Experienced Moms Please Help!!!

[carnival2523]

We are leaving soon for a new years cruise on the Carnival. Our ports include St. Thomas And Martinque. Any and all suggestions are welcome and very much appreciated!!! Our youngest is 14 months, with two older siblings in tow. Thanks!!!

[KC_fn]

Hi, and welcome to the board!

 

First, a couple of questions: When you say "we", I assume your hubby is going? And how old are the two older siblings?

 

I haven't cruised with a toddler, but based on what I remember about that period in my DD's life, here are a few observations:

 

First, I wouldn't take the baby on an excursion, except maybe a short trip to the beach. I don't have to tell you how quickly they can go into meltdown, especially when they're hot, tired, and in unfamiliar surroundings. It will be more pleasant for everyone if one parent stays onboard with the little one, and the other takes the older kids into port. Then you can switch off for the next port.

 

Choose early seating for dinner. Late dinner would mean they're not actually getting food into their tummies until after 9:00, and not back in the cabin till 10:00 - 10:30. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

 

I'm sure other parents of little ones will have lots of other advice for you. Do have fun!

[Florida_cruisers]

We have cruised with our 21 month old baby twice: a 5 day Bahamas cruise and 14 night Baltic cruise, both times it was great. No problems!!

We travel quite a bit and always take our son with us. But I will tell you, it is a lot easier to travel with them once they are no longer using bottles (ours stopped using it when he turned 1).

He slept in a pack and play and ate what we ate. We would always make sure to be respectful of his nap times too. One thing we joke about is that we (DH and I) sleep like babies on our vacations, literally, we mostly me. I nap when our son naps, and I go to sleep when he sleeps. We cannot leave him in the cabin by himself, so I stay with him. For this reason it is very convenient to have a balcony cabin, so that when he sleeps you can hang out by the balcony reading or just relaxing. There is also the option of a babysitter - we did it twice in our last cruise. I was very suspicious at first, but then after I made sure that it was a nice girl and our son went to sleep before she would come in, that way he would not know we were gone.

Traveling with a child is not hard, but you have to know your limitations. We travel with him because we are a family now and we vacation as a family, so he goes where we go. Besides, since we both work full time, we look forward to spending all day with him on vacation.

 

Happy cruising!!

[rebeccalouise]

I really enjoyed Megan's Bay with my kids when they were little. There is no surf. It is nice and placid.

 

I also highly recommend going to a resort on Martinque for the day. One with a swimming pool and nice calm, clear water beach. Because your child won't be able to swim on the ship and most resorts do allow kids as long as they are in swim diapers. Make sure to call the resort in question ahead to make sure that cruise passengers can use the facilities (usually for a per person charge of about $ 25).

[crusinmama06]

You will have a blast! What are the ages of the kids?

 

St.Thomas has Coral World which is really cute for younger kids. At the bottom of my signature there is a link to the kid's club schedules. Just click on the link, then Camp Carnival on the left hand side.

[larronry]

I just want to say that having gotten off the boat less then 6 hours ago with a two year old and having been very upset that my DH wanted the late dinner I was actually grateful because my son would have slept through all but two early dinners. We put him down for his nap at his normal time of between 2 and 2:30 but he wasn't waking up until between 7:30 and 8:00 and that was usually with my making a lot of noise to wake him.

 

You know your child if they are a very active tired capable of walking the track and up and down the stairs for hours at a time and is a napper at home early dinner may not be the best option.

 

That said my son fell asleep in his stroller for the first time in over a year. YEAH!!!

 

I'm going to give a full review of my experiences on this board as well as Celebrity because well boy was it an experience (Not all because of bringing a child which I am so glad I did). Of course what I put here will be more talk about traveling with a toddler.