bosco7284

We have used the Nursery on the Escape on two cruises. The service is great but it is also limited on times they have for you to drop off your child. The sessions are in 2hr blocks and you are limited I think to only 2 back to back for 4 hrs total. They will change diapers for free but you do need to supply your own diapers, wipes, snacks, food and drink cup. They are also limited on space available 10 kids per session so the best thing to do is as soon as you get onto the ship bring your child down to the Nursery to sign them up. As far as I know you can only book once you are on the ship and some of the late times fill up quick. They give you a beeper so if you child is to upset or cant be calmed down they will call you to come down and get your child. The staff does a great job and we have never been called down once.

As for people talking about the price and having to pay for the service, children under 3 you do not pay the 13.50 a day Gertuity/service charge that everyone else pays. So if you only send your child for a few session on the cruise its about the same as if you had to pay the service charge. Children 3 and over that qualify for the free splash academy program will be paying the 13.50 a day (94.50 for the 7 days) For the service charges.

Here is pictures of the "Menu" from our Sep 2017 cruise. Hope this helps

Me and my wife Cruised when she was about 12 weeks pregnant and also when our daughter was 14 Months old, again when she was 18 Months old, Again when she was 2 Years old and we are going Again in September(she will be 2 1/2).

My wife didnt have any issues Cruising when she was 12 weeks pregnant but then again that is still early on in the pregnancy. We had a lot of fun and It was nice to go on one last vacation with just the two of us.

Going on a cruise with a toddler is differently different then when it was just the two of us. Depending on what you like to do on vacation it may cause you to not enjoy it as much. My wife and I are easy going people. We are happy just spending time with our daughter in the pool or just walking around the ship. We don't need to be out late or party all night so for us we still loved every minute of our vacation. The crew on the Ships when you have a little kid are amazing! Since so many of the crew have little kids at home that they miss they treated our daughter like a little Princess.

When our daughter was 14 Months old the hardest part was she was at the age where she didnt want to be held any more so she would put up a fit if we tried to hold her. Then when we would put her down she would think it was a fun game to run and have us chase her. This was not bad most of the time but when we got into crowded halls she didnt know enough not to run in front of others. Also dinners can get long so some times it was hard to keep her entertained for the 1-2 hrs that dinners can take.

The Ship we most recently sailed on was the Escape. The nice thing about that boat is they have a Kids program for kids Under the age of 3. However this is not a program that all the ships from NCL have.

I would say you are best off going on a cruise before the baby is born to enjoy one last vacation before the baby arrives, Then down the road depending on how your child travels you can decided if you would like to go on another cruise or do a different vacation with your child.

We were just on the Escape with our 2 year old daughter and used the Guppies Program a few times. On the first day we signed her up and registered her for a few of the sessions. The sessions were 1hr 50min long and cost $20-$24 and you can not have more than 2 consecutive sessions in one day. On our sailing the sessions did fill up quickly so it is good to book as soon as you get on the boat. They have a limit of only 10 kids per session and have 5 workers that watch the 10 kids. All the workers in the classroom have CPR and first aid training, they also have background checks every 6 months based on what we were told.

When you drop off your child they will give you a pager that they will call you on if they have any issues or if they are unable to get your child to stop crying after 15min. Most kids when they were first dropped off all started to cry but were able to get them to calm down quickly. Our daughter is still in diapers and they will change them as needed. You just need to supply the diapers and wipes. At the end of the session when you pick up your child they give you a printed report on what they did in the session witch was nice to get.

Overall We thought this was a great program to have on the ship and was reasonably priced.

Here are the pictures of the sessions they had available on our sailing. The ones with $ at the end are the paid sessions and the ones without were free a parent had to stay with your child at the free sessions.

I hope this info Helps

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We were just on the 4/9 sailing on the Escape and had the photo package as well. Just like others said, Try to stop at as many places as possible to get photos done since 50 photos was a hard number for us to hit. For us they did allow us to get duplicates of a few photos no questions asked as part of the package. On the first day I asked one of the workers in the Photo area what the rules were. The only rule he told me were someone from our state room had to be in the photo. (they did allow us to take 1 photo of my nephew who was not in our room so they seem to be a little flexible). They also said the 50 photos must be purchased on a single transaction but all the photos are collected in a folder throughout the cruse so it was not a big deal. Also a tip would be not to wait until the last day to pick out your photos, we picked up all ours on the 2nd last day and there were hardly any people in the photo area buying photos. The last day in Nassau it was a zoo in the photo area with long lines. With the photo package we were also able to get a usb drive for $20 with all the photos we got with the package. The receipt shows a charge of 349 but they put a credit on the room to offset the charge for the promotion. It also shows if we purchased all the photos individually it would have cost $1047.20 so that just shows you how expensive the photos are if you by them individually. Overall I though it was a nice perk to have, we were able to get some nice family photos that look great for "free".