Evenings with a baby

[newlondoncruiser]

Hi, wonder if anyone can help - I am leaving for a med cruise on NCL Jade at the end of this week, and I am planning on taking our largisg three wheller 'Quinny' pushchair for my daughter as it is so comfy for her to sleep in and much more comfortable to push(we intend to do a lot of walking at ports!). Also I can fit a car seat onto this if necessary ( I would be interested to know if people think this will get used or if I should just leave it in our car at the port! Would a stewrad store this for us if we didn't want it in our room?)

 

Anyway, my main question is, would it also be useful to bring our lightweight umbrella stroller as this is much easier to manoevre in small places and to lift up steps etc. We intend to use the dining rooms and bars - Has anyone found it difficult to get in and out of public spaces with a bigger pushchair?

 

I would also like to hear how people with babies have spent evenings - we intend to eat early in the dining rooms as not great fan of buffet.(am a bit nervous of eating later with her asleep in pushchair as she has a habit of waking just as my food arrives!) I thought maybe then I would go bath the baby and get her pjs on, while my Hubby has a drink, then hopefully we would push her round the decks and get her off to sleep before trying to see a show or go for a drink. We do have a balcony mini suite, so I anticipate spending a lot of time there, while my husband does stuff with our older daughter or vice versa. But it would be nice to try and do some stuff together in the evenings. Can't wait till our 11 yr old is old enough to baby sit!

 

If anyone has evening tips that worked well please do share - have read quite a bit on the boards, but hard to search too much with baby constantly grabbing keyboard!

[aaklang]

How old is your daughter?

 

If you have the space and ability to bring both strollers, I would do it. I think you'd be happy to have the umbrella stroller on board, but the bigger and better one in the ports. If you can only bring one, take the Quinny. Yes, you should be able to get the carseat stored for you on board.

 

I haven't cruised NCL but was on Celebrity with my baby last week. We had a Maclaren Quest that worked out really well on board. We never took it to the dining room, but there would have been space if we'd wanted it. We just carried him up and then put him in the high chair.

 

In the evenings, we generally put our son to bed and then used the in-room babysitting available through Celebrity ($8/hour, age 12 months or older). If you do have your baby with you, you could sit in the various lounges and listen to live music, enjoy the view from the decks, etc.

[Baxter]

I can only tell you about our experience. Our daughter is now 20 months, and has been on 3 cruises.

 

We travel with a smaller Chico fold-up stroller, and I can't imagine taking one much bigger. I would be shocked if you could wheel the Quinny in your stateroom...we found that even with ours (which is larger than a standard umbrella stroller, but much smaller than a regular stroller) we hand to be dead-on straight in order to wheel into the cabin. Depending on how you pack, storage of the Quinny in the room might be tight (though I'm guessing you will have to keep it on the balcony).

 

In the dining rooms, we found "parking" of our stroller to be somewhat problematic. Even though it folds up very nicely, it always seemed to be in someone's way.

 

Scheduling was very important to keep the Princess a smiling, happy Princess. So we would go to early seating for dinner, let her play for a while (whether that was in the kid's area with us, or walking out on deck), but made sure to have her back in the room for her normal bedtime by 8-8:30. My husband and I traded each night -- one stayed in the room, and the other did evening activities. Worked out great.

 

Based on information we received here, prior to the first cruise we deliberately shopped for a smaller, fold-up stroller that reclined, had adequate coverage from the sun, and had a useable basket. But, to be honest, we used the Baby Bjorn carrier far more than we used the stroller. It was just easier.

[newlondoncruiser]

Thank you, most helpful - my daughter will be 8 months. Our TA booked us a large mini suite right at the Aft - I believe she said it is a room for wheelchair users which had not been booked out, so am hoping there will be a bit more room in there than usual. As we are also driving to port I think i will take both and if I find we don't use one of them will ask steward to store one. I am wondering whether to bother taking car seat on board though as we plan to walk from ports or use shuttle buses. If we do end up getting a taxi, it will probably be impromptu and only into or from nearest town. I am quite obsessive about the use of car seats though so would rather know which ports we would really need to get a taxi into the nearest town - does anyone know - we are visiting Lisbon, Gibraltar, Vigo, Malaga, Civitavechia, Livorno, Villefranche and Barcelona?

[Alessandrina]

I can help with a few ports....

 

In Gibraltar you can walk from the ship into town, if I remember correctly, it was about 20 minutes. Take the stroller!

Livorno, there was a special shuttle bus to take the passengers into town. This was on Princess. From Livorno centre, we caught the train to Pisa and strolled around there.

Civitavecchia, walked to the train station to catch a train to Roma.

Barcelona we took a taxi.

Enjoy your cruise.

[newlondoncruiser]

Brilliant - thanks - feel more confident about it all now!

[calikak]

We were on NCL Pearl earlier this month with our Peg Perego stroller. Our son is 11 months old. He did start to get a little fussy during meals, and when that would happen, one of us would stroller him around until he fell asleep (with him, fussy is almost always a sign he's tired, because he's a pretty laid-back kid), then we'd just stroller him back to the dining room and resume our meal. It worked out well for us. The stroller reclines and we found that to be helpful with the strollering-to-sleep thing. We never felt the need for a smaller stroller, and just took elevators around instead of carrying him and collapsing the stroller.

[newlondoncruiser]

Are peg pegero really big strollers? Only our Quinny is HUGE!

[quagmire0]

We went on a cruise with DD when she was 6mo. We spent all our evenings on the balcony while she was sleeping. Part of the problems we had was that the very night before the trip she got sick, so the first couple of nights she wasn't sleeping all that great. As for dinner, we attempted the dining room just about every night and didn't have great results. My advice is to change your seating arrangement when you get on board and have them put you close to the door in case you need to make a quick getaway. We were originally going to be seated all the way in the back! :P

 

It all depends on your child, you know them better than anyone. Our DD at 6mo was not ready to sit through a meal without melting down. Now that she is 1+yo she'll dine along with us. But, in general, if you can go out to eat with your child and she doesn't fuss too much (or even better, sleeps through it) you should be fine on the ship. If not, be prepared to change your plans on a dime. :)

[calikak]

Are peg pegero really big strollers? Only our Quinny is HUGE!

 

Our Graco one is our huge one, it's like the Mega SUV of strollers. I like it for walking to the park, but anytime I have to go in a building I feel like I'm driving a tank! It probably would have been OK for the cruise, but it would have taken up a lot of room in the elevator, which would have meant more waiting until we found an empty elevator. But I think it would have been fine in the dining rooms.

 

The Peg Perego is nice because it's not a really small umbrella stroller, but it's not as huge as the Graco. Ours is old (we bought it used) but it kind of looks like this:

 

http://www.pegperego.com/page.php?sid=58b12191f837f1c48d17add8a69b52fa&pageid=UJVNL001&idf=04&idp=0000000162&cl=N

[PattyW]

Here's the problem with the big strollers - lots of times the housekeeping staff will "park" their linen cart in the hall for hours on end. Getting a big stroller around that cart might just be impossible.

 

I'd either bring both or go with a smaller stroller that reclines, has a sunshade and will fold up somewhat small.

[newlondoncruiser]

Thank you so much everyone for all your advice - i am definitely going to go with both. Thank goodness we have a big car!

[JohannaM]

We've actually decided to go with our Graco although it is a lot bigger. It's going to be squishy in the room, no doubt, but our DS just doesn't like the smaller umbrella stroller - esp not for longer periods of time. So we'll take the hit and deal with it (Oceanview room, 2 adults, one toddler in a playpen...going to be tight! Let's pray for an upgrade ha ha ha).