Anyone ever use the baby sitting service? Freedom- 3/27/11

[g8rfan98]

My husband and I are going on the Freedom on 3/27 and taking our 2 kids. One of them is 5 and the other is 2 1/2, so only one of them can go to Adventure Ocean. We were thinking about maybe using the babysitting service one of the nights so that we can go out and have an adult evening by ourselves. We are basically concerned about having a "stranger" watch our children. Has anyone ever used this service and could you tell me if you did or did not like it? Pros and cons? Thanks so much!!

[g8rfan98]

I guess I should ask, has anyone ever used the babysitting service on ANY of the Royal Caribbean ships, not just the Freedom.

 

Thanks!

[milton333]

You might also ask on the Special Interest : Family Cruising board.

[Fairydust312]

We used the babysitting service on AOS in Jan. 2007 and on FOS in Apr. 2008, so it has been a while. But we had a great experience both times. The sitters volunteer to babysit during their "off" hours. We saw them around the ship during the day doing their other jobs. They were very nice and eager to earn the extra money. You are able to request a particular gender sitter and to request the same sitter if you have multiple babysitting nights. We did not, however, have the sitters do anything other than sit in the room while our daughter slept. We would get her ready for bed and put her down. Maybe once or twice they would read her a couple of books. Our daughter usually sleeps about 12 hours per night, so it was nice to be able to get out of the room and do something while she slept.

[PhoenixDawgCruising]

I used babysitting on Vision and Voyager for my younger son who is now 6, I used it when he was 2 and 3 I think.

 

It was always fine, like someone else said, the babysitters are people who do other jobs on the ship during the day who want to earn extra money at night.

 

To be honest, it was a little odd leaving my son with strangers since I never use babysitters at home, but it was fine. I remember the babysitter on Voyager liked to take him on walks around the ship, but she always asked me first. They also colored with crayons and

and watched DVDs in the cabin. We were never gone more than 2 hours at the most.

 

I also remember that both babysitters were women who had children in their home countries, and said they missed their own kids so they liked to watch other children when they could.

[Babyberger]

We used babysitting on Freedom in 09 and again on Oasis this past November. Our Freedom experience was not great, but remember staff has changed over a handful of times since we sailed it as well as the fact that RCI has changed the babysitting policies.

 

When we were on Freedom you received one sitter, the biggest change RCI has made is now they sent two when you request babysitting. That change would have solved our issue on Freedom of our sitter falling SOUND asleep in our cabin and in my older son's bed (gross). Although she was a lovely girl.

 

We decided to give it another try on Oasis since the change took place and we were so happy we did. Like the previous poster, we always got our kids ready for bed and there wasn't much for the sitters to do, except to be there while our kids watched a little tv and feel asleep. We had the same two women for most of the nights and they were very nice. It worked out perfect for us as our kids would rather cuddle up in bed after an evening at adventure ocean than to stay for the late night zone.

 

I highly recommend giving it a try!

[kpatrick74]

We used it on Freedom in 2006 when our daughter was 18mos old and our friend's son was the same age. We put them both in our room at night and a sitter watched them every evening for a few hours. Granted the connecting stateroom was very good friends of ours and our back home next door neighbors and they go to bed early. So, they were just an earshot away. After our first night's experience and the kids really liking her, we requested her for the remainder of the cruise and got her.

 

It was sad the last night to say goodbye to her and if we could have afforded it would have brought her home and made her our nanny.