Cruising With Young Children
Cruises are a great family vacation. By day, you spend quality time together as a family. By night, couples get some well deserved alone time, while their children party in the kids club or with in-cabin babysitters. We recently took a cruise with our son for his second birthday and lived to tell about it.
That said we did learn a few valuable lessons along the way:
Traveling to the Ship
1. If at all possible leave the day before sailing and spend the night in a hotel. There is no enjoyment for anyone when your two year old wakes up four hours earlier than usual and had no nap. By being close to the ship you can sleep until a reasonable hour and not feel rushed getting to the ship. Try to avoid airport to ship transfers sold by the cruise lines. Depending on the time you arrive you could wait up to an hour for the bus to fill before heading to the ship. Taxi's or private shuttle services offer you immediate transportation. They are often the same price if not a little less than the cost of the cruise-line transfers. Call a local cab company in your departure city. They often will give you an average fare for the ride.
2. Have a supply of "new" toys you can pull out in the car or on the plane. About 3 weeks before our departure, I tucked a few toys in to our son's back pack and hid it. These old friends provided entertainment and held his attention longer since he had not seen them in a while.
3. A beach ball is your best friend. They deflate and fold up small so that they are easy to carry, while providing a lot of distraction. Find a quiet area in the terminal and play toss, roll and kick. It's a great way to help burn off extra energy prior to your flight or during a layover.
4. Pack a baby banket. Airplanes are always cold and there are never enough blankets to go around.
5. Always pack at least 3-4 more diapers than you think you will need. Moral of the story, you never know when you will be delayed.
Dining on the Ship
1. There are both buffet and sit down choices for all meals on most ships. We found that dinner was just not a good time for our son to sit for an hour. We attended sit down lunches to enjoy the fabulous service, but frequented the buffets for beakfast and dinner. We found that all the entrees available in the dining room were also available at the buffet.
For special events - like the formal night - when we wanted to dine in the dining room we would stay for the meal, then take our dessert to go and enjoy it under the stars while our son played on the deck.
Keep a small supply of toys during meal time. Magnadoodes and playdough are our personal favorites. Crayons are usually readily available.
2. Bring 2-3 sippy cups or water bottles from home. Fill them up at the meals so that you always have cold juice at hand. Palmolive wipes with the soap already added makes keeping them clean in your cabin a breeze.
3. Room service is always available on most ships as well. If its not a morning that you are able to get up and ready, order in and watch cartoons while you prepare for the day.
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Member Comments On...
Cruising With Young Children
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I also wanna add the tip. if you're on disney cruise with young kids, you probably want to let them to sleep earlier, and you and your husband can have a private dinner at a selected restaurant there.
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