kitkat343

The kids clubs could be reopened on port days next summer but there's no guarantee. Longer term, look into the Baltics and Norway because they are amazing cruises for children - a really nice balance of historical sites with fun kids activities (even in St. Petersburg if it ever is safe to reopen). My trip report under my signature line has a lot of info of what we did in those locations, but please note that Geiranger and Flam might not be available long term to ships that aren't zero emissions due to Norwegian laws.

The room walls are all metal, and Shutterfly occasionally has sales where custom magnets only cost 1 each. My kids loved rearranging the magnets all over the room when they were little. My two year old was crazy strong, and could open the balcony by himself on the Coral Princess, so make sure the balcony door is always locked from the top if there is a top lock. On the first breakfast, go to the buffet and bring back fruit, yogurt and cereal to the room so when your kid gets hungry you always have easy snacks on hand. Please note the following ships have splash pads for children who are still in swim diapers so you are in good shape this cruise: Adventure, Allure, Anthem, Freedom, Harmony, Independence, Liberty, Oasis, Ovation, Odyssey, Quantum, Spectrum, Symphony and Wonder. Your two year old will be eligible for drop off care, but it used to cost 6 per hour (not sure of current cost) and the availability is more limited than the kids club. Other parents should note the following ships do not have drop off nurseries for kids under 3: Jewel, Adventure or Explorer of the Seas®. Please note that for 2 and 3 year olds, some will have trouble with separation so they may or may not be able to go to a nursery or kids club. You can't depend on a break at this age. Hopefully it will happen (the RC kids club staff is excellent) but it can't be depended upon. If you find you like cruising please note that: -Disney and most RC ships offer a fee based nursery - MSC has a baby club for ages 0-3 - Carnival and Cunard allow 2 year olds to participate in free drop off care. Prior to covid, Princess let parents of children under 3 stay in the kids club with them (you couldn't drop off but if you stayed they would take care of your kids. You'd need to check if they still allow this). My biggest recommendation for families traveling on cruises would to take be private tours if you are doing more than just going to the beach. A two year old waiting for 50 people to board a ship excursion bus isn't a good situation, so please find a private tour on either cruise critic's destination board or TripAdvisor. If you can afford it a private tour for just your family is your best bet. You need to be careful about checking cancelation policies for private tours, especially if you ever take your kids on NCL (as far as I know RC only cancels ports when it is necessary so you don't need to worry as much on RC but bad weather can happen anywhere). -

Prior to Covid, NCL kids clubs used to be open during sea days. We sailed the Baltics with them 10 years ago, and that was our backup plan if our 3 year old struggled, especially in St. Petersburg. Thankfully, he loved touring Europe but we dropped him off the second we got back on board and the kids clubs were pretty full. But currently each ship sets its own hours, and on our sailing last January they weren't open while the ship was in port, and according to this posting (jump to 13) they weren't open while the ship was in port during the day on someone else's sailing either. However, it is possible that NCL will reopen the kids clubs during port days by next summer. Their website currently only states "hours vary by ship" whereas pre-covid they guaranteed hours including while the ships were in port. . Please note that given the fact that you are sailing with kids in Europe in the summer I'd recommend looking into the Baltics or Norway since those ports are more easily accessible for kids, and much cooler in the summer than the Med. I had been looking at the Prima's itinerary to Iceland/Norway because the itinerary looked amazing this summer, but didn't book it because NCL has had issues with keeping its itineraries. On my cruise last January on the Getaway, one port and the morning of another was cancelled after final payment to help the environment. When I called NCL to ask them to let me reschedule to an identical sailing a few weeks later because I was. pulling 3 kids out of school for the ports, they refused because they cancelled the ports after final payment. NCL continued to advertise the original itinerary for the next month, and didn't notify passengers who booked with them them directly over the phone of the cancellations, nor did they let them cancel or reschedule. I'd recommend checking the passenger reviews on this year's sailings for the ship/itinerary you are looking at next summer. You can start with their most recent review of the ship you are thinking about sailing and go backwards to see what recent sailings have been like. This is the star (one of the oldest ships in the fleet - someone was asking on another forum about the star so I was looking there) but you you can easily google the ship you are considering. https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=704939 Please check the cancellation policies of any private tours you schedule prior to booking.

Thanks for the clarification - I always book independent insurance, so I don't know anything about the specifics of NCL's insurance plans.

It is crazy to not get insurance for a 50,000 trip. However, the second family in the story did purchase insurance. I don't really understand how it can be that if NCL airfare is cancelled you don't get a refund for the cruise if you've purchased NCL insurance. I always book independent flights and insurance anyway, but this always struck me as unfair. The first family I can understand losing their money because they chose to not get insurance, but I do feel sorry for the second family since I think it is reasonable to assume if you purchase NCL insurance you will either get to sail or get a refund.

I just wanted to note that you need to use car seats that have been approved by the FAA on the plane - some of them are too wide for the seats and are not given the FAA approval sticker. Also, please print out documentation that states that you have the right to use car seats on the plane - our Snugride was FAA approved, but halfway through the flight a JetBlue flight attendant started to argue with me that it needed to be forward facing. This car seat is supposed to be installed rear facing on a plane according to the manual, and FAA regulations give parents the right to use any FAA approved carseat, and it needs to be installed according to manufacturer's instructions. The flight attendant told me JetBlue regulations require forward facing seats, but after realizing if she made me wake a sleeping child to try to turn around his car seat (and then needed to take it away because it doesn't install forward facing in a plane she'd have nowhere to put it mid flight) she want away. So now I carry documentation on the car seats. Our car seat just clipped to our carry on with a mommy hook so we could roll it through the airport but you'd need to test this out ahead of time since I don't know if it works with all models (please note that if you want a cheaper mommy hook just go to Home Depot, show them a picture and they can sell you a large hook for cheaper). I think your kids might betoo little now, but long term maybe the bubble bum car seat will work for your family?

Prior to 10 am the HOHO ships used to run directly to Vassa from S167 (there's a painted line you walk from where your ship docks directly to where the HOHO boats are). If you can exit the ship quickly, it was. a very quick, lovely ride and we were able to get there before it got crowded. With only 5 hours, you will need to choose exactly where you want to go in Stockholm. We primarily used public transport which was excellent, but lost a little time finding the tram/subway/bus stops and waiting for transportation (they used to sell one ride HOHO boat tickets, so we just did one ride to Vassa and also one ride from Galma Stan back to the port because I was starting to feel sick since I didn't realize I was pregnant yet on that trip. Unfortunately, the one ride tickets are now discontinued but the HOHo boat is included in the Stockholm pass if you are visiting a lot of expensive museums).

Wishing you a safe journey. Very glad to see RC offering a full refund to impacted guests who will lose a day on the next sailing.

With NCL, if you book private excursions just be careful with their cancellation policies. If you are traveling with small children or passengers with disabilities, make sure to study the recent trip reviews from your ship since that will tell you if there's a pattern of specific ports being missed on your itinerary, and what the alternative ports they tend to dock at are so you can research them in advance. For example, on my cruise on day in the Dominican Republic was cancelled after final payment and the morning of Antigua were cancelled to help the environment. The original itinerary was still advertised for the next month until sailing, and guests who booked after the cancellations were not notified prior to booking and were not allowed to cancel or switch because the cancellations happened after final payment.

Good luck! Hope you are able to have a nice cruise somewhere!

In Roatan, you might want to look at Victor Bodden, who will take you all over the island. There's monkeys and other animals at his house, and Roatan also has an iguana farm and a zip line and canopy walk at South Shore Adventures. In Costa Maya, native choice had a wonderful excursion to minor Mayan ruins, and a delicious authentic lunch cooked by Mayan grandmothers. In Puerto Rico, my kids really liked a private excursion to a rainforest which was run by Let a Local show you Puerto Rico with a list to El Yunque. There was a river in the rainforest you can swim in. From Puerto Plata or Amber Cove you can go visit a monkey refugee where you can hold monkeys (and in Amber cove I believe there is also a very small monkey area right in the port you can visit if you wanted a shorter visit with monkeys) and there also is Ocean World in Puerto Plata). For the Roatan and Costa Mayan excursions, I'd need to note that I visited both of those ports prior to covid. For the Dominican Republic, please note that I can't personally recommend those excursions. We were scheduled to visit the DR on a cruise, but one month prior to sailing NCL announced that they were cancelling the stop in the DR and the morning of Antigua to help the environment. My children had wanted to visit a giant tortoise island that only has tours in the morning, so I contacted NCL to request that we be able to switch to an identical sailing a few weeks later, but they denied that request because they dropped the ports after final payment. They continued to advertise the original itinerary, and didn't let passengers who booked after the port cancellations change their reservations either. This has been happening to a number of NCL sailings so if you chose NCL make sure you check private tour operators refund schedules prior to booking: For NCL, also check the recent ship reviews to see if they are diverting similar sailings to yours and where they might be going. For the DR they'd cancelled that a lot, so I knew I needed to research Nassau and GSK as backups but we wound up with an extra sea day.

Please don't worry - we had a wonderful cruise on Cunard, which is really not a kids' line (they are oddly one of the few cruise lines that take 2 year olds in the drop off kids club programs, so we sailed with them to Norway). And we had a very nice cruise on HAL, which is also not really ideal for kids in general. As long as the kids club is good you all should be perfectly fine (sorry I haven't sailed Celebrity yet so I can't vouch for their kids club). One thing you can do for your child's birthday is decorate all the cabin walls with magnets - Shutterfly periodically lets you print photo magnets on sale for $1 each, shipping included. We celebrated my mom's birthday on a previous cruise by decorating her cabin door, but the walls of the cabin are magnetic too so that's another option. Your three year old will spend lots of time in the cabin happily rearranging the magnets all over the room.

If this is during the summer, I'd recommend considering either a Baltic or Norway cruise for young children, since the ships tend to dock close to main cities, the weather will be cooler and there's lots to do for kids. Do you anticipate your kids liking the kids clubs? If so (and given the limited sea days on most European cruises), I'd go more for itinerary than ship in Europe. We haven't sailed Princess since covid, but precovid they were our favorite line, with an excellent kids club. RC also had a wonderful kids club and both had very good food, so hopefully you will be happy no matter what you choose.

Glad it all worked out - I've found the phone reps on all the cruise lines to generally be less impressive than I've hoped for. Hopefully, you will have a lovely cruise.

Honestly, I waited until my kids were big enough for the kids club, but that's because my family needed it. Other families seem quite happy taking younger children on cruises because they have more energy to entertain their own kids. If you decide to wait please note that: Carnival and Cunard accept children for free drop off care starting at the age of 2 Pre-covid, princess allowed children under the age of 3 to attend the kids club with adult supervision (you had to say there, but they entertain your kid and you can read a book) Disney and some newer/refurbished RC ships have a fee-based nursery, with limited availability. This isn't necessary, but is it possible for you to not travel during spring break? When my kids were younger we went when the school year was in session and it was a lot easier - the kids clubs weren't full which is better for your 3 year old, and the splash pad will be a lot less crowded.

Could you come back and report on your experiences after your cruise next summer? I'd love to visit Iceland with my kids, but was a bit concerned about our ability to find private tours off a cruise ship.

If you get OBC, please just make sure you spend it or redeem it prior to the end of the cruise. I had a .50 balance and the front desk wanted me to spend it or take it in cash the day before because they stated you'd be sent to a long line to resolve it on disembarkment day because they can't let you off the ship if they owe you money. I bought my kid a little duck from the arcade and was able to exit the ship with absolutely no problem.

I just wanted to note that especially in Europe you need to carefully check the terms of cancellation for private excursions because there are some that do not issue refunds under any circumstances - if your ship doesn't dock you are out the entire fee. Travelers who have previously only sailed to the Caribbean are sometimes taken by surprise by this, since in the Caribbean most private operators offer full refunds. If you have trip insurance, that might cover you if the ship doesn't dock. I'm so sorry that happened - the good private tour companies check these things ahead of time. I got confused on. a Panama Canal tour and gave them the wrong date we were in port, because on the Panama Canal cruise Panama is listed twice (once when you go through the canal and again when you disembark the ship in Colon) in the place where the dates for the itinerary are listed on the cruise line website. I realized my error weeks later and wrote to the company, and they told me they had caught the error immediately (they asked me to list the ship I was sailing on when I made the booking and they had double checked that I had given them the correct booking date which I didn't). I was very impressed they did that, and am sorry this company didn't double check your schedule.

Maybe consider Norway by cruise ship and Iceland by land. Norway will be banning cruise ships from the heritage fjords, so if you can get to Geiranger, Flam and Olden soon I'd recommend it.

In January on the Getaway, I was able to make my last desired reservation (early seating, sea day at Ocean Blue) the second I boarded the ship. And we boarded late. You will lose the meals if you don't use them, but as long as you plan to add them the second you board (or try from the terminal - depending on wireless some people were successful in the terminal, though I wasn't) you'll be fine. That being said, I agree with another CC poster who said the only specialty meals worth buying are the ones included with your room. We had sailed NCL 7 years ago and the specialty restaurants were excellent and worth the surcharge. So on our most recent sailing we also upgraded and added an additional two meals in addition to the three that came with our room, and the food wasn't really worth the upcharge for the 2 extra meals not included with the room - the steaks were cooked well in Cagney's, but were served cold, and the sides were ice cold (that's very ship dependent so if people on your ship have been happy at Cagney's recently don't be scared to try). The uncharge for the meals included with your room is fairly low, so its probably worth that.

We easily did both the Loen Skylift and Briskdal Glacier using transportation provided by Olden Adventures (we had small children with us so couldn't take the risk of the public bus selling out)

Roatan is great for kids - precovid Bodden adventures did a great job - they will take you all over the island, and will let you play with monkeys and other animals at their home, and there's an iguana farm and South Shore, which has a really great zip line and canopy walk. In Alaska you can design a trip for children which would be very enjoyable for kids, but would need to be different from the one you previously took. The Bering Sea excursion has a minimum age of 5, and that's an interesting way to learn about crab fishing (I was pregnant when I went to Alaska so you could ask on the Alaska or family forums if anyone has ever taken young kids on this), there are places to play with puppies. There is the extremely expensive helicopter to dogsled on a mountain (but there's no discount for kids on that excursion). There's the Mt. Roberts Tramway, which leads to easy hiking trails your kids could explore and beautiful views. If you want a more adventurous trip, you can wait until they are older. We sailed in late May and the weather was perfect, but it can be cold if you aren't lucky.

Check the number of cruise ships in port on your day in St. Lucia. The cruise timetable website lists this information. When we were there, the getaway and another NCL ship were in port. The Getaway was docked downtown, which created massive gridlock so if two ships are in port check the google traffic carefully to ensure you allocate enough time to return. We travelled to St. Lucia with a 4, 8 and 12 year old. The Pitons were beautiful, along with the drive in volcano/mud baths and waterfall, but it is quite a long drive from he port through windy roads to get there, and if there are two cruise ships in port they will be extremely crowded, which will make these beautiful sites a bit more difficult to appreciate.

Norway and the Baltics are wonderful cruise options for families with small children. We've done both the Baltics and Norway with young children (Baltics with a 3 year old; Norway with a 2 and 6 year old). My three favorite ports for Norway were Olden, Geiranger and Flam. Olden has the amazing Loen Skylift and Briskdal Glacier. The glacier has been hit hard by global warming, but it is a beautiful ride and hike to the glacier (a troll car can be rented to take you most of the way there. My 2 year old managed the short remaining hike and we all managed to see the glacier). Geiranger has lovely viewpoints, and Flam has the amazing flam railway and we visited a lovely goat farm there. Parents need to note that taxis in Norway are not allowed to transport small children without car seats. They are required to provide them upon request, so you need to make all transportation arrangements ahead of time. Please also note that Norway will be banning most cruise ships from the heritage fjords which includes Geiranger and Flam unless they comply with zero emission standards, so if you have the opportunity to visit them soon you might want to go. The Baltics had larger cities, but I found it quite manageable and wonderful for children. My 3 year old absolutely loved Stockholm, especially the Vasa and the open air lemur exhibit at Skansen. We visited the Molli steam train in Germany, and Tallinn is a great destination for children to wander around, plus there is a really good hands on seaplane museum that is wonderful for small children. There is a lot more detailed advice on these trips in my trip reviews in my signature lines (please note that I'd also strongly recommend Alaska and the Panama Canal cruises for families with young children) My biggest advice for families in Europe would be to stay off of ship tours whenever possible, and book private excursions (most of the Baltics are really easy to DIY thanks to the amazing local public transportation systems) with the exception of St. Petersburg where you should consider a private tour for just your family if you can afford it if it ever reopens. The 10 day roundtrip Panama Canal cruises from Ft. Lauderdale are actually really convenient from the East Coast of the US and on Princess you'd visit Costa Rica, Cartagena which is actually incredibly beautiful though quite hot, the Grand Cayman Islands (there's a nice stingray city and turtle farm here) and Jamaica (we went to a different port in Jamaica on our cruise so I'm not sure what to recommend near Falmouth but Scotchies is has several locations and has really good jerk chicken). Because travel for families is much easier with private excursions, you need to be careful with NCL. On my last sailing they cancelled one port my kids really wanted (the Dominican Republic) and cancelled the morning of another (Antigua) which prevented us from seeing the giant toirteses because that's only open in the morning after final payment for "environmental reasons". I called NCL and asked them to let me switch to the same cruise a few weeks later and they refused because they'd made the itinerary changes after final payment. For an entire month, they continued to advertise the original itinerary on their website after the changes were made and even people who called NCL directly to book after the changes were not told of the changes and weren't able to cancel either. Other passengers have reported experiencing this also: Please note that southern Europe can be a little more difficult for families due to the heat in the summer, and also because some of the ports are harder to access (Rome isn't that close to its port, Venice has banned cruise ships leading to either a 1.5 hour tender or 2 hour bus ride from a nearby city, Santorini is absolutely beautiful but tough to access with the cable car lines and the donkey ride would be difficult with children. My 29 year old brother lost his sandals on the donkey ride, and I was scraped against the side of the stone wall and was bleeding a little). There was quite helpfully a store that sold shoes at the top of the donkey path). There's also a cruise that I took many years ago on carnival that I think was called Western Caribbean - it visits Roatan, Belize, and the Grand Cayman Islands. Roatan is great for kids, with lots of animal experiences, Belize has a great zoo and the Grand Cayman Islands have stingray city and a turtle farm.

The cruise ship contract needs to give cruise ships total authority to make changes to the itinerary because there could be emergencies which require changes for safety. No one wants to put a captain in a position in which there is a financial incentive to stick to the original schedule if they are trying to decide if it is safe to dock. The problem becomes when NCL uses the language that was supposed to be for emergencies to make announcements after final payment to make changes to the itinerary for reasons like helping the environment (which is what they claimed for the itinerary changes on my cruise). They then use the language in their contract which was intended for emergencies to prevent passengers from cancelling or changing sailing dates (we pulled three kids out of school for our cruise because they would have loved the original itinerary, so I asked NCL to switch us to another sailing which wound up making all of the ports but they refused.) In terms of compensation, you are not technically owed anything (I'm not sure about port fees - there are forum postings on port fee refunds every so often, with people debating whether they need to be returned and some saying port fees are estimated and they might go over in other ports so you don't always get them returned). I don't know what the guidelines are, but on our cruise we got back $10 per person. But compensation goes up when passengers band together to complain, as they did in the examples below in which initially NCl was going to provide no compensation. (which they are allowed to) but after passengers protested they increased compensation. But I was also on a cruise from NYC, and a significant percentage of the ship was just happy to be out of the cold and utilizing a drink package, so they didn't care about the port changes. Other passengers were very upset that NCL continued to advertise the original itinerary for a month after the ports had been cancelled but there wasn't enough protest to create enough pressure for any significant refunds. Its possible the European laws provide more consumer protection, but I don't know much about that.