Just back from Carnival cruise with 2 yr old---my thoughts

[cruisinbanddirectors]

We just got back from a cruise on the Carnival Legend (5/30-6/6). It was our fourth cruise, but first with our 2 year old DS. I was a bit nervous before hand, but it went fabulously...probably in part to great advice we got on this board.

 

If you're interested in my full review, you can catch it on the Carnival board, but for here, I'm just going to post some family related things that stood out for us.

 

Any questions ask away!

 

□ If you don’t mind taking a little time, take advantage of the self-serve laundry on Carnival. $3 each to wash and dry, but helpful when you have little kids.

□ There were some things we could use for snacks from the Lido, but thankfully I brought a few things as extra snacks which worked great for excursions. FYI…you weren’t supposed to take fruit off anywhere (which was something we never remembered from previous cruises.)

□ If your child is picky, be prepared to have some difficulty at the Lido buffet finding things for them. Things like plain veggies are hard to find, so you might have to improvise or plan ahead for that.

□ The best suggestion I think I got on this board was packing all our DS’s casual outfits in Ziploc bags. I used gallon bags and put the outfit along with socks (unless it was to be worn with sandals) in there. That way, it was easy to just grab and go. We could also throw an extra outfit in his backpack for excursions or Camp Carnival and it was already in a plastic bag. DH didn’t have to worry about matching things up, and when we were done with the outfit, we had bags left for stuff like wet swimsuits, etc.

□ Camp Carnival was great. The counselors had great attitudes and were very good with the kids from what we could see. Our DS only fussed once. When I went upstairs to go grab the phone, I ran back to spy and see if he had calmed down. One of the counselors saw me looking for him on the monitor and reassured me he was already okay.

□ Our DS was pretty newly potty trained. He has been in underwear for about 2 months or so and we were a bit nervous about whether he would rebel and how he would deal with auto flush toilets in the airport (forgot to bring post-it notes to cover the sensor) and the loud toilets on the ship. Fortunately he did great (actually loved the ship toilet flush). He had 2 accidents the first day at Camp Carnival, mainly because he doesn’t talk a lot (especially to strangers) and didn’t tell them he needed to go. They apologized profusely and said they had tried to get him to go but he just didn’t want to and said the 2nd time they just put on a Pull-Up (which we had just in case) which of course we understood. We knew this was not their fault, and decided from there on, we’d send him to Camp Carnival in a Pull-up just in case. And wouldn’t you know, he was dry every time. We also went with Pull-Ups on excursions because we were never sure how quickly we could find restrooms. All in all, this part of the toddler experience went great.

□ We packed some sand toys we got at the dollar store which worked great. Per suggestion we also packed a few disposable bowls, sippy cups, and spoons. The bowls we didn’t use and I think we used 1 cup and 1 spoon…probably could have left that stuff at home.

[dmr19]

Thanks very much. Post-it notes! What a great idea! In my many years of parenting, I haven't heard that one before. We'll head to the dollar store for good little playthings for our littlest before our cruise next week.

[Julienatul]

Glad you and your family had a great time!!

[sunrise&set]

Sounds like you had a great time. I also have never heard of the post-it notes for the toilets - great idea. DS didn't mind them though. I love cruising with him - so much to do!!