Eastern Mediterranean with a 2.5 year old??

We are considering a eastern Mediterranean cruise with our 2.5yo for next summer. Leaving from Venice, ports include Dubrovnik, Corfu, Santorini and Naples. We will be travelling with my parents and sister, so we'll have some help. This will be the first cruise for parents and sister so I think they will be taking full advantage of each port. Since DH and I have been to most ports I think that we can choose to either stay on the ship, do a beach day or do short extrusions in port.

I'm starting to think that maybe this is a crazy idea. I know how tiring port intensive cruises can be and I know how tiring it can be to care for a rambunctious toddler. Is putting the two together a recipe for disaster? Has anyone done a Mediterranean cruise with a toddler? How did it go? Did you regret it? Any tips?

I took my 5 year old twins on an Eastern Med (with different ports: Cairo, Izmir, Athens, Barcelona, Rome). By arranging our own tours, it's easy to have an amazing time in port with kids since you can bring a car seat, stroller, snacks, etc and create your own itinerary (leave out museums/shopping, go for outdoor sights to explore and lots of ice cream), The nice thing about private tours is you can also remain flexible for crabbiness and they also work out less expensive for a family than everyone paying the per-person price for a ship-sponsored shore excursion.

Since on a port-heavy cruise like this, the ship really just becomes your moving hotel/restaurant, the kids club and ship amenities don't end up mattering as much. By the time you get back and have dinner, everyone is ready for bed.

Also - there were many European toddlers on board.

Best,

Mia

IF you go into it with realistic expectations, you'll be fine. You won't be able to do EVERYTHING with a toddler....so know that in advance! Sometimes, you'll have to "go with the flow"...

We took our oldest to the Panama Canal when he was two, and on a Baltic cruise at 3 and our youngest just visited Norway at 2. For us personally, we realized after the Panama Canal trip that a very port intensive trip is fairly manageable with a kids club (after touring all day we needed somewhere to drop the kids off when we return to the ship). But you may have a greater capacity for watching your children by yourself, plus it seems like you are bringing people who will help you. My children loved all of their trips. You should just arrange for private tours so you can spend more time at attractions that fascinate your kids, skip through the lesser parts of attractions to accommodate children's attention spans and stop to feed your children whenever they get hungry. My 3 year old saw all of the major attractions of St. Petersburg over two days, and lists that city as one of his favorite in the world, along with Stockholm and New York.

There are a few cruise lines that will allow 2 year olds to visit the kids clubs without adult supervision, Carnival and Cunard being among them, in addition to the nurseries on disney and newer and some refurbished RC ships. I didn't think the Cunard kids club did the best job with my younger son since he needed 5-10 minutes of help from a kids club staff member at the beginning to distract him and despite the fact that there were only 2 or three other kids in the kids club at drop off, they initially argued they were too busy to help him with the transition. After we complained they were better, but I was never completely happy about leaving my son there. The rest of the crew was great and really cared about my kids and helped them a lot. Here is my post about cunard for young kids: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2533351 Disney does the Med, although that will be quite a bit more expensive than the rest of the lines.

oh - i forgot - santorini is beautiful, but check with the europe board about how to get there. When I went almost 10 years ago, the only options to get to the main part of santorini were either to ride a donkey or wait on a huge line for the funicular. If that's still the case, you need to either be off the ship first or wait until the crowds have died down and then ride the funicular. At times, I think there have been boat service to take you to the main part of santorini but I don't know if that is running now. I normally suggest staying away from ship tours with a family, but getting to the main part of Santorini was a mess and involved a huge line to get a donkey and I got scraped a little going up the hill, and my brother lost one sandal on the way (there are stores at the top of the hill selling hats and sandals since I'm guessing they get lost a lot and people need to buy them) There's no way to stop or get off the donkeys once you are on your way up the hill. You can also walk up the hill, but we ran into people coming down who said it was really hard and they were having a hard time avoiding the donkeys and the poop. I believe the ship tours take passenger by bus to the main part of the city, so that might be an option. Or you should see if you can arrange a cab. That was my first cruise and since I was traveling with my family I didn't plan it so I'm not sure - there could be an easy solution to this and you should check with the southern europe board since they would know what it is.

Thank you for the tips on Santorini. It's actually the one port that we haven't been to and are most looking forward to. I think my best bet would be to take a ship shore excursion, but I will look into it.

In terms of what cruise line we are considering. DH and I really like Celebrity. And are considering doing a Celebrity cruise as we like the itinerary the best and know what to expect from Celebrity. I know the kids clubs is not the best. I'm also considering Royal Caribbean as I've heard it is geared more towards multi-generation families.