Cruising with an 11 month old?

[Camash]

I am set to cruise soon with my husband, and 3 kiddos, one of which is 11 months old. 
 

Anyone have any tips, or tricks to make this easy for their first cruise experience? 
 

Thank you!!

[Ferry_Watcher]

Make sure you have passports or gov't issued birth certificates for all the kids, and that all the kids are registered as passengers.  We once had a infant arrive at check-in (Seattle) who sadly wasn't listed on the booking or manifest and the baby was denied boarding (no free babe in arms like on airplanes).  Baby went home with grandma, and the rest of the family went on the cruise.  True story!

[deelightfull]

Try the kids club! It's mostly free (Late night hours cost extra.  I can't remember how young it starts) Enjoy the adventure.  Enjoy the fact that when aboard the ship you don't have to schlep EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, because your room with all the baby gear, etc is not too far away. 💕

[starstruck05]

My niece was a bit older than 11 months when she went on her first cruise but she had a great time. Kids club starts at 2 so your baby won't be old enough for that but my tips are to make sure to bring some comfort from home. Favorite toy, cup etc. I also recommend bringing a blanket for the floor. Housekeeping keep sit clean but just like a hotel you never know. That way the baby can crawl.

 

The ships do have cribs but my brother brought my nieces pack n play ( he checked it in as luggage) so we can move it from room to room with whoever was watching her at the time. We did bring her full stroller but it did take up space in the rooms. If the baby is stable in an umbrella stroller it might be easier on the load. 

 

My niece was eating table food and they do have high chairs. We just filled her sippy cup with her water, milk or lemonade.

 

My niece does not like loud noises (even now at 4)  so we had got her noise canceling headphones. She wore them at shows an out on the deck. I will also say try to keep to the same routine with bedtime. If she takes baths there are small inflatable travel bath tubs for kids on Amazon that shouldn't take up too much space. 

[ldubs]

Our daughter uses a black-out tent with the pack-n-play when they travel.  She also brings the same noise machines she uses at home.  

 

Starbucks05 mentioned headphones. I saw headphones on kids in strollers on the Oasis pool deck.  The music can be pretty loud.    

[Tapi]

We started our son sailing at 13 months old    and his first cruise was on Carnival. If I had known them what I know now, I would’ve started him on one of the cruise lines that offer programs for babies and toddlers as young as 6 months of age, as well as pools and facilities that accommodate children still in diapers instead of Carnival. In others words, either Royal Caribbean or Disney. I would’ve then switched to Carnival once he turned 2 and could attend the kids program. 
 

That first cruise was a bit rough and exhausting as we adjusted to sailing with a baby, and as we realized that Carnival was not the best choice for kids that young. In addition to no program or facilities for kids that young, our son couldn’t go in pools because he was still not potty trained. That limited what we could do around the ship.

But we learned as we went along, and the more we cruised, the more we learned. By the time we started our second child cruising, we were pros.

 

Some basic suggestions:

 

- pack as lightly as possible. 

- don’t bring monster sized strollers. A collapsible umbrella stroller will be sufficient in most instances.

 

- bring more diapers than you think you’ll need.

 

- bring a small bag with your baby’s favorite toys or forms of entertainment since Carnival wont provide that. 

 

- during the day, find an unused lounge and let your kid play around freely.  

 

- the kids club may provide “free play” times where your baby will be allowed to attend. But you’ll need to be present and stay with them at all times.

 

- plan on having one parent rest while the other one takes the kids out for a few hours and vice versa.  You don’t want both parents to be exhausted. 

- prepare yourself mentally for things not to go as planned. That cute family photo that you were planning on taking on elegant night at the main dining room could potentially turn into an early night at the buffet with an exhausted, half dressed child having a meltdown (not that it happened to us 🤣).

 

- not required, for highly recommend that everybody has passports. It will make your life much easier. 
 

Some suggestions will work better than others, and you’ll figure out what works best for your family as you go. The good news is that, the more you cruise and expose your children to this type of travel, the easier it gets. 
 

 

 

 

 

[pe4all]

We have seen parents put a small round blow-up kiddy pool on deck in an out-of-the way spot for the baby to play in. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by pe4all

[BrotherCraig]

2 hours ago, pe4all said:

We have seen parents put a small round blow-up kiddy pool on deck in an out-of-the way spot for the baby to play in. 

 

They are not allowed.  Not allowed on balconies either.  We brought one when our kids were 9 months old and we put it in the shower.  Made it easier for bath time and such.

[BrotherCraig]

I agree with Tapi above when it comes to things to bring.  We brought snacks and things like that when our kids were 9 months old cruising but they have plenty of food onboard of course. A lightweight umbrella stroller is great to have onboard.  The baby will get a lot of attention on board from the crew members and will be treated great.  We had an amazing time when our kids were cruising at that age.  We are taking our 2 year old on his first cruise in a month or so.  We will see how that one goes because he is a little wilder than the other two were.  Ha!  Pack plenty of patience and just enjoy the great time with your kids making great memories.  

Edited April 14, 2023 by BrotherCraig

[pe4all]

30 minutes ago, BrotherCraig said:

 

They are not allowed.  Not allowed on balconies either.  We brought one when our kids were 9 months old and we put it in the shower.  Made it easier for bath time and such.

Maybe that is why they were put in out-of-the-way spots- lol!

Edited April 14, 2023 by pe4all

[MistyRo76]

We took our daughter when she was 14 months old. Here is what worked for us: 

 

* Travel the day before the cruise starts. You and your kids will be much more rested and less stressed than if you get up at 4AM for an early morning flight day of the cruise. 

* I only packed enough diapers for our travel day and embarkation day. When we arrived to our port city, I went to a drug store/Wal-mart and bought a large box of diapers and a box of swim diapers (for use at the beach - not on the ship). I taped Carnival bag tags to both boxes and left them with our other luggage with the porter. They were delivered right to our cabin. We didn't have to take up extra luggage space with just a ton of diapers. It was perfect! 

* Bring a collapsible umbrella stroller. They fold up nicely and don't take up a ton of room in your cabin. Plus you can easily collapse them if you are taking transportation to your excursions. We used this all around the ship. 

* If you can swing it, get a balcony! This was a great space for the hubby and I to hang out while the kiddo was napping or sleeping at night. We also brought our video monitor from home. We hooked up the camera in the cabin and then could keep an eye on her on the video monitor from the balcony. Those balcony doors and windows are pretty soundproof, so if you're out there, you may not hear if they wake up. And the windows can be hard to see in as well. 

* We brought an inflatable bath tub - never even took it out of the box. For showers, I just took my daughter into the shower with me and got her cleaned up, then handed her out to dad to dry off and dress while I showered myself. it was so much easier than messing with that tub. 

* We had late dining and our kiddo adjusted just fine. We would take her to dinner in her stroller and the waitstaff would take it and store it for us while she ate dinner in the high chair. After night 1, they had a fruit plate waiting for her as soon as we walked in so she would have something to munch on while we ordered and had our apps. After she was done eating, they would bring her high chair back and she would usually just lay down and fall right to sleep. 

* Room service is also your friend. We would usually order her a sandwich or some kind of a snack from room service while we were getting ready for dinner. 

* We didn't bring many snack foods from home - again, takes up lots of luggage space and there are plenty of options on the ship. Take some ziplock baggies and fill them up with Cheerios from the buffet. They usually have some meats and cheeses available as well. And of course, all the fruit you can eat. You can also get milk cartons from the buffet. 

* Under a year may be too young for kids camp to leave them there, but they do have free play times. 

 

And the biggest piece of advice is go with the flow! Don't let the little things bother you and enjoy the time together.  

[Essiesmom]

Keep in mind that you are not sailing to third world destinations.  If you underestimate the amount of diapers and wipes, there will be stores in the ports beside jewelry and souvenirs.  No one wants to spend vacations time shopping for those items, but they are available.  EM

[puss in boats]

With very young kids, I'd be inclined to book Disney.

 

Plus I've heard from a lot of adults that enjoy Disney too.

[kitkat343]

On the first breakfast, go to the buffet with a diaper bag.  Get boxes of cereal (if they still have boxes, some lines don't) that you can take off the ship with you on excursions (you can take sealed boxes of cereal off the ship.  I'm not sure exactly what else you are allowed to take).  Whenever your kids seem cranky or tired let them pick a new cereal.  Bring yogurt and fruit back to your room so your children always have easy snacks on hand.  

 

If you are looking to explore destinations, consider booking private excursions for just your family if you can afford them so you can control the itinerary and stay longer at the places your kids like. 

 

If you are sailing on NCL, please note they've been having supply chain issues, and in January ran out of all kids cereal 3 days before the end of our cruise, and low-fat milk in cartons 2 days before the end of our cruise, so you might want to bring extras onboard or take extra of whatever your children really need from the buffet and store some supplies in your room.  

 

Please also note that NCL is choosing to not fulfill a lot of their itineraries (on my last cruise they cancelled one port and the morning of another after final payment for environmental reasons).  There was a lot of discussion on our roll call that the Dominican Republic would be cancelled because they ran a ship aground.  They told us a month prior to our sailing the DR was cancelled but prior to that there was speculation on our roll call it might be cancelled and possibly replaced with either the Bahamas or GSK (their private island).  As a parent, if you sail NCL in the Caribbean you should probably prepare what you want to do on those two destinations because they are making a lot of changes to itinerary and in the Caribbean those seem to be their substitute ports.    Unfortunately, we had booked this cruise for two excursions and pulled our 3 kids out of school for this trip and the excursions my kids really wanted to do couldn't happen because of NCL's itinerary changes and they wouldn't let us switch to another sailing.  So you should only sail NCL with children if you are really flexible with itinerary.

 

 

 

If (on future cruises) you are looking for child care, at least precovid:

 

- all disney ships and most newer/refurbished RC ships have a fee based nursery starting at 6 months of age.

 

MSC seems to have a babyclub, for age 0-3 but there's nothing listed on their website about hours so I don't know how extensive it is.  They did mention a possibility of a drop-off for toddlers, but you'd need to check on the MSC forum.

 

- at least precovid, Princess let children under age 3 attend with parental supervision.  Try to sail during the school year when the kids clubs are relatively empty and they will have lots of time to give your little one attention (I was able to read a book while my 2 year old played with the kids club staff since there were only 9 kids under age 18 on the whole ship when we sailed in January.)  The princess kids club staff was amazing with little ones.

 

- Cunard and Carnival start at age 2 for drop off care.

 

 

Edited April 16, 2023 by kitkat343

[BrotherCraig]

On 4/15/2023 at 5:38 PM, puss in boats said:

With very young kids, I'd be inclined to book Disney.

 

Plus I've heard from a lot of adults that enjoy Disney too.

 For 5 times the price though.  Carnival is great with families with small kids.  

[BrotherCraig]

Tips:

Milk.  You can have milk cartons delivered to your cabin.  Just tip.  Also, milk is available in the mornings at the buffet in my experience.  We always grabbed some extra and stored in the chiller in the room.  For late nights, we would pick some up from the deli at no extra cost.  That is with Carnival and Royal.  Again, our experience.

 

Small umbrella stroller.  Easy to maneuver around the ship and easy to store.  

[Tapi]

15 minutes ago, BrotherCraig said:

 Carnival is great with families with small kids.  

It’s great as long as your kid is not younger than 2. Our son’s first cruise (13 months old) was on Carnival and it was pretty rough to the point that we were considering cutting the cruise short and going home. We underestimated how challenging it would be to sail on a cruise line that didn’t provide anything for kids that young. Our fault. 
 

His second cruise (18 months old) was on Royal’s Allure of the Seas (which has the Royal Babies and Tots program with dedicated facilities and toy lending program, as well as separate pools and splash zones for babies and toddlers still in diapers). The experience was like night and day. We didn’t want that cruise to end!  
 

We went back to Carnival (Dream) after he had turned 2 and that experience was a compete 180 from his first Carnival cruise. Very enjoyable. 

Edited April 17, 2023 by Tapi

[BrotherCraig]

1 hour ago, Tapi said:

It’s great as long as your kid is not younger than 2. Our son’s first cruise (13 months old) was on Carnival and it was pretty rough to the point that we were considering cutting the cruise short and going home. We underestimated how challenging it would be to sail on a cruise line that didn’t provide anything for kids that young. Our fault. 
 

His second cruise (18 months old) was on Royal’s Allure of the Seas (which has the Royal Babies and Tots program with dedicated facilities and toy lending program, as well as separate pools and splash zones for babies and toddlers still in diapers). The experience was like night and day. We didn’t want that cruise to end!  
 

We went back to Carnival (Dream) after he had turned 2 and that experience was a compete 180 from his first Carnival cruise. Very enjoyable. 

 

I can understand that.  We have cruised with our kids many times when they were under 2 years old and even at 9 months old.  The cruises were all perfect for us with Carnival - the Breeze and the Magic with them when they were babies.  We don't care for the camp stuff so not a deal breaker for us.  We wouldn't want to leave our kids there and rather have them with us anyways but that is us.  We do bring grandma with us every cruise so that helps some.  We did take them as babies into Camp Ocean on Carnival and played with them there during free play every now and then.  Just wasn't a need for us at that age though.

[Tapi]

Just now, BrotherCraig said:

We do bring grandma with us every cruise so that helps some

That’s huge right there. We had zero breaks during the entire cruise because we didn’t have anybody with us. If we’d had an hour here and there to recharge, it would’ve been a different story.

 

Good news is that we learned a lot from that first cruise experience with a baby. By the time our daughter was born, we had figured out a bunch of do’s and dont’s. 
 

For our daughter’s first cruise (at 15 months old), we had the whole extended family with us. For that cruise, we had grandma/grandpa, aunts/uncles and older cousins to help. 😀

 

[Kerry's Girls]

I cruised with my twins on Princess at 12 months and loved it so much we went again at 20 mos & then Carnival at 2 years old.  Even with no offerings for babies/toddlers, at least on a cruise someone else is doing all the cooking, cleaning, etc., so it's an amazing vacation with little ones. 

 

I made sure mine napped before dinner and we enjoyed dinner and then dancing every night.  I'm in the minority and found that a sturdy, comfortable stroller with the amenities - hood, recline, good wheels - was best.  Then they could fall asleep and I could keep going.  As long as it's single wide (not a jogger with wide wheels), the ship is made to be wheelchair friendly, so we had no problem maneuvering  - you just have to be prepared to wait for elevators. 

 

I gave them milk and toast from room service while getting ready and then we'd go for a real sit down breakfast in the dining room (I found the dining room much easier than the buffet).  As long as they weren't starving when we went to the dining room, they did great.  

 

Have a great time!

[mdjohn5]

Don't be afraid of the main dinning room.  We found it much easier than the buffet with small children.  At the buffet you are constantly running back and forth to make sure everyone has what they need.  In the MDR you just want to be prepared to take the kiddo for a walk around the deck if they start acting up.  

 

Our youngest was about that age on his first cruise and the hard dinner rolls were a big hit with him.  He only hade a few teeth and they were the perfect size to fit in his hand.  He would naw on them for 30 mins.

 

 

[quagmire0]

All depends on the child.  If they are a good sleeper and easy to please, you should be good.  If they are a picky sleeper and not great about sitting for meals and things like that, then prepare to compromise. 😄

[calgal729]

How did you all handle taking babies and toddlers on excursions?  If its a ship excursion, does the ship have car seats or booster seats it provides, or did you bring your own from home?  How about private excursions?  I am especially concerned because we'll be in the Caribbean and Mexico, and they may not have the same car seat regulations we have in the U.S.

[Essiesmom]

No car seats or boosters will be provided.  It’s possible the bus may not have seatbelts.  I think I’ve been in a bus that had seatbelts, but I can’t remember where.  Possibly Europe.  EM

[Kerry's Girls]

I did private excursions only with my little ones.  No way I wanted to stress about them crying, needing diaper change, etc on a bus with others and I always wanted to be able to be flexible about where we went/how long.  The ship does not have car seats/boosters or floaties that can be used off the ship.  Private excursions that I found on the ports of call boards here were always the best way to go and often you can find ones that are very family friendly.  I brought my own car seats/floaties.