is when he extremely politely but also directly said, “This is why it’s important to report someone missing as soon as you notice it.” He remained in communication with the bridge, so they were aware that they might need to change course.

At this point, I’m really, really trying to hold it together. I’m calling my kid constantly. I even called my husband back home to wake him up and see if he had any other ideas for how I could track our kid down. He woke up our eldest son to see if he could see any Snapchat activity (I still don’t know how that app works; the kids have told me since then that it did nothing besides wake up a grumpy teenage boy who was always certain that his brother was fine).

The head of security makes the call to his team to send out an announcement to all the cabins. That is the last step before they turn the ship around.

TURN YOUR KIDS’ NOTIFICATIONS ON

Just as I’m about to have a fullblown panic attack right there in the middle of the guest services lobby, a security guard comes down with my son, who is visibly shaken.

I immediately run over to him, give him a hug and scream WHERE WERE YOU???

If you have a teen or have been a teen, you can probably imagine his response – “I was hanging out with my friends in one of their cabins, Mom. Did you even text me?”

DID I EVEN TEXT HIM??

The audacity.

And Oh. Oh the looks on my face and the faces of all the security officers. I wish I had a snapshot.

It was then that he looked at his phone, unlocked it, and said “ohhhhhhhh I had my notifications turned off.”

DO I LAUGH? CRY? HUG HIM?

Yes to all of the above.

I send my husband and son back home a quick text to let them know he had been found and I’ll fill them in later.

And then the head of security talked to him, very sternly yet still nicely, about exactly what they had just done. He explained how they had taken four agents off their existing duty to go look for him, had me in a panic, and almost turned the ship around when it was supposed to be heading back to LA. He told him that he was about a minute away from making an announcement that would wake up all the guests in their room and if he still hadn’t turned up, they would have had to turn the ship around, delaying everyone from getting back to port and also delaying the next cruise from boarding.

YIKES.

I love my son, obviously, so part of me felt for him as he took in what the head of security was saying. He was very shaken up, and he had not thought at all about what might happen if he didn’t check in with me or come back to the cabin at curfew. I was too relieved to be mad at that point, although after he had calmed down a little, he did say, “I feel like you should be yelling at me.” But I couldn’t. How could I when just a few minutes ago I was sitting there, imagining the absolute worst? We did have a long talk the next day, as we had a five-hour car ride to our next destination, and I think it’s safe to say he won’t make that mistake again, either on a cruise or when he starts driving (which is scarily soon).

Lessons learned from losing my kid

A few big lessons learned that night that will stay with us for a long time, probably forever.

MAKE SURE YOUR KID HAS THEIR NOTIFICATIONS TURNED ON

It’s so obvious, but it’s also so easy to overlook or just not think about when you’re busy having fun; do a quick check to make sure everyone’s notifications are on before separating for the night. We have a family cruise coming up soon, and you better believe I will be physically making sure both of my kids’ notifications are on before we separate for the evening. Honestly, this should go for the whole family. I know mine are set to automatically turn off at night, so I will make sure to turn off that setting the next time I go on vacation.

Verbally communicate the plan with your kids Every TIME

The reason I got so panicked is that he had spent the last 6 nights getting back to our cabin by 1:02 (basically, leaving wherever he was at curfew time and then quickly making his way to our cabin). So, I thought the same routine would apply the last night.

My son thought that saying he’d see me in a “little bit” translated to “I’ll come back … eventually.” I thought it meant he’d be up … in a little bit. Like, by 1:02. From now on, he and my other son know to expect us to have a concrete plan in place so we know exactly when to expect them back. (I thought we had this plan in place with curfew — apparently that was unclear, so it is now very, VERY clear, and consequences will follow for missing them.)

Security takes missing people very, very seriously

I was extremely impressed with how swiftly the Royal Caribbean security team responded and how seriously they took this, even though they knew what had happened was the likely outcome. The head of security told me multiple times that this happens: kids don’t think, and they end up in someone else’s cabin where they either fall asleep or ignore their phones. But still, without getting any response from him, they had to act as if other outcomes were possible.

They can’t tap into your messages

This one surprised me. They asked me who my kid was hanging out with, and I had to admit that I had no idea what the other teens’ names were. I knew they had been chatting on the app, so I asked if he could just tap into my son’s messages. They said absolutely not, that is a severe privacy violation. So, I guess good to know your messages are safe.

You should know at least the first names of the kids your kids hang out with

Yeah, this seems like a no-brainer now, but my son is a generally pretty bare bones kid when it comes to details. Had I been able to name even just the first names of anyone he had been hanging out with, they could have cross-checked with the teens club to narrow down the cabins he might have been in. Someone could have done that while someone else checked the video feed. I had met them but never thought to ask their names. And my descriptions were not great – “kind of short kid, dark hair, braces.” Ok, that is literally like all the kids on the ship.

Get help right away

I’ll end this post where I started it – by telling you to get help right away. I wanted to avoid all this by searching the entire ship on my own, but it ended up wasting precious time if something had gone wrong. And even though the outcome was OK it still wasted time because they had to look through more footage because I waited. If they had ended up needing to turn around, we would have had to go further back. Just generally, get help. They are there to help you. Use it.

This was not an easy post to write, and it is embarassing to admit I lost my son and contact with him. I like to think I am generally on top of things, and yet this still happened to us. But I know that it can happen, and it clearly does. So if this helps one parent avoid this type of situation or get help faster, then it is worth it.

A few updates

Since writing this post and sharing it on socials, some people have commented that other cruise lines have trackers for kids. Princess has the Medallion program, which acts as a tracker, so that might be a great option if you have kids you are worried about losing on board. I have also heard that Royal’s kids’ program has wristbands, but the teen club (at least on Navigator) did not—they just had paper wristbands to get in and out of the teen club. Another idea that came up was setting up tracking for your teen’s phone. We don’t have this set up, but I will look into it for our next cruise.

I appreciate all the supportive responses. As I said, this was hard to write and embarrassing to admit, but if it helps a family take a few extra, very common-sense steps to avoid a similar situation, it was worth it. Overall, I always feel safe having my teens on the cruise, but this was eye-opening to how I can’t just assume they will always do what they are supposed to.