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Advice for cruising with our nearly 5 year old autistic son on Carnival?


crzycick
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Any tips for traveling with a young autistic child on Carnival? My biggest worry is the overstimulation in the dining room. We take him out to eat frequently but he’s never sat with strangers (which is always possible with cruises) and never such a large dining room.

 

My next worry is that he is not totally potty trained. I know there are ways around that in the kids area for special needs but what do I need to do? Do they ever try to fight parents on it?

 

Any other tips or advice?

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Other worries include muster drill if the breeze does the old school method of cramming everyone outside like sardines.

 

He also has a very limited diet, basically he eats 3 frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day so we’re working hard on getting him to accept fresh sandwiches. The other few items he eats we can bring (mandarin oranges, applesauce cups, goldfish, veggie straws, cashews.) we literally bring his food everywhere even in everyday life.

 

He’s mild to moderate ASD, sensory issues, delayed speech but verbal, developmental delays but catching up. He’s huge for his age (45+ inches, over 65 lbs at 4 years old) so people think he’s at least 6 and then think he’s even more delayed.

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Carnival does not require kids to be potty trained, although I don't think they would change him as I suspect he is too large for the changing table. As for his diet, contact Carnival's special needs dept. I'm sure they can make and freeze the PB&J sandwiches - you should speak to your head waiter or maitre'd the first night. They could get them for you in the MDR, although not sure how they would handle it on port days when the MDR is not open for lunch. As for dining room seating, contact the maitre'd on the Breeze about two weeks before sailing. The week before your sailing he will be working on the seating for the next week, which would be your sailing. Explain you would like a quiet corner and table for just your family, and why. Email for the Maitre'd is the first two letters of the ship, +maitred@carnival.com. For you it would be brmaitred@carnival.com. You may or may not get a reply. I have always received one, even if it was just to say 'noted'. Muster on the Magic was held indoors and our muster station was in the conference room. You do not need to take life jackets. EM

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When you say mandarin oranges, are they fresh or packaged? You can’t bring fresh ones because of customs concerns about fresh produce (and definitely not into ports). I’m uncertain if packaged ones face the same restrictions.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

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I'd email all of your concerns to the special needs department and see what they suggest. I'm not sure if the kids club will change his diapers, but they might be willing to give you a pager so you can come when necessary (this is how ncl handles this issue but I'm not sure about carnival. If possible, I'd want a pager just so they could contact me if he was overwhelmed in the kids club. Good luck and I hope you have a wonderful vacation.

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I third the suggestion to contact special needs... this is what they are there for. In addition to the special food request, they may be able to intercede with the maitre'd with regards to seating. I suspect the maitre'd deals with so many people who forgot to link tables, or expect special treatment, that they would be delighted to have a real purposeful request to handle.

 

They may be able to get some sort of special option for the evac drill. Perhaps they can mark you present but allow you to go to the library or stay in your cabin. I don't know what they do with the folks in wheelchairs, but they must somehow accommodate that on most every cruise. I'd also raise concern about the (sometimes) crazy loud horn signals associated with the drill, if it is outside.

 

Regarding your post on the main board. The suggestions to arrive after 1pm are great , but I would take it a step further and connect up with your roll call here or on the Other Site. Some of your ship mates will likely be there earlier and can post when boarding begins and/or when the line has gone down.

 

Note:

However, children over the age of 3 will not be changed by the Youth Staff.

https://help.carnival.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1070/~/camp-carnival-%282-5-years%29%3A-things-to-know-and-activities

 

The do have cell phones. Again, this is an area where special needs may be able to have them set one aside for you since your need is different than just diaper changes. Or just get to the Camp Ocean meeting on embarkation night early and check one out. I believe they were a rental for something like $35/week, but it's been a couple of years.

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  • 2 weeks later...

We just did a Carnival cruise with a high energy/low focus toddler - so different issues, but I have some thoughts.

 

Contact the special needs people. They will help where they can. Write it all down and then when you get on board, go touch in with the kid's club and guest services - communications get lost. The kid's club can give you a ship's phone - they don't have an infinite number, but your family needs one, so check in with them when they open on Day 1.

 

If the MDR is too much, see if you can get plates made and take them to your room. Or if you can plan on the later dining time and sending kiddo to the kid's club while you eat. (We had to bail a few times on the MDR. I'm glad we tried it, but pizza in the room happened too. They also packaged up our orders for us when one of us had to take the kid back to the room.)

 

We had ZERO issues with mostly potty trained. We dropped her off with spare clothes and a diaper in her little backpack and said that they were welcome to put her in the diaper or call us if an accident happened. She had one accident and they just changed her into new clothes and rolled with it, we got back a plastic bag of laundry with a note stapled to it, and did laundry in the self serve laundromat.

 

The kid's club did call us and had us come get her once when she freaked out. Just leave instructions and keep the ship phone on you, you'll probably be okay. We were also asked to return to our room from the muster drill - my kiddo could not keep it together to be both quiet and still, so the crew asked us to leave rather than try to force her to stay still (and scream) for the whole thing. If you're worried about muster, ask the person in charge of your section if you can just be excused after you show up and get assigned to a section.

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