Western Med. w/ 16 month old baby

[jkl55us]

We booked NCL Gem in May 2008. My DD will be 16 months old by that time. I have some questions:

 

(1) Do I need a car seat in Europe???

(2) Is it true, NCL will have nanny service available (I don't mind to pay a small fee)? We may want to have 1 or 2 dinner without her.

 

This is her 1st cruise, we are very exciting. Hope she will be fine.

[bhcruise]

We just returned from a Med. cruise with an 11 month old. We did not use our car seat at all. The one tour that we booked with a private company had a car seat for us. Other than that we usually just held him. I do not know about the nanny service since we sailed on Celebrity. Hope you have fun.

Brooke

[jkl55us]

Hi Brooke,

 

Do you do any shore excursion?? I am thinking to get a private tour in Rome & Florence due the long day visit. I think it will be easy for us cause we can do our own "sightseeing". :)

[Crazyshopper]

We went on the Western Med. cruise in May 2006 with my son when he was 19 months on NCL Jewel.

 

We did not bring a car seat. We also held him the whole time.

 

Some things to think about for excursions are the following:

 

1) It is best to take a shorter excursions. Most of the excursions are approximately 8 hours. It generally takes 1 hour of a bus ride to get to the place you are site seeing.

 

2) You may need a good stroller. The ground in Europe is not even.

 

3) You may want to consider bring a backpack to carry your child. We backpack him on a couple of the excursion.

 

4) Consider their attention span. Most of the excursions would not interest a toddler.

 

By the way, it is not easy crusing with a Toddler to Europe due to time changes and long port days.

 

We were very exciting before going on a Western Med. cruise. Unfortunately, my son got very sick with vomitting and got dehaydrated. He had to be on IV on the ship. We missed most of Italy. We will do this again, hopefully when they are older.

 

Another consideration is try to pack light. We had a lot of luggage due to my son - stroller, backpack etc. Many of the taxis could not accommodate us. It took us a long time to find a van to fit all of our luggage.

 

Glendy

[kitty9]

NCL doesn't have nannies, only Cunard has those. Nor do they have private in cabin sitting, only group sitting and the child must be two years of age to participate in the late night kid's group. And, they are strict with their age policy, so since your child isn't 2 years of age, she won't be allowed in the kid's club or in the late night sitting program.

 

 

This is directly from NCL's website:

 

 

Need a little more “me” time? We offer more supervised fun for the kids. The “Late Night Party Zone” and “Port Play” are both group-sitting services for kid's ages 2-12. The Youth Staff runs these activities in the Kid's Crew Facilities and all the requirements and procedures apply.

The “Port Play” is offered from 9am-5pm and we accommodate those parents booked on Shore Excursions. Sign up is 8pm the evening prior to the desired “Port Play”.

The “Late Night Party Zone” is offered nightly from 10pm-1am. The charges are $5.00 per hour, per child, and $3.00 per hour for each additional sibling in the same immediate family. Charges are applied directly to your onboard account. Sign up is 8pm the evening prior to the desired “Late Night Party Zone”.

A reminder, if your child requires you to keep a beeper, a parent or guardian must stay behind on the vessel during either activity, as our beepers do not work off the ship. Also, no private or in-cabin babysitting is available on any NCL or NCLA vessels.

Our Youth Staff is waiting for you to sign up now…your kids will have a blast!