If you really need a nausea medication for your 12 year old son, I'd recommend asking your doctor first. I'd hesitate to give anything to a child without a doctor's OK.
As for the Dramamine, beware that it will make you sleepy. It's really hard to enjoy your time on the ship when you're unconscious. If you can get by with the ginger or the sea bands, do so. BTW, lots of people find they don't get nearly as seasick on a big ship, as on smaller boats, I'm one. I've felt just awful while out fishing on the lake, in a 24 footer, but never once in 19 cruises, no matter the size of the waves.
FWIW: Because of my past experience on small boats, I worried about getting seasick prior to our first cruise. So I took a Dramamine on the first day of that first cruise, just as a precaution. That pill, combined with a very early flight that morning, and a late night packing the night before, I was so tired that I lay down in the cabin right after early seating dinner and literally slept straight through the entire first evening and night on the ship. I have no memory of that night, missed the welcome aboard show, never had time to do the first day tours of the spa or the rest of the ship. I woke up in Martinique the next morning and feeling a whole lot like Dorathy, over the rainbow.
I never did take another one of those pills, and never did experience any seasickness, and probably never really needed that Dramamine in the first place.
