kitkat343

As a general rule, you can’t have 3 or more consecutive sea days with a child 6-12 months of age. There are slightly more restrictions so please check https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/international-age-policy#:~:text=Infants sailing on a cruise,day of the cruise%2FCruiseTour. and be very careful about analyzing that policy before entering the wrong birth date- if the child isn’t eligible to sail you will be stuck. Can you put a 24 hour hold down and then fix the birth date prior to actually booking?

I taught at Stuyvesant H.S. on 9/11 so I can understand the fear that NYers have. But the difference here is that the WTC was a very well known potential target prior to 9/11. The head of Morgan Stanley's security made every employee run drills twice a year in which they practiced evacuating their WTC offices by walking down the stairs. Only 13 of their employees didn't make it out that day, including him. He had the opportunity to leave but refused, wanting to go back up to make sure all the other employees had safely evacuated. If your cruise were scheduled to visit Egypt or Turkey I could understand their concern and would say that you'd need to wait until closer to June to see how the situation unfolds and then make a decision about how they feel about whether or not they need to cancel. But honestly I felt safer in Bermuda than I do in parts of NYC, so I'm not sure there's much to evaluate here. But if they aren't going to feel safe enough to relax and enjoy themselves, then they should cancel.

If your cruise is to Bermuda, you will be visiting one of the safest destinations in the world. There are other ports that I could understand concern over given the geopolitical situation, but not Bermuda.

The tours are usually subcontracted out to a private tour company. If the tour guide doesn't want to give out their number they should at least give you the phone number of the private tour company so the secretary or owner there can take phone calls in case of an emergency. Also, other people should note that for the future to please put passports in the safe in your room (which you totally may have done). If you miss the ship they will look in the safe and give your passports to the port agent.

Thanks - this is very helpful.

Labadee is a pretty beach. You will easily be able to find a beach chair and go swimming for free. If you think your kids will be happy with that for a day, you don't need an excursion. If your kids like animals, I was at Ocean World many years ago, and back then it was lovely. That would be a great thing to combine with the monkey island in the port if your kids like animals.

My tour guide in Roatan, Honduras worked for Carnival. When they stopped in Roatan he decided on the spur of the moment to just quit and go home. The Honduran government had a law that prohibited cruise ships from leaving unless everyone - passenger and crew, even their own citizens - were accounted for. The ship was held, Carnival tracked him down at his parents' home, made him sign documents that proved he quit and banned him from working there for life. I don't know how many ports refuse to allow ships to leave without everyone, but I'd read that was the rule in Russia (I didn't return to the ship anywhere near late there so I have no idea if that's true). But I think letting a passenger return to a ship depends on local laws and the captain's discretion so you would be risking being thrown off the cruise altogether unless you can get permission in advance. I agree it would be nice to stay in Germany an extra day if it is allowed, and best of luck getting permission to do so.

Thank you all - this is very helpful. There were only interior rooms available and we have five people (2 adults, 3 kids) and we get 2 cabins, but that leaves us with only 4 beds (there's a pullman from the top but the kids aren't allowed to go in there and my youngest wants to sleep with me and my husband has a bad back so the pull down pullman isn't an option) so knowing the couch situation is very helpful. Thanks so much.

Hi does interior room 5073 have a couch on the Queen Mary? Does anyone know or is there somewhere on a map I can look it up?

Thanks so much - I was wondering about the history of the regulations of Geiranger and Flam.

Hallasm could you clarify something for me - I was under the impression that the Norwegian government wanted the limitations on travel. Does UNESCO have anything to do with these restrictions?

Oh, if people have children please note that we took a 2 and 6 year old on our cruise, and the review in my signature line has some info on kids and the ports. My kids also liked a tour in Flam where you went to a goat farm and then had a local lunch (which included goat that we didn't tell them they were eating since they'd just played with them).

I took a 7 day cruise to Norway and Geiranger, Flam and Olden were my 3 favorite ports. We didn't visit Alesund, but it is greatly loved on the Baltic forum. Geiranger has amazing viewpoints (please note that the highest only opens after a big annual avalanche, sometime between mid May and early June), Flam has an amazing railroad and Olden has the Loen skylift and Briskdal Glacier (a glacier which has been hit hard by global warming but as long as you know to expect a reduced glacier you will enjoy the scenic ride there and lovely hike to the glacier. There are troll cars you can rent at the Broskdal Glacier if you are traveling with small children or have a disability that would make hiking difficult). One slight thing to note: Norway doesn't allow cabs to transport small children without car seats. If you book cabs ahead of time they are required to provide them, but its important to factor that into your planning if you have small children because most of the ports are too small to have public transportation. We really like RC, but had a lovely time on Cunard to Norway and I would generally recommend choosing a Baltic sailing based upon itinerary and not cruise line. The one exception is NCL, which has been experiencing difficulties keeping itineraries. On my last NCL cruise, they cancelled one port and the morning of another after final payment to help the environment. They continued to advertise the original itinerary for the following month, and didn't let anyone cancel, including people who booked directly with them after the change and were not notified by the NCL phone operators of the changes at the time of booking.

The itinerary looks great. But after my last experience on NCL (they cancelled one port and the morning of another after final payment to help the environment, continued to advertise the original itinerary for a month after the dropped ports and refused to let anyone cancel because this all happened after final payment) I was very concerned about booking the next NCL cruise that I loved the itinerary for - the Prima to Iceland and Norway. And there were a lot of problems and cancelled ports on those voyages and I was really glad I hadn't dragged my 3 kids on that cruise. My best advice would be to go and look at cruise critic reviews of the dawn, and see if they tend to make the itinerary on their baltic cruises . https://www.cruisecritic.com/cruise/norwegian-ncl/norwegian-dawn/reviews And always double check the cancellation policy of any private excursions prior to booking when sailing NCL.

If you are hoping to do more touring than visiting a beach, then private excursions for just your family so you can control the itinerary are really helpful. A beach might be fine on a NCL excursion if there are cabs there so you can get back if your kids get overwhelmed earlier than scheduled. You've mentioned that you've read NCL's reviews, so you would know if that particular ship has been making its itinerary recently. If not, you need to plan out your excursions at the backup destinations that NCL usually goes to if it tends to cancel ports on your cruise (this may not affect you at all, and the reviews you saw would be the best indication of whether or not this is an issue for your individual ship). If making port stops is an issue for your ship/itinerary, make sure you also review the private excursions cancellation policy prior to booking. On the first day, go to breakfast buffet with a bag. Get yogurt, fruit and boxes of cereal to take back to your room. That way you will always have snacks on hand if your kids get hungry at a time when there is limited food available (someone was always asleep in one of the rooms for my family so it was a little harder to order room service and snacks on hand is important). I don't know if you can take sealed yogurt off the ship, but you can take sealed cereal boxes so make sure you have some of those for excursions. Also note that the kids menu is free for children your kids age in specialty dining. One restaurant (Italian) offered to make an appetizer for our kids instead of eating off the kids menu. They told us that was because all the kids menu items are made in one kitchen and it's far for them to travel. We did have to wait awhile for kids meals, so that would make sense. You cannot expect specialty dining to allow your child to eat anything but kids menu for free, but it might be an option (and is totally up to them since you can always pay for extra food or share your food with your child at a a la carte restaurant, but probably not modernos). Some parents bring small blow up pools to create a bathtub for their children at the base of their shower.

One thing to consider is that your experience for seeing these viewpoints is very weather dependent. On a clear day they are spectacular; on a cloudy one not so much. We were very lucky with our weather in Geiranger, but it was. a little more foggy / rainier in Flam and Olden. The Flam railway won't take up a whole port stop - we easily combined it with a visit to a goat farm a local lunch (traveled with kids and they loved it). You will have enough time for at least two things, and can consider the viewpoint if the weather is good. We travelled in May. I know the railway will sell out and you absolutely need to get tickets for that ahead of time, but there might be availability for the viewpoint that would let you plan that last minute if the weather is clear. One other thing to note is leave yourself time to get on line for the train. The few people who didn't appreciate it got there late and got bad seats and couldn't see much on the ride up (the train stops a few places). The train station is seconds away from the port, so you don't need to allocate much time to get there, but don't plan another excursion first that would make your time tight.

I saw lots of doors nicely decorated on my last cruise. This policy might only exist because NCL doesn't want the hassle of dealing with people who are angry when their door decorations are stolen. We've seen people on these forums asking security to review tapes to find out which passengers stole their decorations. While I understand the frustration of the victims, I can also understand that NCL doesn't want to deploy resources tracking down magnets that have been stolen. If door decorations are banned, NCL can turn a blind eye and ignore them while they are hanging but if someone goes to them to complain about theft, NCL can tell them they weren't supposed to be there and therefore they aren't going to investigate it. I don't decorate my doors because I have small children and don't think it's a good idea to advertise that by putting our family magnets on the door (they have pictures of my kids) - we just hang our magnets in the cabin. I'd only recommend putting magnets on the doors if they don't have significant sentimental or financial value to you - otherwise keep them inside the cabin (the walls are all magnetic too) like I do (for me its a safety thing for my kids, but I'd only put stuff on the door that I wouldn't be too upset if it got stolen). If you put a small magnet on the door to identify it easily, then you won't be too upset if it disappears (which is I'm sure all NCL would do if it decided to enforce this policy) so I think its totally fine to try as long as you have no sentimental attachment to your magnet.

I wouldn't fly just to go to Cozumel. It's totally fine, but not worth a flight by itself. Costa Maya had a nice excursion to the ruins with Native choice and then lunch cooked by Mayan grandmothers (not sure that's an option on a 4 or 5 day cruise but the girls might just prefer a beach day, which is fine for Cozumel but you don't have to fly for that)

Are both parents going on the cruise? It's a pain to get passports because technically both parents need to be present at the application. I wouldn't chance it without both parents since if you get stuck its going to be hard to process emergency passports without both guardians (I don't know what happens if you get stuck overseas without them but in the US both parents have to go to the appointment to get them) Whenever the cruise ship has had an emergency in the past, they have gotten the people without passports back by sea. But if you get left behind in a port, then you are in trouble since it is your responsibility to get back and you will need to apply for emergency passports to fly.

We took a 2 year old and he loved Norway! He's 8 now, so you should contact them directly to see what they are using now but back then they used a large bus. If you do the troll car at the Briskdal Glacier, you might want to ask them if it is possible to get a longer time before you need to return (they give you a time to get back to meet the troll car). My 2 year old slowly but steadily walked all the way to the glacier but it would have been less stressful if I'd thought to try to delay the return time. I had nearly turned around when we almost reached the glacier and was glad we were able to make it since it was a lovely, peaceful spot. We went to Geiranger, Olden and Flam, so if you are doing those ports you might want to look at the review in my signature line to see what we did.

I've sailed the coral princess twice and never noticed they played the love boat song! I think we can definitely cut that if it is annoying people in port! Also, to the people on this cruise, Olden is a great port - the Loen Skylift is amazing on a clear day, and we also did the Briskdal Glacier in the same day - the glacier has been hit hard by global warming, but there was a very scenic bus drive and hike to it, so if you are prepared for a very small glacier it will be quite lovely. There are troll cars you can rent if you can't hike, which leave you with a short, flat hike to the glacier. My 2 year old was surprisingly able to make it. Olden Adventures did a great job of providing transportation to both attractions.

I sailed Alaska on the Coral Princess (really old ship, no kid amenities but great ship for interesting itineraries). Did a one.way from Vancouver, and there were a ton of kids on our sailing in June. Maybe try the Alaska board too to see if they think there would be a lot of kids on that sailing? Ports are amazing for kids in Alaska, so hopefully your child will be happy on that cruise if you pick it for itinerary over boat.

Honestly, I would have assumed that if they let me bid on a category that they had rooms in that category my party could fit into or they will cancel the upgrade. I wouldn't have checked either.

If you arrive early, and it's empty they'll wave you through. If you arrive early and it's crowded they may or may not enforce boarding times. Best of luck to you.

Back when ships had private babysitting they charged the parents at the babysitting rate for all the hours the kids club wasn't open. They wound up with a really high bill, but not much they could do about it. I wonder with a teen if they parents called the port agent and gave permission to let the teen off the boat if RC would be willing to let the teen wait at the port to meet the parents and the whole family could either go home or proceed to the next port together.