First time Cruisers with Toddlers - HELP!

[rgufarot]

We are so excited for our first cruise on the NCL Sky. But have lots of questions. What activites are there for our 3 and 1 year old? Is there babysitting on the ship at night If we want to go to a nice restaurant alone? Do i need the recommended $75-100 per person per day for the kids as well.

Also, we would love any suggestions on hotels to stay at in Miami near the port.

Additionally any reccomendations on excursions on the island would be great?

Should we just pay for the excursions when we get to the island or plan to purchase them on the ship?

 

Thanks so much for the advice!,

[DaisyA]

The NCL Sky is a great choice for the whole family; we have done this cruise twice with my boyfriend’s son, who had just turned four and five at each trip. We used the Kid’s Crew a few times for art auctions and a quiet dinner (basically if we knew he would be miserably bored!). Kid’s Crew is generally free (bonus!), unless you are at port or if it is after 10:30pm, then it is a pretty low hourly rate. The child care providers are fantastic and they issue beepers so they can page you immediately if anything comes up. The only problem may be that, if I remember correctly, your child has to be at least two to take part in Kid’s Crew and I don’t think that they have any kind of babysitting for the younger ones.

 

As for the excursions, we have always booked straight through NCL and have never had a problem. Though there are a lot of people on these boards who can direct you to very reliable off-ship providers, so I’ll leave that up to them. For an excursion on Nassau, I would highly recommend going to Ardastra Gardens and Zoo, it’s a small zoo and botanical garden with free roaming birds. All three of us got a kick out of it when we went.

 

Hopefully this helps! :)

[russianmom]

The 1 yo can not go to the Kids Club but they have a play area set up that parents can take them to called Under 2 Zoo.

There is no babysitting service at night.

My son ( 4yo) loved the Kids Club and is talking non-stop about our next cruise in Feb

 

If you check the Family Cruising board and the Ports of call boards there is a lot of valuable info there on cruising with small children and family friendly excursions