Hi there! Both my husband and I have never cruised before and we suddenly decided that we wanted to try it. We booked a 6 day cruise, departing from (and returning to) Southampton. As we live in the UK, we figured this would be quite a convenient way to travel. Drive to the port, take all the things we need for our baby with us and be living in a floating hotel for a week. The itinerary is quite nice, but not so exciting that we'd be properly upset if, for some reason, we would need to skip disembarking on a port day if the little one is not playing ball. I like the idea of being close to a room with a safe place for my son to sleep that won't necessarily compromise the whole holiday.
We decided to go with MSC, despite seeing some very negative reviews. As first-time parents, we hardly ever get to enjoy a proper meal anyway, so the fact that the food is meant to be subpar doesn't bother us much. I especially like that MSC offers care for babies. Lots of the other cruise lines we looked at only offer a kids club for potty trained babies, and mostly from age 3. Our son will be 16 months old at the time of the cruise, so definitely still in nappies. He's used to going to nursery, so I'm feeling optimistic that he'd be alright being left in the baby club for an hour during meal times.
What I suppose I wanted to ask is for any tips and advice from you more experienced cruisers. Especially from anyone who has had to travel with a baby or toddler/small child before. If it's been with MSC Virtuosa, that would be even better!
