Excursions with buses that are safe for children without car seats in Caribbean

Our group of 10 (including 4 children ages 5, 4, 3 and 2)will be traveling on the Allure of the Seas in July 2018. We are not taking carseats on the plane and will be using bus shuttles from airport to cruise portand will not require car seats there.

The issue is with port excursions. Taxis in Nassau, Mexicoand Roatan do not have car seats and do not require them. We will not allow ourchildren to ride in cars without car seats and have heard that even if we didbring car seats with us, most taxis in these countries cannot accommodate UScars seats. Cannot get straight answer from RCCL if the excursions we areinterested in use buses that are safe for children to ride in without carseats. How have other cruisers handled this? The Allure is a great ship but would like to go on excursions in some of the ports and have child-safe transportation.

I posted on one of the ports of call boards.

The reality is you will have a mix of buses but they will be no more unsafe or safe then buses in other countries including the USA.

Having had young children these ages on cruises and then more recently having taken our children and grandchildren on a cruise a few month ago I would not be doing excursions with them. IMHO they are just too young to sit for very long and to go on an excursion. I don't think that would be much fun for them or the adults.

I would be looking to take them to beaches and even parks that are within walking distance of each port. Some will need naps and being able to go back and forth between the ship would be good.

Good luck with what you end up choosing to do in port but I really would reconsider doing excursions with children of these ages.

Happy New Year.

Keith

Thanks Keith

janets, you are very welcome.

Keith

We have taken our children to costa maya and roatan, along with many other Central American countries. The private tour operators have all been able to accommodate our request for cars with seatbelts in the back, which means you can install an American car seat (not with latch but with the seat belt). We didn’t find it too inconvenient to bring car seats, but our oldest was in a booster when our youngest needed a car seat so we’ve never lugged more than one full size car seat at a time. You’d need a lot more and I can understand not wanting to lug them around. One possibility is to see if your hotel would let you ship cheap car seats there from amazon or if you could visit a Walmart to get them prior to the cruise.

We’ve had a lot of success with private tours, since we can control the itinerary and stay at destinations as long as our kids are happy. The only ship tour we took was a disaster (we weren’t allowed off the ship in panama unless we had a ship tour). My son melted down on a wildlife boat tour and ruined everyone’s experience. You might be able to find ship tours that take you to the beach. In roatan if you choose to bring the car seats, Bodden adventures did a great job of taking us all over the island - we visited monkeys, parrots and the iguana farm, and then did an eco walk across hanging bridges. They can take you anywhere you want to go. And in costa maya, we visited the Mayan ruins with native choice which was great. At least one independent provider in Costa Rica offered to lend us car seats, so you can try to contact independent providers to see if they’d help you with this but then you’d be dependent upon their having the right size and the car seat not being expired.

In Nassau, you could take the #10 Jitney bus to Ardastra Gardens (get off at the Fish Fry and it is a short walk from there). There are aviaries and other animals to see there — plus a fun flamingo show. There are also beaches within walking distance of the port, as well as museums and other sites.

In Roatan, ditto the recommendation for a private tour. You can usually get a van with seatbelts for everyone.

We also have an inflatable booster seat (a Bubble Bum) which we traveled with for many years. It takes up almost no space in our luggage or backpack and easily inflates when needed. It can attach to any 3-point seatbelt. I think we started using it when our son was 4 and we stopped using it when he turned 8.

Our group of 10 (including 4 children ages 5, 4, 3 and 2)will be traveling on the Allure of the Seas in July 2018. We are not taking carseats on the plane and will be using bus shuttles from airport to cruise portand will not require car seats there.

 

 

 

The issue is with port excursions. Taxis in Nassau, Mexicoand Roatan do not have car seats and do not require them. We will not allow ourchildren to ride in cars without car seats and have heard that even if we didbring car seats with us, most taxis in these countries cannot accommodate UScars seats. Cannot get straight answer from RCCL if the excursions we areinterested in use buses that are safe for children to ride in without carseats. How have other cruisers handled this? The Allure is a great ship but would like to go on excursions in some of the ports and have child-safe transportation.

We travel with mifold booster seats. They fold down to the size of an iPad so easy to bring along. We have managed to get taxis in port with seat belts every time so it is possible but not necessarily easy depending on the port (BVI we actually threatened to just return to the ship when the taxi stand kept trying to pressure us to just accept a taxi without seatbelts, that was enough for them to understand we were serious and they got us a van with belts). I will not allow my kids to ride at home without a car seat and don’t believe vacation eliminates risks.

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With 6 adults (and 4 kids) I would look to trade off. 2 adults each port stay on ship with the kids. We last cruised with our almost 4 yr old and stayed on ship (allure). The pools were empty. Those were our swim days. We had ice cream, rode the carousel (endlessly). In Jamaica and Labadee we got off the ship and walked around for 15-30 min then got back on.

It costs a LOT to do an excursion and NONE of them are rating for kids that young that are worth doing WITH kids that young. Our daughter is very well behaved but she would just be bored on an all day bus tour and I'd be having to fuss with her so I'd miss everything. Way to much money spent for that.

Stay onboard, have a blast doing kid friendly activities. Also, have the adults staying on the ship make use of the kids camps so they have some free time as well.

We sail again with our daughter in February she will turn 5 in March. We are again staying on board. The fun excursions still won't accept her.

In case you haven't flown with the kids before...I strongly recommend bringing car seats on the planes. Especially for 2-3 year olds. They can undo their lap seat belt very easily (lift flap) and if they are bored or upset they will unbuckle and good luck getting them back in! My friends husband is a pilot and a while back her had to delay the fully loaded plane over an hour as a 3 yr old could NOT be buckled. No matter how many adults tried they could not get him to sit and stay buckled and they could not fly until he was buckled. The family ended up having to deplane :-( Our daughter is a very easy traveler but we still lug her car seat on each flight. She is secure, content in her familar seat. She can reach the seat back tray while in her seat and its perfect. We have it with us to get to and from the airports and just pop it on a small suitcase luggage cart ($30) and pull it and my heavy backpack strapped on. So easy and so worth it. It fits nicely in the cruise ship closet. Definately recommend it!

With 6 adults (and 4 kids) I would look to trade off. 2 adults each port stay on ship with the kids. We last cruised with our almost 4 yr old and stayed on ship (allure). The pools were empty. Those were our swim days. We had ice cream, rode the carousel (endlessly). In Jamaica and Labadee we got off the ship and walked around for 15-30 min then got back on.

 

It costs a LOT to do an excursion and NONE of them are rating for kids that young that are worth doing WITH kids that young. Our daughter is very well behaved but she would just be bored on an all day bus tour and I'd be having to fuss with her so I'd miss everything. Way to much money spent for that.

 

Stay onboard, have a blast doing kid friendly activities. Also, have the adults staying on the ship make use of the kids camps so they have some free time as well.

 

We sail again with our daughter in February she will turn 5 in March. We are again staying on board. The fun excursions still won't accept her.

 

In case you haven't flown with the kids before...I strongly recommend bringing car seats on the planes. Especially for 2-3 year olds. They can undo their lap seat belt very easily (lift flap) and if they are bored or upset they will unbuckle and good luck getting them back in! My friends husband is a pilot and a while back her had to delay the fully loaded plane over an hour as a 3 yr old could NOT be buckled. No matter how many adults tried they could not get him to sit and stay buckled and they could not fly until he was buckled. The family ended up having to deplane :-( Our daughter is a very easy traveler but we still lug her car seat on each flight. She is secure, content in her familar seat. She can reach the seat back tray while in her seat and its perfect. We have it with us to get to and from the airports and just pop it on a small suitcase luggage cart ($30) and pull it and my heavy backpack strapped on. So easy and so worth it. It fits nicely in the cruise ship closet. Definately recommend it!

Ditto, Definitely safest for the kids to travel with car seats. On the plane, in port, everywhere.

I just wanted to encourage you to look deeper for fun things to do with your daughter on your trip, if that’s something that you’d like to do. I don want you to feel stuck just because of your child’s age. We’re cruising in 2 weeks so I’ll know the success after that of course, haha, but our son turns 5 shortly after the trip and he’s autistic and can be quite difficult at times. We won’t let his challenges or age hold us back. We’re taking him to Chankanaab in Cozumel, cave tubing in Belize, and on a glass bottom semi-submersible boat and beach break in Roatan. We’re driving to port with his usual harnessed seat and taking a booster for ports. He’s very excited for all of these and we’ve been prepping him by showing him videos. Yes it will be difficult mostly because of the autism and yes us parents will have to endure some rough times because of it, but we don’t want him to miss out on the opportunities.

Ditto, Definitely safest for the kids to travel with car seats. On the plane, in port, everywhere.

 

I just wanted to encourage you to look deeper for fun things to do with your daughter on your trip, if that’s something that you’d like to do. I don want you to feel stuck just because of your child’s age. We’re cruising in 2 weeks so I’ll know the success after that of course, haha, but our son turns 5 shortly after the trip and he’s autistic and can be quite difficult at times. We won’t let his challenges or age hold us back. We’re taking him to Chankanaab in Cozumel, cave tubing in Belize, and on a glass bottom semi-submersible boat and beach break in Roatan. We’re driving to port with his usual harnessed seat and taking a booster for ports. He’s very excited for all of these and we’ve been prepping him by showing him videos. Yes it will be difficult mostly because of the autism and yes us parents will have to endure some rough times because of it, but we don’t want him to miss out on the opportunities.

Thanks! While the excursions you mention are totally worth it, the costs spent on them for the 3 of us aren't fully worth it just yet. We will spend a week in Florida precruise. When we do land based vacations (we are doing cruises until our daughter is a bit older and doesn't sleep so much) we really like to immerse ourselves in the local cultures and what they have to offer but when we are on a ship like Harmony or Allure we go with the goal of exploring the ship itself :-)

Our daughter is also a BIG sleeper - she is BUSY when awake but sleeps 13-14hrs at night. By the time you add meal times to that...there isn't much time left in a day so we are good spending all our time on the ship! We do look forward to some really awesome big vacations in the future when she sleeps less.

Enjoy your excursions, they do sound amazing.