Cruising and Ports with 2 Toddlers

[kalley79]

My DH and I along with our two DS will be cruising on the Carnival Triumph in April for a mini family reunion. Our boys will be 17mts and almost 3. I am very excited to take them and never have much problems traveling with them. My biggest concern is ports. We will be in Half Moon Cay, St. Thomas, San Juan, and Grand Turk. We are planning to rent a cabana in HMC, so no problems there. We plan to go to Coral World and Coki Beach at St. Thomas and may ride up to the top of the mountain to eat and for DH and I to have Banana Daquiris (most likely will leave the boys with my Mom for this part of the day). At San Juan we are most likely just going to do the walking tour. In Grand Turk we are tentatively planning the Horse Drawn Carriage ride, a visit to the Conch Graveyard, and spending the rest of the day on the beach by the port. They will still be too little to walk all day and I would like have strollers. I currently have 2 strollers, but they are big and bulky. I hate to spend a lot on new strollers since I already have 2, but I want something better than the $10 ones you get at Walmart. If anyone has ideas on my stroller situation or just general advice on cruising with 2 toddlers it would be greatly appreciated. Also if you have any other ideas for things to do on these islands I'll take those too. Our group has several kids and the people range from 17 mts to 78yrs. Thanks so much.

 

Kellie

[#1TravelMom]

Please know that the following are my suggestions only. I'm not an expert, but have a 3 1/2 year old who's cruised with us since 6 months old. We also often travel with others with toddlers also. We've visited most ports several times, so I can comment on what has and hasn't worked for us.

 

HMC-Great plan!

 

St. Thomas - I suggest Emerald Beach. We were just there 2 weeks ago. It's a beautiful beach. It's very easy to keep track of children because it is not crowded. We arrived around 10:30 and there may have been 30 people on the entire stretch of beach. Some big positives to Emerald: beautiful beach, nice sand, very peaceful, no crowds, best of all it's close to the pier. Also at the end of the beach is a playground. Just for a break in the day, we walked to the park and the children played. It's very nice with cusioned playing surface. Several big iguanas hang out there - so we always look for those. I don't want to discourage Coki, but it gets very crowded and lots of venders asking you to buy things all day long. No vendors at Emerald Beach. After a day at the beach, drop the children with grandma and take a ride on the tram.-It's right accross from the pier.

 

San Juan-I think the walking tour would be difficult unless you have children that love to walk. It's hard to maneuver strollers on the uneven streets and curbs. My daughter will not sit in a stroller for any length of time, especially being bounced around in 85 degree, humid weather. I'm not sure of anything on the walking tour that would interest toddlers. But, I'm also speaking as a mother of a little girl that is part monkey. She will sit still for only minutes at a time. Maybe your little ones are content sitting. I suggest going to El Morro and flying kites. Two weeks ago, we took the free trolley(this will give you a chance to see some of Old San Juan) to the Fort and the kids just loved running on the huge lawn. They had tons of fun watching all the kites. We also took blow up beach balls-they kicked them and ran after them nonstop.

 

Grand Turk-we've done the carriage ride-not much to see IMHO. The first 5 minutes were something new to the kids, then they asked every 2 minutes - "When are we going to the beach-this is too hot. This is what we do now. Get off the ship and walk over to the carriages. We let the kids see the horses and pet them briefly, then off to the beach. I recommend Governor's Beach just a few minutes away. If you ask the driver to take you to the far end, it's practically deserted. Absolutely gorgeous sand and beach with huge conch shells.

 

If you want to email me, I'd be glad to send you photos of any of the above.

[abitaturbodog]

I would definitely get some smaller strollers and don't worry about them lasting forever. Your 3 year old is just about too old for one, and with the 3 year old free to walk around, the 17 month old will want out soon too!

 

I have 2 boys just 18 months apart, and remember them outgrowing the stroller right around 3 years old.

[larronry]

I just cruised with my 26 months old. I agree with forget strollers in San Juan. My DS loves to walk and I only brought the stroller along as a place to change him should I need it. even folded up and rolling it along it was difficult maneuvering it. There were areas of construction so it was up and down a step or steps to get on and off the sidewalk and around the construction and the sidewalks are very narrow. By my third island I left the stroller in the room. I'm hoping that next year my DS still loves to walk so I skip the stroller on excursions.

 

That said for St Thomas I love Coral World and know you chose Coki beach because it is near Coral World and would stick with that plan only because I think the kids would love Coral world and if you and your DH are like me and my DH you should too. I wouldn't want to spend my whole cruise only going to beaches at every stop and had I planned that it would have been a disaster because my son wasn't thrilled with the beach. To him it was just another place to walk.

 

BTW strollers are very important on the ship because when you go through the buffet you need to have the kids sit in them while you get the food. And you need the smaller ones. There must be enough room for the stroller to be open in the hallway with luggage, room steward carts, or people to get by. That said you can check into used ones on craigs list or e-bay.

[twins2go]

Don't know about those ports, but I agree with PPs, you will want something as small as possible stroller-wise. Another plus is if it has 2 umbrella handles that stick up (instead of a bar handle that goes all the way across), this way you can hang stuff over the handles.

 

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_04988138000P?vName=Baby&cName=Gear&sName=Strollers&psid=FROOGLE01&sid=IDx20070921x00003a

 

This is what I use most of the time. We brought on our Christmas cruise and we had no problems maneuvering it anywhere on the ship. I got mine at Target about a year ago.