NCL Getaway with an infant and a toddler

[Familycruisercan]

Hi everyone, we are travelling in April on the getaway and we were wondering if anyone has any tips for travelling with an infant and a toddler. What were your experiences with an infant in the pools? Are they allowed if they have a swim diaper? In the splash pad area maybe? What about excursions? Which ones were you able to do that went well with toddlers and an infant? Lastly, what were things that you packed that were or you wish you had packed?

Thank you so much. 

[SoloAlaska]

There’s a great forum on here for those cruising with kids. You’ll find tons of info and tips. One of the first things is your infant needs to be over 6 months for a cruise and over 12 months if it has 3 consecutive sea days. If I remember no swim diapers in the splash pad. 

[ColeThornton]

9 minutes ago, Familycruisercan said:

Hi everyone, we are travelling in April on the getaway and we were wondering if anyone has any tips for travelling with an infant and a toddler. What were your experiences with an infant in the pools? Are they allowed if they have a swim diaper? In the splash pad area maybe? What about excursions? Which ones were you able to do that went well with toddlers and an infant? Lastly, what were things that you packed that were or you wish you had packed?

Thank you so much. 

 

 

Welcome to CC.   Here's a good forum for family cruising tips:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/28-family-cruises/

[www3traveler]

There was a long discussion about your questions a few weeks ago.

 

NO SWIM DIAPERS allowed even in the Kiddie Aqua Park.

 

I have seen postings that Tendering (like going to Great Stirrup Caye) with small children and babies is fairly easy, I tend to disagree.  Climbing down (or) an open staircase on the outside of a ship to or from a Tender is not easy.  Trying it while carrying a an infant (all their stuff including a stroller) and hanging on to another child, is not my idea of fun.

 

If your infant is still on formula or baby food, that might be an issue too.  

[mjkacmom]

There is no drop off activities for under 3’s, but I do think they have times when the parents can bring them into a playroom. Maybe bring a small blowup pool for bathing?

[SoloAlaska]

5 hours ago, www3traveler said:

There was a long discussion about your questions a few weeks ago.

 

NO SWIM DIAPERS allowed even in the Kiddie Aqua Park.

 

I have seen postings that Tendering (like going to Great Stirrup Caye) with small children and babies is fairly easy, I tend to disagree.  Climbing down (or) an open staircase on the outside of a ship to or from a Tender is not easy.  Trying it while carrying a an infant (all their stuff including a stroller) and hanging on to another child, is not my idea of fun.

 

If your infant is still on formula or baby food, that might be an issue too.  

My friends with small children rarely use a stroller. They all baby wear or use a structured carrier especially while traveling and have a small backpack as a “diaper” bag. This type of setup would make tendering much easier with small children. Those who require a large stroller, messenger type diaper bag etc could be much more of a challenge as I’m sure you’ve seen the struggles. 
 

my friend and I are thinking of taking her daughter and future infant on a cruise. As long as new infant is like her daughter we don’t have to worry about packing a bunch of diapers since they were potty trained very very early (we will need to bring the special potty however), no formula, no premade baby food, no disposable wipes, no stroller. Some parents do things differently than the main stream and it can make travel easier.

[complawyer]

i'll probably get blasted for this post, but imho, both your children are much to young to take on a cruise (1) there is very little if anything for them to do (2) at those ages, they probably will neither remember nor enjoy the experience (3) it will limit  your ability to do things in the evenings.(4) shore excursions, are usually not geared for children that young

 

my best advice is wait a few more years. we didnt think of taking our grandson on a cruise until he was 10 (he's now 24)

[PenguinBacon]

I did an august cruise with my 4 year old and 17 month old. Oldest one is special needs so my experience will be different from yours. Big one had to be in a stroller. We never had issues with getting high chairs for our meals. We avoided the splash pool because of the diaper situation stated above. 

The play room on deck 16 by the haven front door is kinda small but it has a nice sink area to get things clean. I spent a good amount of time there and the kids loved it. I did not use splash academy. 

 

We overpacked for everything. The biggest thing for us was one of the stops got really cold so we had to get a change of clothes for the kids. Besides that everyone was accomidating when we brought the kids out. 

 

I will echo things stated by others in this thread. Your kids won't get the true value of cruising at this young age.We still did it since it was our post covid vacation. Strangely enough I'm doing it again soon on a carribean route this time. See how things are different. 

[kitkat343]

On the first breakfast day, go to the buffet and get boxes of cereal, cartons of milk, yogurt and fruit to bring back to your room.  If your kids get hungry, you will want to be able to feed them immediately and not have to track down food or call room service (the youngest I ever brought a kid on a cruise was 2, and that was on Cunard, a line with drop off care for 2 year olds and it is very tiring so whatever you can do to make it easier you should do).    On excursions, when your kids get whiny or tired, you can pull out a few boxes of cereal and let them pick one, and they will perk right up.  Or stop and get them a treat.  

 

If you let us know your itinerary, we can help you pick out child friendly excursions.  The most important advice I normally give people is to take private tours of just your family  with your children if you can afford to do so.  If you control the itinerary, you are able to stop and get your kids a treat whenever they start getting overwhelmed and hopefully avert a meltdown.  With this strategy, we were able to take our 3 year old on a Baltic cruise, and he loved St. Petersburg and we saw all the major museums and historical sites over two days.  And a whole lot of people told us it was insane to take a child that small to St. Petersburg, but we knew our son and he actually was able to appreciate most of it (our younger two it would have been insane but given the fact that St. Petersburg is no longer accessible I am very grateful we did this when we could even though it was a very tiring experience).  

 

I was also on a helicopter to dogsled on the mountains tour  in Alaska when I was pregnant with my first child.  There was a woman on my helicopter who flew alone.  I asked her if she'd been separated from her husband since I didn't see him at the top of the mountain (some tripadvisor reviews had noted that their family had been separated and I was trying to get information for my review)  She explained they couldn't both afford to go  and she had cancer but this was something she had wanted to experience her whole life so they'd agreed she would go alone.  On a group tour, if your kid melts down it could ruin what is a very special experience for someone else.

 

But please be careful on NCL with checking the private tour operators cancellation policies before you book (you should do this with any cruise line, but particularly with NCL.).  On our last cruise, they cancelled one day's port and the morning of another to help the environment after final payment.  They continued to advertise the original cruise for a month and wouldn't let anyone cancel, even those who booked directly with NCL after the cancellations were announced and weren't told.  So please be careful when booking independent tours - generally you can get refunded if the ship doesn't dock in the Caribbean from the tour guides, but  tickets to a waterpark might be nonrefundable.  Also, check recent Getaway reviews to see if there have been any cancellation issues on your itinerary, and if so are there any ports they tend to substitute (not all itineraries/ships are affected by this but some are so its helpful to look at recent reviews to see if your ship has any itinerary issues).  We were part of the mess in the DR last year (which hopefully has been resolved) and I needed to research both Nassau and GSK because those are sometimes substituted.  In my case, we just had an extra sea day, but with kids you can't be unprepared.