*Cassie*

Just wanted to say thanks for the great review and all the awesome pictures. I have a 25 month old and a 4 month old and we're starting to look into taking a cruise next year while I'm still on my mat leave, so your review has been super helpful with what we can expect. I was also thinking of a shorter cruise and a trip to Universal! I am a huge Harry Potter fan too! I know the kids won't get that much out of it, but I really want to go :)

Glad I could help! And I say go for it. It was a lot of fun. Enjoy! We recently booked our next cruise for when our new little guy will then be just about the same age as Sophia was here. So I'm excited to see how a cruise with two little ones will go!

When we went to Cozumel a few years back, we didn't do an excursion but also didn't stay on the ship. I had really just wanted to lounge on a beach chair under some palm trees, and lucky enough there were some free to use right at the port! So after checking out the shops we just lounged here for awhile. It was nice and relaxing!

Great pictures! Just what I was looking for. Thanks so much!

Enjoy!

We just booked this morning! 227 days to go... Sunshine on 4/24/16!

We have sailed twice; once pre-kids and then once when our daughter was 14 months. They were definitely two completely different cruises. But, will we do it again? Yes! We're actually working on picking a cruise for early next year when baby #2 will then be around 14 months.

A little about the differences we encountered:

We only ended up eating one meal in the MDR. They did have high chairs and everyone was very nice, but our DD was in a very "chatty" phase and got a little noisy at times. So we felt more comfortable just sticking with the buffet. A little dissapointing, sure, but it worked out fine.

We also only made it to 1.5 shows. One night it worked out that she slept through the show, the other we had to leave early because she wanted to get down and run around.

We brought our City Mini stroller for excursion days and folded it up and slid under the bed while on the ship. The rest of the time we stuck with our Ergo carrier. I highly recommend it! Much easier to get around the ship, get food, etc.

Under 2 they are not allowed to stay alone at Camp Carnival (other than babysitting times). They have a play time during sea days where you can go play with them. It was really nice to have a large room she could get down and run around to play. Other times we went into the theater when it was empty to let her run up and down the aisles.

So as long as you go into it realizing it will be different, you can still have a great time, and my thought is a cruise with kids is still better than no cruise at all! :D

You can read my review below for more info, if interested.

We noticed on the map that the Jurrasic Park area had a play area, so we wanted to check that out for Sophia. She was tired of being in the stroller or carried, so we wanted to be able to let her run a bit before getting back in the car. Unfortunately it ended up being for older kids and it looked pretty wild so I’m afraid she would have just been knocked over.

So we found a fairly empty area and let her run for a bit.

And that was it for us. We still had 3 more hours to drive to Valdosta, GA where we would be staying the night.

One last picture before heading out and of course she wouldn’t look.

The next day was a super long day on the road, back to Illinois. And in our hurry to get the day started and over with, we didn’t realize we left behind a bag of clothes. Cost us $20 to get it shipped back to us… Lesson learned!

But thankfully she once again did great in the car, no major meltdowns and lots of napping!

And that’s the end of our trip. Thanks to those of you who read all the way through. Feel free to ask any questions at all!

Right outside Honeydukes, the thing we were most looking forward to here, Butterbeer!!!

We got both a frozen and regular one. Which ended up working perfectly since I preferred the frozen and Andrew preferred the regular. These were so good! I would have loved to have another one. We’re going to try to make them at home. We found the recipe online, so we’ll see how it compares.

They then had a Tri-Wizzard Tournament show going on at the stage. As much as I enjoyed the experience of being in Harry Potter world, since we couldn’t really do the rides with Sophia, I’m not sure it was worth the money for us. I think what would have made our experience better, was if these small shows they had were in more of an actual theater where you could sit and watch something longer. These only lasted maybe ten minutes and people just crowded around, so it was hard to see.

The joke shop was one you could go in, so we checked that out while Sophia napped.

They had a lot of the actual things mentioned in the book/movie.

And that was connected to Honeydukes. Lots of yummy looking treats in here!

The street was lined with different shops. Most of them were just fake, but some you could go in.

They have food available at Three Broomsticks, which is connected to Hog’s Head bar.

Outside the castle there was a stage where we saw two different short shows that day. First was the Hogwart’s Choir. We watched them sing a few songs.

Then we noticed the pumpkin juice cart. We had to try that! I was a little undecided on it. It was very sweet.

Sophia loved the bottle, though! ha

Our next stop was Olivander’s. There was a bit of a wait for this. I think they said approximately 45 minutes, but I didn’t check to see if it was accurate.

These pictures didn’t turn out well since they asked us to turn off our flash and it was dark in there. Here’s the best I got.

They picked a boy from the group and he got to choose his wand, or rather, the wand would choose him. Olivander picked one out and gave it to him and had him wave it while saying a spell. That caused the walls to shake and boxes fell. Not his wand. He tried a different one and something similar happened. Then finally he picked one and the room lit up and music played. He found his wand!

They then usher you into a (very expensive) gift shop, of course. We discovered that the huge waiting line was to control the number of people in the gift shop, since the actual time in Olivander’s was only a few minutes.

After a few pictures, we went straight to the castle. I’ve heard the lines can get long, so we wanted to get to that one right away.

While you go through the waiting line, there’s lots of neat things to look at that you’ll recognize from the books/movie.

The paintings were actually screens, so they’d move around in the frame.

Dumbledore’s office. The image didn’t show up with our flash on, but he appeared on that landing above his desk and talked to us. If you look close you can kind of see him.

And here Harry, Ron, and Hermoine appeared.

They have a nice feature here for parents. You can stand in line together and then when you get to the front of the line they have a swap room. One parent will go on the ride while the other waits in a room with your child, then you swap so you don’t have to go through the line again. Unfortunately, Sophia wanted nothing to do with me leaving her, so I didn’t go on it. Andrew got very motion sick on it anyway, so I wasn’t too bummed about missing it.

Almost there!

We first had to walk through Seuss Landing. I was really hoping there would be things she could do here, but she was still too little. We’ll definitely be back in a few years, though!

But thankfully we worried for nothing! She was completely fine the next morning!

Our plan for today was to go to Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. The main reason, Wizarding World of Harry Potter!

Here we go!

Our first glimpse of Hogwarts!

Debarkation

Our last morning on the ship has arrived. So sad! We had already set most of our luggage out the night before to be picked up, so we packed up the rest of our stuff after getting ready and headed on up for our last breakfast.

I have to say, we had nothing but great experiences with the crew. I was surprised at how many people remembered Sophia’s name. From our room steward and his assistant to workers in the buffet. That morning we walked up to the buffet and one worker walked right over to us and said good morning, Sophia! So nice!

We waited up in the buffet room until our number was called. I believe that was around 9:30. So we sadly exited the ship, found our luggage, and went back through security. We once again had no problem going through with our birth certificates. Then we made our way back to our car, paid for parking, and headed off.

Post-cruise

I decided to include this just in case anyone else might also be planning the same thing. Since we drove down here, we decided that on the way back we would spend a couple days in Orlando.

The drive from Miami to Orlando was I believe a little over 3 hours. Of course as soon as we arrived in Orlando it started raining. Not good since we had planned on spending the day at Downtown Disney. We grabbed some lunch and hoped that it would stop soon.

It was still raining, so we thought we’d go check in. We stayed at the Super 8 Orlando International Drive. It was a motel, but the location and price was great. I thought the room was actually pretty cute. The bathroom on the other hand, not so great...

Relaxin!

Well, unfortunately, not only did the rain not stop but my poor girl spiked a fever. So we ended up just spending the day hanging out in our room. We were really worried about what we’d do the next day if she wasn’t feeling better.

Sounds like Sophia kept you on your toes! :D She's cute!

She sure did! Thanks! :)

Thanks for your review! We are on a 7 day in May with our (to be) 14 month old son. I've been eagerly looking for reviews on traveling with a toddler. Any tips, lessons learned, insight? We have a 3 hour time change so I am worried about sleeping and naps. I also don't know what sort of activities to look for... back to back beach days will probably get a little old.

Hmm I think the best tip is to go in without any real expectations on what you'll be doing, otherwise you might be disappointed. Just go with the flow. Do as much as you can or want in between nap times.

I was really looking forward to eating in the dining room, and Sophia right before the cruise always did fine eating out, but of course wouldn't sit quietly there. So we ate from the buffet the rest of the cruise, which the food was fine, just wasn't quite the same. I would try out the dining room and see how he does.

Do you have a carrier? If so I highly recommend bringing that. It was so much easier for us to get around with. We brought our City Mini and it was actually too wide to get through the room doors, so we had to get her out in the hall and fold it up to bring it in or out. Also to get our food I would carry her on my back so I could get our food and not have to worry about pushing a stroller at the same time or taking turns with DH to get food.

We only had an hour time difference but I was still worried on how that would go. She's not the best sleeper to begin with, but she's never done well with the time changes. Thankfully she did ok, but we weren't on our normal routine at all. I just watched her sleep signs and went with that for the most part. And it also didn't take long for her to get back to her sleep routine once we got back.

There isn't much on the ship for this age group. I would definitely check out the open play at Camp Carnival on sea days. If he's anything like Sophia and likes to get down to explore, the theater when it was empty was a good spot. Lots of space for them to work those little legs and get some exercise. As far as excursions, we didn't plan anything.

Hope that helped a little. Let me know if you had any other specific questions. Enjoy your cruise!

Love reading your review in tandem with mine! Looks like we're both on Little Stirrup Cay today, lol. It's so fun to see how we took the same vacation, and had 2 separate vacations:rolleyes: I think that's why I love cruising. Thanks for taking the time in doing this. And btw, your baby girl is just precious! ;)

Oh I'll have to go check your review out next! And yeah, vacationing with a toddler is definitely a different experience. Looking forward to see how yours went and what I have to look forward to in the future! And thank you! :)

But, that’s ok. We all missed it. After waiting up there almost 1.5 hours and wondering what’s going on, why aren’t we leaving, we finally gave up and went to get dinner.

We did see the sunset, though!

This chicken parm at dinner was really good!

Andrew’s desserts. I just got a cheesecake and they had a few different sauces you could top it with.

Then we were excited to watch the Olympics opening ceremony out on the deck!

Once we found some deck chairs we realized we were moving. Not sure what time we actually ended up sailing away.

Of course we only got to see the first part of the actual ceremony before Sophia was over it. We watched the rest of it back in our cabin.

Up next… Debarkation and post-cruise

I can’t remember what time it was, I’m thinking a little after 2, we decided we were ready to go back to the ship. We made our way back to the dock, went through the “security” and noticed the current tender they were loading was mostly full and since we had the stroller and would need to sit in the first row we thought we would just wait for the next one. So we waited on the bench for a few minutes. We were shocked though at how many people they continued to squeeze on the tender. But eventually another one pulled up so we got in and found a seat. We ended up riding back with Sophia’s little friend, Ava, who she met at Camp Carnival the first day.

When we got back to the ship they let the top deck off first. I was once again amazed at how many people fit. They just kept coming! Andrew said is this one of those pranks where they have another door and the people are just walking in circles off and back on the ship, seeing how long until someone says something?! haha

But we finally were back on the ship and went back to our cabin to clean up and (tear) start packing. So sad! It went by way too fast!

We were supposed to set sail at 5, so around 4:45 we made our way up to the Lido deck to watch. Here’s a better pic of the ship that was near us. It was an MSC cruise ship.

We assumed they were going over to this island nearby. I looked it up on Google and that one is Great Stirrup Cay.

And Little Stirrup Cay:

Someone, who didn’t want to nap earlier in the cabin, was finally too tired to stay awake for sail away.

We were curious where the bridge led to so we decided to check it out. Across the bridge was a trail.

It eventually led to Royal Caribbean’s Coco Cay landing side. It was empty today, though.

Ha it looks like the ship is sitting on the rock!

After lunch we walked through the Straw Market. It had the typical shirts, bags, souvenirs and really weird odds and ends that I can’t imagine why anyone would want to waste their money on. I was hoping to find a magnet, but everything was overpriced here, so we skipped it.

We then saw this beautiful bridge over to the left. Perfect photo op spot!

Right before you cross the bridge these guys were hanging out on this landing. We spotted five of them.

Once she woke up, it was lunch time, so we packed up our things and walked back over to the grille area.

They had hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, several side dishes, fruit, then brownies and cookies for dessert.

When we got back to our chairs, Andrew decided he wanted to walk out into the water. He took off with the camera and when he came back he said he heard other people talking about there being a jellyfish sighting. He also showed me these pics. Remember when I said I don’t like swimming in the ocean? This is why. I just get a little creeped out knowing these kind of things are out there swimming around with me.

And I get the shivers just thinking about what might have burrowed down in this hole.

A large group of people rode by us in kayaks. I’m guessing it was some kind of excursion. Looked like fun!

Oh look, another chicken. He wasn't scared of us at all, walked right on up. Actually got a little too close for comfort, but we were able to shoo him away easy enough.

Sophia was ready for a nap, so I finally got some reading time in!

Um, is that a chicken??? We saw, and heard, several of them all day. Wasn’t expecting that!

We finally settled on Barefoot Beach.

I had hoped to get in some relaxing reading time but a certain someone was way too excited to get down and play to let me do that!

She had so much fun splashing in the water!

I’m not a big fan of swimming in oceans/lakes/ponds, etc. (you’ll see why soon) so we just got our feet wet and splashed around for awhile. It also turned very muddy a few steps in, so that was enough for me.

I was shocked by how shallow the water was. People walked on and on and it was still below the waist.