Best cruise for a 1.5 Year Old?

[Meticulosity]

Looking at Royal Carribean or Disney. Although I have read a lot about Carnival on here? Which is the best for child care at this age?

 

We want to have a good amount of adult time and be able to keep 1.5 year old happy and occupied. Do the Disney cruises feel like there are kids EVERYWHERE, making it hard to have adult time?

[6rugrats]

I am not sure what you mean by "best". Really, none of them, if you want full time child care.

 

Your child is too young for the kid's camp on Carnival or RCCL, so you won't have a lot of "adult time" on either one of those ships. On RCCL, your child must be three and potty trained. On Carnival, your child must be at least two years old. Disney does have a nursery for infants/toddlers, at $6.00 per hour; you can prebook a maximum of ten hours before sailing.

[cb at sea]

There are LOTS of "adult only" places on Disney ships (and their private island!)....Disney does have more for the under-3 set than most of the other cruiselines. On them, a child needs to be 2 (on Carnival) and 3 (on RCI) before there's anything avail. for the child. (except on Oasis)

Most cruiselines don't allow diapered (un potty-trained) folks in the pools.

 

With a child that young, it's going to be mainly up to you to entertain your child...just like at home. Kids don't really begin to get the full effect of cruising (or vacationing, in general) until they're older.

Pick the trip that suits you best...baby is just going along for the ride!

[Meticulosity]

'Best' meaning the ability to accomodate a 1.5 year old. Things for him to do...child care etc. I should have mentioned it would be on the Oasis or Allure for RC. We don't need full time care....just some chunks of time during the day or some nice adult dinners. He is potty trained.

[ahamill]

We will be traveling on Oasis in March and picked this ship, for one because it looks amazing, and second because it has the nursery. We did not want to do Disney and it seems like no other ships have a nursery. My son will be 1.5 when we travel as well.

We also have connecting rooms with my mother and step-father so, if DH and I want to stay out late or go out on our own, he can sleep in his crib with the door open so they can hear him. My mother also always takes a nap, so he can nap with her as well.

 

Potty trained at 1.5! Go you!

[Meticulosity]

Ya, early potty training...whole other story. Read here if interested, quite interesting really, when you start to research it.

 

http://www.mattmetzgar.com/matt_metzgar/2009/09/the-great-diaper-scam.html

[Tggrtoes]

Yeah, I just had to post and say "good for you" on the potty training. My son is almost 3 (next week) and we're close, but not 100%. I'm hoping we'll be done by early next year and can try a different line than Carnival (although we were happy with them). But still not sure we're going to be potty trained fully enough to count for cruiseline (completely self sufficient, wiping, etc.)

 

Oh - and Oasis looks amazing and hard to imagine that it wouldn't be great. But, I will say that aside from accomodating your child care stuff, the "things to do" thing isn't that important IMO for a 1.5 year old. DS went on 2 cruises on Princess and couldn't do any kids club (we did have grandparents with) and it worked out great. Lots of tips from the boards here. So many things to look at that just going exploring was a full-time job for me and entertainment for him. ;) Granted, we decided this past year that we would not do any cruise where we couldn't have some sort of child care... those few quiet hours were precious and recuperation from all the running around.

[cosmolulu1]

We're going on Carnival with our 3yo twins (that will be able to do Camp Carnival). Our 20 month cannot BUT between 12-2 everyday you are allowed to bring the baby into Camp Carnival if under 2 under supervision of parent. They do however have babysitting for under 2's on port days.

I am bringing a babysitter along on the trip because I figured there would not be much vacation time at all if I had to run after 20 month old all day long. He can't do the pool but at least your baby is potty trained so that will be an option!

[jam82]

We're going on Carnival with our 3yo twins (that will be able to do Camp Carnival). Our 20 month cannot BUT between 12-2 everyday you are allowed to bring the baby into Camp Carnival if under 2 under supervision of parent. They do however have babysitting for under 2's on port days.

I am bringing a babysitter along on the trip because I figured there would not be much vacation time at all if I had to run after 20 month old all day long. He can't do the pool but at least your baby is potty trained so that will be an option!

 

Camp Carnival staff will babysit the 'under 2' child from 12pm-2pm on sea days for $6 per hour. You have the option to stay, but you are not required to do so. Although they do have port day babysitting for the 'under 2' group, our experience was that they only will keep the 'under 2' until 12pm because they don't want to take the baby to lunch. This was also $6 per hour. In addition, they will babysit (also) $6 per hour every night from 10pm-3am.

[Julienatul]

Looking at Royal Carribean or Disney. Although I have read a lot about Carnival on here? Which is the best for child care at this age?

 

We want to have a good amount of adult time and be able to keep 1.5 year old happy and occupied. Do the Disney cruises feel like there are kids EVERYWHERE, making it hard to have adult time?

 

 

I would say Royal Caribbean. We just did the Disney Wonder in may and we wont be sailing them again. It was way too chaotic. There are kids everywhere and even though there are adult areas there are still children everywhere. It was not at all relaxing for us like other cruises we have been on. Even though there is a nursery, you are limited in the amount of hours you can use them for. I would say RCCL is the best of both worlds. Enough infant activities/babysitting and its not overrun with kids.

[cruisincarly]

We just came back from a Cunard transatlantic with our 18 month old, and it was fantastic. They have childcare by trained/certified nannies everyday from 9-12, 2-5 and a night nursery from 6-midningt. Our son LOVED the childcare & his nannies, the passengers were almost universally happy to see our little boy (we heard about LOTS of grandkids!), and the staff were great with him.

 

You don't hear much on here or elsewhere about Cunard being a "family friendly line" because, you know, they don't really market specifically to families and they don't have any of the Funship Freddy-type mascots or whatever. We, however, were very very pleased with their accommodations for children, and we heard nothing but praise for the kids' stuff from our fellow travellers with kids. All the kids we saw onboard were well-behaved and well-occupied.

 

In other words, I really recommend it, and price-wise, I believe it's less than Disney usually, although more than Carnival. Our 18 month old went for free on our transatlantic, but I'm not sure if that's only for transatlantics, or was a special deal (it wasn't advertised as such).

[mymollysue]

We just came back from a Cunard transatlantic with our 18 month old, and it was fantastic. They have childcare by trained/certified nannies everyday from 9-12, 2-5 and a night nursery from 6-midningt. Our son LOVED the childcare & his nannies, the passengers were almost universally happy to see our little boy (we heard about LOTS of grandkids!), and the staff were great with him.

 

You don't hear much on here or elsewhere about Cunard being a "family friendly line" because, you know, they don't really market specifically to families and they don't have any of the Funship Freddy-type mascots or whatever. We, however, were very very pleased with their accommodations for children, and we heard nothing but praise for the kids' stuff from our fellow travellers with kids. All the kids we saw onboard were well-behaved and well-occupied.

 

In other words, I really recommend it, and price-wise, I believe it's less than Disney usually, although more than Carnival. Our 18 month old went for free on our transatlantic, but I'm not sure if that's only for transatlantics, or was a special deal (it wasn't advertised as such).

 

 

Thanks for the info. I never thought Cunard was a Family Friendly Line and I never knew they had care for 12mo and older! I am going to look into this! Thanks! :D