cruisegirl06

We usually do our Maclaren for travel and have done well with it. I just got a BOB duallie since we need a double now, and I love it, but for travel the Maclaren is lightweight, folds easily and compactly and ours reclines. As a PP mentioned, it fits easily under the bed on the cruises and does well navigating around the ship, in our experience.

I think it is very helpful to have a stroller for the times when you have to corral the kiddo in crowds - think: embarkation, disembarkation or if you are walking long distances. If DD doesn't want to ride, we can always just put our backpack in the stroller.

We take our Maclaren Quest which is an umbrella stroller that reclines, it has easily fit under the bed on two cruises :). We got ours off craigslist, but even then you are looking at probably $50-$100, which is a lot if you don't think you will use it otherwise.

To the PP - we have a BOB duallie and it doesn't fold up very well. I see nowhere feasible to keep it in a normal cabin. A single-BOB may be better, but I wouldn't even think about the double bob on a cruise (LOVE the stroller, it's just not very compact).

Think about when. And where you will use the stroller. DD's first cruise was at 16 months and we used it a good deal - going to shows, walking around the ship, etc. I don't think we used it in port as we had tours/plans each day and weren't meandering. When we sailed with her at 2-years we only used the stroller for embarkation/disembarkation and for one port day where we had a fairly long walk to the beach. We didn't really use the stroller on the ship too much in either case. This fall we're sailing with a 3-year-old and an almost 1-year-old so we'll have to plan accordingly (we managed with just the single Maclaren on the land vacation we just took...just took a little more creativity and planning)

We did a nice hike near Exit Glacier in Seward, it was pre-kids, but I'm pretty sure it would have been kid friendly. In Ketchikan we did a nice walk around town (salmon hatchery, etc.), not a "hike" persay, but a good walking tour of town.

If it is primarily getting to and from the hotel in Seattle, you might look unto shuttle/transit options that provide or don't require car seats. We did several days in Chicago with just public transit (no car seats) and have sought out tours on busses to avoid having to haul a car seat in a cruise. We were in Seattle a few years ago, and I recall decent public transit (granted hauling 3 kids and luggage on transit may be more of a challenge than bringing car seats...)

We have a Cosco Scenera in our second car for our 2.5 year old, she's been using it since she was about 9 months. This is the car seat we always take when we travel - much lighter weight than the car seat in our primary car:) dd seems to like it and we haven't had an issue installing it in rental cars (haven't tried it in the plane or in shuttles). I don't like it as much as our primary car seat (seems to have a bit less padding), but I don't have any qualms about using it for travel and in the second car (which she rides in most weekdays either to or from daycare, but that is about it).

We have 2 in car seats and ordered a car seat backpack (jr Childress, I believe is the brand) before our last trip - great purchase. We usually try to avoid buying extra stuff, but this bag is a travel lifesaver. We fit the Scenera, a Snugride and a bunch of diapers in this bag and carried it our back utilize we got to bag check. It was a tight squeeze and I know the bag is not intended for 2 car seats but it worked and made getting through the airport with a 2-month old and 2.5 year old much easier! It also kept the car seats a bit cleaner than just gate checking them.

Be sure to check out/post to the family board if you have specific questions. Lots of helpful people over there who have taken kids on cruises and offer great tips!

We took DD on NCL at 16 months, they don't have any drop-off programming for under-3s, but did have playground type activities that she enjoyed. She also liked walking around the ship, hanging out on the balcony with us, the shows, and of course the beach! We went to Belize, Roatan, costa Maya, and cozumel and found fun activities to do with her in each place. It was just the 3 of us, so we didn't have any babysitters, but we still had a great time. Yes, we were in the room earlier most evenings than on previous cruises, but we planned ahead for that (a big part of the reason we splurged for a balcony).

When she was 2 we took her in DCL. Having more kid space and a nursery was awesome! We were able to leave her there for some adult time and she had a great time. They also had more family oriented activities that we could all do together and a splash zone (it seems like RCI has a lot of these features).

This year we're taking her and our new daughter (they will be 3 and almost 1 when we sail). Cruising with little kids is very different than cruising as just adults, but still very nice. I relish the fact that I don't have to cook, clean (too much), go to work, commute, pack daycare bags, etc. for the week. We are sailing Indy, which I understand has a splash zone, nursery, and the kids area so I think both girls should be entertained and happy, there is even more on Oasis/Allure, so I'm sure you'll have a great time!

I would bring things for your LO to do at dinner, if you plan on dining in the MDR. On our cruise when DD was 16 months bringing a bunch of small toys in my purse (think: mcdonalds/dollar store type toys) and doling them out as she got bored helped her get through many 5-course dinners (I think we had to take her out of the dining room for a walk maybe twice all week, and after a few minutes she was ready to come back).

Can anyone recommend a shuttle service/car service that provides car seats? We have two kiddos who are in car seats (that we are hoping not to bring), so a taxi isn't an option for us (unless we wind up with the seats). Thanks!!

It might be something in royal's computers. I just transferred my reservation to my TA and she had me call RCI for an invoice before she took over the booking just in case (I think she mentioned there was some issue, but she got it resolved). From reading on here it sounds like a lot of things can cause the invoices to change (when they shouldn't be), as long as you have your original invoice (correct price and dining time) I assume you and your TA should have some leveraging power to get it corrected.

I'm glad I found this thread. We are sailing Indy in November and I was thinking about doing Chops as a nice meal for our anniversary. After reading this thread it looks like I'll need to keep tabs on what's going on with chops before making a decision.

While I don't like the trend towards up charge restaurants on cruises, we're willing to pay for them if we really are getting a special experience. We did the Brazilian Steakhouse on NCL and thought it was the food was great, service was very good and ambiance was fine (nothing fancy, but fine for a nice, family meal). We've also done Palo and Remy on DCL, both were elegant, adult meals with delicious food and superb service. For all three of these restaurants, a similar experience at a land-based restaurant would have likely been substantially more expensive than the cover charge (as I feel it should be, when you are giving up a decent, included meal in the MDR AND paying an upcharge).

If what it seems like I'm reading is that Chops is more comparable to Outback than Ruth Chris, I don't think we'll bother. I'm not paying $70 for a meal on a ship (where I already have decent food available in the MDR) if I could get a comparable meal on land for less!

I will need to read more threads and gather more opinions, but right now I'm not sold on Chops...it sounds like finding a nice meal ashore or buying a nice bottle of wine may be a better use of my vacation dollars.

Some pretty good deals with RCL & the kids sail

Free promotion. I didn't even know NcL was also doing it. Going to check that out now. I'm interested to see if carnival will come out with some promotion lowering prices a bit to compete with them as I can currently book a cruise with Royal for the same price as carnival and even cheaper in some cases.

We were really pleased with this sale! I had priced several cruises a few weeks ago (including holiday cruises) and we are saving around $1400 on our thanksgiving cruise! Our balcony cabin is cheaper than the insides I had previously priced (with a 1-year old and 3-year old with naps/earlier bedtimes we prefer a balcony). I was so excited to see this because I did not want to pay $900 for my one-year-old (or three-year-old for that matter...)

Just a heads-up re luggage valet. I tried to use it last year while on a Celebrity cruise (and I'm assuming the Celebrity program is the same as the Royal Caribbean one), and I got declined!

 

On that cruise, we had been assured that luggage valet was available to us. We filled out the paperwork a few days before disembarkation, and on the second-last day of the cruise I got a call from a customer service person telling me that we'd been declined. I was somewhat surprised and asked why. The rep couldn't really give me a good answer. She told me that every so many people that apply are randomly declined for luggage valet - apparently the airline feels it's smart to decline a certain percentage of individuals. We have no criminal record, our flight was straightforward... it was quite bizarre. There was absolutely no good reason why we would've been declined.

 

I'm just letting you know in case you're as lucky as I am and you need to have a Plan B in place. :confused:

 

So, I just wanted to make sure you realize that because luggage valet is offered, it isn't a given that you will be allowed to use it.

Thanks all for your help with my tag-along questions :-). It seems like whoever's ticket has the lap child on it is frequently flagged, so if we do this I should probably just do valet for whoever has a non-lap-child ticket. Obviously airlines can flag you for any number of reasons (I've had it randomly), but i don't think I've ever been fully able to fully check in when I had a lap child on my ticket (likely because the ticket counter needs to verify the baby's age).

The advantage for us is not having to haul 2 young kids and all our stuff from the terminal to the bus/cab/whatever then in to bag check (assuming I understand the program correctly).

Does the whole cabin have to sign up? (I.e. Can we just sign up DH and check two bags on his ticket and hand carry our other stuff?)

Also, does anyone have experience with this with a lap child? I knowledge usually have to go to the airline check in gate with the lap child, so I'm not sure if valet is even an option (unless we can "split" our room as I mentioned above).

Can I send a car seat through valet and will they know that there is no (airline) charge to check a car seat? Of course, I may need the seat depending on transit options to the airport, so this may be a non-issue.

DCL has a similar service that we loved:)

So excited we got the deal on the Indy over Thanksgiving 3/4 were $899 a piece for a D1 but with the promotion FREE

 

We had already booked the Vision for Thanksgiving when the promo came out.

We we able to switch from 2 inside cabins on the Vision for 7 days days to 1 balcony on the Indy for 8 days for only $500 more. Our kids love the Freedom class ships and so do we :D:D

 

THANK YOU RCI!!

We booked this too! I was overjoyed as it was looking like we weren't going to be able to do a balcony (which is more or less essential to us with a 1-year old and 3-year old who need naps and decent bedtimes), and now we have a balcony over thanksgiving on Indy for not that much more than the insides on non-holiday weeks I was looking at :-).

I have a few nursery questions, I'm going to add them here instead of starting a new thread since they are related.

1. How is availability, specifically evenings and port days? If I go sign up right when we board should we get the times we want. We're cruising thanksgiving week, so I'm thinking there may be more babies (certainly more school-aged kids)

2. Is there a cap to how much you can book on the first day? (I.e. You can book 10 hours embarkation day and then add more if it's available the next day).

3. Do they make a decent effort to calm the kids (similar to daycare?) our baby will be right around a year old, which is when I remember separation anxiety kicking in with our older child. She would usually be fine within a few minutes, so I am hoping this won't be an issue.

Also, I'd love any updates on toy lending.

We love our maclaren quest! It has been on many flights, to Disneyland and Disney World and on two cruises :-) I love how easy it is to fold, the storage basket, and the recline. You can get a sunshade extender online too (I found one on amazon, it's not maclaren brand or anything, but works great). It easily fit under the bed on both cruises and through all the doorways, we even got dd to sleep in it a few times and would take her (in the stroller) with us around the ship.

If it's car seat transport you are worried about you could always give it to the porters (if you are comfortable with that), I don't see it being worse than checking a car seat at the airport. Not trying to start a debate, as I know car seat transport can be a hot issue, just trying to offer an option. We usually look for car seat free excursions to avoid having to bring ours along, but I did debate bringing it anyways "just in case".

With your positive attitude, I think it will be great! We have cruised with our daughter with the same mentality - it's no harder than at home, it's easier - no cooking, less cleaning, no work and no commuting :-).

We sailed a similar itinerary when our daughter was 16 months.

We did a tour to the ruins in Belize city (booked on our own and the tour was in a large van /minibus instead of a huge tour bus). The ride to the ruins was a bit long, but DD was well behaved (I brought along some snacks and toys, but since your son is a but younger he may be more tolerant of the drive). After the tour we walked around the port and found a bar on the pier where we had some snacks/drinks before heading back to the ship.

For Honduras I we booked a island tour on our own that took us on a drive around the island, to a gorgeous lookout, a stop at one of the places where you can visit with monkeys, birds, lizards, etc (this freaked DD out a bit) and ended with a few hours at a nice beach (and return transit to ship). On this tour it wound up being us and another couple, but they also had the option of booking a private tour. DD loved hanging out at the beach here. We were docked in coxen hole, I think Mahogony bay has a beach close by.

Cozumel - we met up with friends at paradise beach. This requires a cab ride, the beach was nice but got very crowded later in the day and is more geared to older kids/teens vs. babies. They did have a in pool, changing facilities, etc. but I don't know if it is necessarily the best place with a baby, it was certainly fine and we had a great day, but there may be better options.

General cruising with baby tips - take lots of snacks and extra diapers, just in case. We loved having snacks in the room in case DD needed a snack right the. - those little fruit/applesauce pouches are awesome! You can also get Cheerios and whatnot at the buffet, don't forget snacks on your island adventures too. If your LO is still eating purees, you may need to bring those as well (I'm not sure as our DD was eating table food on both trips).

We took our Maclaren and an extra sunshade, which was great because it was a stroller we like and use regularly, it folded up and fit under the bed, and the sunshade made it manageable at WDW (also the storage basket was a huge benefit!) If you don't have an umbrella with these features, i would probably bring your umbrella on the cruise (as a back-up/just-in-case), but rent a nice stroller for Disney. You are walking a lot and don't want to be hunched over and in pain, and a good sunshade is also key depending on when you go. As others have mentioned, there are lots of non-Disney stroller rentals in Orlando renting high quality strollers for a decent price (plus then you don't have to waste precious time after the park opens picking up a strollers).

That one looks decent and pretty small (which is good). We had a similarly sized pool for DD when we sailed and she was 16 months. We only used it once though, on our balcony. You might consider if your child will miss having a pool and how many sea days you have - our cruise was only 2 sea days and we went to the beach 3 of 4 port days, so we probably could have just skipped the wading pool and tried to avoid the pool with DD in tow. (We did a 3-night on Disney when she was 2 and didn't even make it to the designated splash area since we were at the beach both full days and had pool time at our resort on embarkation day).

Not sure if you have a balcony, but in think that is the only way I would be comfortable setting up a pool (or an open deck space that was not crowded), the pool decks just seem very busy a lot of the time, but I think some people on here do setup baby pools on the pool decks, so they might have tips regarding out-of-the-way spaces

We love HAL. I haven't sailed them as a parent, but sailed as a teenage and an adult. I think it is DH and my favorite cruiseline, specifically in terms of food and service. We can't wait until our kids hit the magical age of 3 and they can take part in Club HAL, in the meantime we'll likely stick with lines that have a nursery available. I think smaller numbers in the kids club can be a good thing. I feel like both sailings I did with HAL as a teen had about 20-30 teenagers on board which was enough for us to have fun but probably few enough to keep it relatively calms compared to some ships.

Our 2-year-old transitioned out of a crib this summer, meaning I had to scramble to reconfigure sleeping arrangements for our September trip (I had been planning on using pack-and-plays).

One hotel had the pull-out sleeper sofas, I posted on another board about if you could use bed rails on these, and general consensus was not well - but the noodle suggestion was made. I bought a noodle and, of course, left it at home. We figured we would see how it went with her on the sofa and move her to a "nest" on the found if need be (which is what we do at the grandparents' houses). The arms of the sofa act like partial bed rails, and the full size bed is so large that we had no issues with DD wiggling out - she was also exhausted from all the fun on vacation and no enforcement of bedtime (unless her behavior necessitated it).

We did DCL and they have a pull out sofa that converts to a single bed, they were able to put a bedrail on this, which was perfect (otherwise we would have had to get creative).

If he's still in a crib at home when you sail, I would try for the pack and play, although they do take up a lot of space in the stateroom (we had one when we sailed with her at 16 months and just had them leave it out all the time and our room felt tiny!)

Based on a previous poster I bid $122 for a 4* Downtown Vancouver for 7/6; this bid was accepted. Previous bids of $100 and $110 were rejected.

Special thanks to floridatravelersforlife, now I get to stay at a 4* instead of a motel for the same price!:)