Best Non Disney Mainstream cruise line/ship for 18 month baby?

[rnr4thatsme]

Looking for opinions for a multi generational 18 month - 80 years family trip - just the one baby, rest are adults.  We usually cruise Carnival or NCL.  Disney is just too expensive and won’t appeal to the majority..  We are thinking May Carribean, Bahamas or Mexico area, ship focussed holiday.

[mjkacmom]

Some rock ships have a splash area for diapered children and childcare.

[Essiesmom]

I would be looking at Royal Caribbean, for ships that have Royal Babies and Tots.  That's sort of bby sitting, from what I understand, not free.  Otherwise, I would be going with the understanding that the toddler will be my responsibility, not the ships.  I would be booking a ship to please the others in the group.  EM

[Itchy&Scratchy]

On 1/14/2023 at 1:49 PM, mjkacmom said:

Some rock ships have a splash area for diapered children and childcare.

I think "rock" is meant to say Royal Caribbean or RCI. 🙂

[kitkat343]

Princess is a really good option for multigenerational vacation, with (at least precovid) a very strong  kids club that lets children under the age of 3 attend with parental supervision.  The staff did a wonderful job of helping my 24 month old child complete the same arts and craft projects designed for older children.  The food on Princess (precovid) was strong and everyone seemed happiest on those trips in my family, although we are heavy itinerary people and you mentioned wanting a ship focused holiday.

 

My kids really liked the RC kids clubs, and newer/refurbished RC ships will have the Royal Babies and Tots program which will allow you to have drop off care for a fee.  Or there is open play time for under 3s.  If you can find a ship with a diapered splash pad, that will make a lot of difference to you (there are people whose babies are in the splash zone all day on my NCL ship, and although the babies are really happy, the water treatment system can't handle it if they have an accident even wearing a swim diaper).  

 

My kids loved the kids clubs on RC 6 months ago, and they are not happy with the kids clubs on NCL.   We sailed NCL 9 years ago, and their kids clubs were quite strong then even teaching the kids circus tricks and putting on a show in one of the smaller stages, but on this sailing my oldest says they mostly just have the kids on the nintendo switch, instead of leading them in games like on RC.   The free food on NCL is weaker than the other lines (they have specialty dining, and some specialty meals are included with most room purchases).

 

NCL has been doing strange things to people's itineraries.  They ran a ship aground last March in the Dominican Republic, which means there is reduced capacity to dock there.  They knew for months my sailing  (Getaway 1/8) couldn't make it, but waited until a month before we sailed to announce they were turning our stop into an additional sea day.  They continued to market the cruise on their website as going to the DR, and did not notify people of the cancellation who purchased the cruise directly from them.   There are a lot of cruises affected by this, and NCL keeps advertising cruises as sailing to the DR even when its full.

 

On another forum, someone posted that on the Bliss 1/27 sailing to the Panama Canal, the port stops in Nicaragua and Costa Rica were cancelled for safety reasons after final payment (which makes sense in Nicaragua but not for Costa Rica) , and replaced with Acapulco and Jamaica.  The port stop in Panama was changed from a full day and overnight and replaced with 4 pm - 11 pm, knocking out shore excursions.  

 

I understand the itinerary issue might not be a problem for your family if you want a ship based vacation, but wanted to post this for others because when the ports are up in the air that makes it really hard for families to plan excursions (and I strongly encourage families to use private tours because it is so much easier to not have to wait for large groups of people on ship tours and to be able to control the itinerary and stop whenever your kids need a break).  There were a few months where cruise critic posters noted that the 1/8 getaway wasn't going to be able to make it to the DR, and discussed the possibilities (Nassau, GSC and sea day).  I obviously didn't need to do anything for a sea day, and didn't need to research much for GSC, but I wasted time planning the Dominican Republic (monkey rainforest and Ocean World) and Nassau which I wouldn't  have needed to do if we were told the truth about our itinerary in a timely fashion.

 

 

Edited January 17, 2023 by kitkat343