Urgent help/advice needed on taking a toddler on Caribbean cruise from UK

[dadii]

Hello folks. My wife and I are trying to decide whether to book a cruise on the Oasis of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) for Feb and are struggling!

 

We're both 30(ish) and our little boy would be about 16 months at the time of the trip. I've read about things like private babysitting, play groups etc - but has anybody had any experience of these facilities??

 

Better still, anybody who has recently been on the Oasis of the Seas with a similar age child - please share your experiences?!

 

We were planning on booking an inside room (cost) - would this work out ok?

 

Any tips/advice appreciated. Need to make a quick decision in order to take up the booking quote we've been given!

 

MANY Thanks in advance

[cb at sea]

With a child that small, an inside cabin is more than "doable"...

I haven't experienced the "baby care" that they've just rolled out...but RCI is generally fabulous with kids...I would expect they will be great with babies, too!

 

If you've cruised alone before, you know that this will be a different experience with a baby...and that's fine! It's not worse or better---just different!

[Shellzbellz]

We took our son on a 2 week cruise to the Carribean when he was 18 months. We had an inside cabin on the Explorer of the Seas and had very few problems. There isn't alot of room in the cabin for a toddler to play and release energy but there are so many other areas of the ship where he could have room to roam that it was fine. This was quite a few years ago and the facilities for this age of child are much better now.

 

He went with us the the dining room on some nights and was great - the waiters really fussed over him and he loved it! Took him to the buffet on other days but only because he got sick.

 

At night, after dinner we changed him out of his tux and into his pjs, put him in his lie back buggy and he quickly fell asleep. We took him all over the ship with us - shows etc. We tended to sit at the back of the theatre or in quiet areas so that if he woke up and was noisy I could take him out. We aren't really party animals so we didn't miss going to the nightclub type places.

 

Two issues for us - we brought bottles of the diluted juice he was used to drinking at home and all was fine. It ran out, however, and I gave him some of the fruit punch type stuff they have on the ship - big mistake!! It sent him absolutely loopy.

 

Also - he got an ear infection and we had to visit the ship's doctor but he got an antibiotic which cleared it up. However, this was not before we went to the dining room on a formal night and he was was sick all over the place. Luckily we had a table of our own and the waiters we so good about clearing up.

[crusinmama06]

It's kind of hard for any of us to give our experience specifically about the Oasis nursery because it's so brand new. Oasis is the only ship in the RCCL fleet that has the nursery.

 

As far as choosing a ship to sail for a child THIS age, you picked the right one. :D You couldn't have picked a better one. You will not only have the benefit of having the nursery and the Royal Babies play group (link to that is in my signature) but also, Oasis and a few other RCCL ships are some of the only ones to have a water splash area for non potty trained infants/toddlers.

 

So if you did another ship, you would have to keep her occupied another way - other then the water play Baby Zone. ;)

 

I would be interested in learning what you decided to do