Cruisin Twin Mom

We took a box with a luggage tag on it and had no trouble with it being delivered to our room with the rest of our luggage. The best part was we could unpack the box, break it down and as the steward to dispose of it for us.

With twins traveling to Europe at 14 months my big concern was spending all my port time diaper hunting. I know Europe sells diapers and we could find them but I that is not how I wanted to spend our tour time. So we tallied the diapers used in a week and then used that number plus some padding to pack. We packed diapers in the extra spots in suitcases and in a larger box that went all the way to the ship with us. The extra spots in the suitcase were filled with souvenirs on the way home and we went home without the box. It worked well for us.

Two singles. Getting on the gangplank and around the boat would be very difficult if not impossible with a double. You will want to think about how it folds/stores too as it has to be stored in your room. We found two singles was easier on excursions and in small streets with large crowds.

I can say from experience that the "cribs" on princess are actually pack and plays. They seemed smaller than the pack and play we had at home but that worked well for us as our twins were 14 months old on that cruise and fitting two pack and plays into the room was a bit of a tetris game. You can reserve them ahead of time but if you don't see it in your room make sure to check with the steward. Ours were not there when we arrived and even though we requested them ahead of time somehow they didn't make it on our reservation. Thankfully the problem was take care of quickly and with no fuss.

I don't know if various cruise lines offer step stools or not. I would rather be prepped in case they don't than hope they do. We are going to pack a foldable step stool for our kids to use on our upcoming HAL Alaskan cruise. This is the one we are looking at getting or something similar: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GJ0XTO8/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=UUTCVDHVBZIU&coliid=I12FO5A8ZA8JNN

It should be easy to throw in the bottom of a suitcase along with our foldable potty seat. I assume we will need the stool for the hotel rooms before and after our cruise too. My thought is better safe than sorry on anything involving the toilet.

We cruised with our twins when they were 14 months old. It was a trip with extended family to the Baltic on Princess. Things we learned:

The ship can provide "baby food" for you if you desire. We had to fill out some forms online from guests services, had a ship rep call and talk about our needs and how many and variety of food we wanted. We were able to request the food from room service and in the main dining room. We ended up not needing it much in the main dining room as the staff learned our kids preferences and would have apple sauce, steamed veggies, cheese and bread ready for us when we arrived. We did use anytime dining, but booked a reservation each night. We ended up eating at the same time every night to scheduled dining likely would have been better. We learned that the main dining room was easier (although not faster) for most our meals. We even ate breakfast there unless we had an early morning excursion. We did use our in room fridge to keep extra milk (we brought our own sippy cups and a small bottle of palmolive to wash in the sink) and extra food for snacks or to take on excursions for the kids. Food was much less of an issue that I had thought it would be.

We did bring two carseats on board the boat. Our girls fly in their car seats and we knew they would need them before and after the cruise as we spent some extra days in Berlin. We also found the car seats were great "seats" in our room for the kids to use if we needed to feed them or have them play without ramming around the room. We bought soft car seat trays for the plane that we also used to make the car seats into impromptu high chairs both at the hotel and in the stateroom.

We brought two umbrella strollers (doubles don't fit well down the gang plank or the boat passage ways) that we folded up and put in the bathroom standing up when we didn't need them. We had a handicap room (only ones that allow four passengers on that boat) and found the extra bathroom space was a great place to stash the strollers when not in use. We used the strollers on excursions (no problems with cruise sponsored or private transportation with the strollers, we just got good at folding them up in a flash) and inside the boat when we wanted to hang out. The strollers were another "seat" for the kids to sit in.

We packed a whole suitcase full of diapers (twins!) and also an extra cardboard box. We were able to unload the box and have our steward dispose of it for us so we had one less piece of "luggage" to deal with, esp since everything that bag carried was needed on the return trip. To get a guestimate for how many diapers to take we did a count for a few days of how many used, found the average and then multiplied by 1.5. It was a bit overkill but meant we weren't concerned about diaper. I know that many ports sell diapers but I wanted to see the sites, not the inside of the local drugstore when we were in port.

Sleeping was a bit tricky, esp since one of our girls is a very light sleeper. We took advice from a poster here and took magnets with us. We requested and extra sheet and used the magnets to attach it to the ceiling and walls to darken the room when they were sleeping and allowed us to go to the bathroom or watch tv (with headphones) without waking them. We were given two pack and plays, we requested them before the trip but somehow that request didn't make it to our room steward. Thankfully we were still able to get them in our room with little fuss. We also brought our noise machine to help make the environment sound like "normal".

We brought a number of small toys to use on the plane/hotel/boat. This worked well for us to have something for them to do when we were in the cabin prepping for the next activity or having some down time. We made sure the toys were corralled when we left so the room steward didn't have to deal with them.

We first cruised with our twins at 14 months old on Princess. We took strong magnets and asked for an extra few sheets to create a light barrier around the provided pack and plays. We also brought their sound machine to help create the noises they were used to hearing, the ship also provided a lot of white noise but the sound machine helped block out some of the noises from the hall.

We debated what to do when they were sleeping, since we have one very very light sleeper, and figured we would try to watch TV with headphones. The two pack and plays sat all along the wall and doors to the balcony so it was not a great option for us to go out there. We bought a very long extension cord for headphones and a splitter, plugged it into the TV and were able to lay on the bed watching TV or movies. We had to make sure they were asleep first so the light of the TV wasn't an issue but made the early bedtime they needed much easier to cope with.