RCCL Liberty of the Seas w/ 8mo & 2.5yo

[pitz0005]

I also posted this in the family cruising section, but thought I would also post here for people looking for ship specific info related to kids....

 

 

 

We just returned from a 5 night on the LOS. It was myself DW Gma Gpa and the two kids (8mo & 2.5yo). Overall it went better than I expected, but I think we had our expectations in the right place. For background my DW and I have done 5 cruises prior and Gma/Gpa 20+. This was the first time with kids.

 

-It was a huge help having Gma and Gpa along. DW spent the majority of the time taking care of the 8mo and spent a lot of time in the cabin. It left 3 of us to watch the 2.5 yo. It was especially nice for getting ready and at meal time.

 

-We had two connecting interior staterooms. This was a life saver. We could put the kids down and still have place to socialize. We left the door open most times so it was like one larger area. The balcony would have been nice for whoever stayed during naptime, but often that person also napped, so it was not a big loss. I think if you were a family of 4 in one room it would be much more needed.

 

-We let the 8mo sleep with us and had the 2.5 you sleep in the pullman bed. The connecting cabins only have a half loveseat (basically a chair) so you could not turn it around to make a bed. He liked sleeping up top and thought it was cool. The bed had a rail that folded up to keep him from falling out. He sleeps in a twin at home with a rail so it was similar just up higher.

 

-Royal Babies and Tots was less than impressive. Both of our kids go to daycare full time and do well. We signed up first thing on the ship. They open at 1:00 to sign up. We were alotted 20 hours per kid the first day. We set up some reservations for the week based on dining and show plans. Our plan was to put the 8mo in daycare during dinner and take the 2.5 yo with us to the dining room. We tried this the first two nights but then gave up. On this ship they have 3 people working in there (one male and two females). I did not get a good vibe from them and obviously our 8mo did not either as he was not happy to be there. Both nights they called us to come pick up our kid. After the second night we canceled the remaining reservations as it just was not working out. It could be totally different on different ships or with different kids, but this was our experience. The 8mo is a little bit of a mommys boy. If your kids are not full time daycare kids I highly doubt this will work for you. We never did send the 2.5 yo there, but I think he would have been fine. I think it is better set up to handle 1.5-3yo than the younger kids. It seems they are set up to handle kids who can play/entertain themselves with supervison as opposed to provide the care/attention an infant demands. I would just suggest you be prepared that it may not work out and if it does consider it a bonus. It would have been nice if it worked for us, but we adjusted and it was fine.

 

-We checked out a bag of toys from the nursery which we brought to the cabin for the week.

 

-They have a small makeshift play area on deck 14 in the Cloud Nine lounge. It was open from 9-4 daily. It had mostly some mats and infant toys. Best for 6-18mo's. The 2.5yo was not that interested. We only used it once.

 

-The splash zone was nice for the diapered babies. The water was much warmer in this area than the rest of the H2O zone. The 2.5yo is potty trained so he was able to play in the rest of the H2O zone. The water was freezing (low 60's) the first couple days and bearable (high 60's) later in the week. The 2.5yo ran around a little bit, but was not into have a bunch of cold water being dumped and sprayed on him. It seemed the 5yo's+ were more into the spraying water. The 2.5yo really liked the hot tub in the H2O zone. The temp varied from around 100-102. It was never really too hot, but good for kids. They did have a deck patrol making sure no diapered babies were in the H2O zone. Our 2.5yo was questioned a couple times. I did see a lot of potty trained kids in the baby splash zone and never saw the deck patrol kick them out of there.

 

-We did the charcter breakfast the 1st sea day at 8:00 am. Shrek, Fiona, and Puss came out and took pictures with all the kids. They went table by table and you could use your own camera. You could order off a menu or they also had a buffet set up you could eat at. If your kids dig the chacters they will enjoy it.

 

-They had a parade the first day on the promanade at 5:00. The 2.5yo really liked watching that.

 

-Don't plan on making many of the shows. We did take the kids to the 9:00 pm Up In Air Show and the 5:00 Ice show. They both did fine, but were not that interested in the show. If I were to do it again, I would skip all the shows or find someone to watch the kids.

 

-The last sea day at 12:30 they had a puppet show in the sphinx lounge. It was really well done. Many of the kids, including our 2.5 yo, sat up front on the floor like at school.

 

-We attempted to take the 2.5yo to the dining room the first two nights. He did OK, but he was bored. The second night we brought a dvd player for him which helped. Throughout the ship (both windjammer and mdr) it was nearly impossible to get a highchair/booster. We had my time dining and the 2.5 yo did not receive any special attention. His meal came at the same time as ours. The first night he was brought something he did not order. The second night we had a hard time getting Ketchup for his chicken fingers. All small things, but they all added up to make it harder than it needed to be. Dinner is where it was really nice to have Gma and Gpa. After the first two nights we ate all the meals at leisure in the windjammer. I was not impressed with the level of service provided to the 2.5yo or in general families considering this is a family oriented ship.

 

-I thought the breakfast in the Windjammer was the best of the 5 cruises I have been on including the LOS last year, Carnival, and NCL. The lunches in Windjammer were just plain awful. Dinner in the windjammer was Ok. Dinner in the MDR was pretty good the two nights we ate there.

 

-We had two ports Labadee and Falmouth. Labadee we just played in the water/sand for a couple hours before heading back to the ship around 1 or 2 for lunch and naps. In Falmouth we did the Chukka Beach Break through the ship. I wrote up a review of this in the Jamaica section if you are interested. http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1576262 We found the simpler the better. Just find the nearest easy beach and be flexible.

 

-The 8mo napped frequently. While at the beach he would lay in the beach chair with mom and nap. While on the ship he napped in the cabin. He usually naps 2 times per day at home, but on the ship he napped at least 3 times a day. The cruise was alot for the little man. The 2.5 yo napped his usual 2 hrs in the afternoon.

 

-The dvd player was the best thing we packed. The 2.5yo watched this on the plane, while waiting to get ready in the room, at lunch after finishing and waiting for everyone else to eat, etc. I honestly don't think we could have done without it. We got him the Shrek movies before going so he would know what the chacters were about and that worked out well.

 

-5 nights was just the right amount of time. The 2.5yo was getting tired by the end of it. 3 days would be too short and 7 days a little long. We just flew home today and of course the 2.5yo ended up getting sick today while flying home. Better today than on the cruise.

 

-The biggest tip I have is to just be flexible and not plan anything. Once we figured that out after the second day it became much easier. We ate when everyone was awake and hungry and not at a set reservation time. We were not rushing to make this event or that event.

 

-Overall we had a good time and would do it again, however I think 8mo is too young for anyone to have a real good time. I actually think a 6mo would be better than an 8mo because they are less mobile and sleep almost anywhere. They nap too much and need too much attention. 2.5 seemed to be a good age and he had a lot of fun. Having him potty trained was a huge plus too. I would not consider trying to stay in one inside room with two kids of this age. We found that we spent a lot more time in the room than when it is just us.

 

If anyone has any questions I will try to answer them.

[jenninlaca]

I totally applaud you for making the best of the cruise and still enjoying yourself. Nice that your had the grandparents there to help. We went on the Carnival Dream over New Years with our 2.5 year old and 6 year old (1 room). Similar to your experience, we kept getting calls to have to come pick up the 2 year old because he just hated Camp Carnival. We never got a warm welcoming vibe from the counselors there. They basically told us that if the kids are fine being there then all is fine but if they are crying or need any special attention that they are just not equipped to deal with it so they call the parents. I get that they do not have staffing for 1:1 attention, but overall we were just not impressed. We had booked the cruise hoping to get a lot of alone time at least at dinners but that did not pan out. We still had fun as a family, but at times it was frustrating spending good portions of the cruise in the room and not being able to do much. Our child goes to full time daycare.. you just never know!

 

We are trying out Allure OTS next summer when our little one will be older AND we are bringing a 20-something family friend as backup child care just to be on the safe side.