Just Back - Oasis with 3 Year Old

[LisaT91403]

I will write up a trip report soon, but in the mean time, feel free to ask any questions you may have. We sailed 6/18 - 6/25, and had kids ranging in age from 3 - 10 in our group. So ask away!

[mickeyd]

What sleeping arrangements did you have for the 3 year old? We are considering doing a cruise with our 2 year old, but we're not sure if she will be too big for a port-a-cot, or if we should look for a cabin with a sofa bed.

[LisaT91403]

We were in a Junior Suite that had a sofa bed. The curtain in the JS pulled all the way across the cabin, and it was a blackout curtain...so it was like having two rooms, in a sense. The sofa bed was big, probably the equivalent of a full size bed, and my son was very happy in it. We brought inflatable bed rails with us, but never used them. You could try them if you were worried about your daughter falling out.

[lolakat]

What types of activities did they have for the 3 year old outside the kids club? What activities could you do together as a family including a child of that age. I've really wanted to try the Oasis with our 3 yo but went with Disney due to the activity schedule for the pre-school set. DD won't go to the kids club so I like to have things to do with her during the day.

 

Thanks!

[LisaT91403]

What types of activities did they have for the 3 year old outside the kids club? What activities could you do together as a family including a child of that age. I've really wanted to try the Oasis with our 3 yo but went with Disney due to the activity schedule for the pre-school set. DD won't go to the kids club so I like to have things to do with her during the day.

 

Thanks!

 

DS never went to the kids club during the day. He went to 3 of the evening sessions (which ran from 7:00 - 10:00), as he had taken a nap on those 3 days so he was able to stay up.

 

Here are some things we did during the day:

 

- Pool/splash pad. He would have stayed there all day, every day if we had let him.

 

- Shows. We chose daytime performances of the ice show and Come Fly with Me shows, and others in our group also went to a matinee of Hairspray. We didn't do that because we didn't think our guy would sit for a 90-minute show of that nature. We also went to the Splish Splash diving show during the day, and the regular Oasis of Dreams aqua show at 7:30PM. There was also a puppet show one day, and it was great.

 

- Carousel, carousel, carousel. He loved it, and rode it a million times.

 

- Boardwalk Family Festivals. These were every afternoon on sea days, and had themes such as pirates, circus, and music. Lots of fun.

 

- Some with kids in our group played miniature golf, and some also went ice skating. We didn't do either, but they are certainly options if you are interested.

 

- There are Dreamworks character interactions all over the place. Some are just a "meet and greet", and others are photo opportunities. We also did the Dreamworks character breakfast one morning, and that was fun.

 

- We did Pets at Sea (like Build a Bear) one day. That didn't take much time, but it was still fun.

 

- During port days, we went to the beach...and that pretty much took up the whole day for us.

 

We never had a free moment, and still didn't get to do/see everything. Have fun!

[QTMichele]

We are going on Allure with our kids in February. Our youngest will be 3 and I'm very excited to show him all the possibilities. :) I'm motivated to get him potty trained so he can enjoy Adventure Ocean - hope that's not too difficult for us.

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[LisaT91403]

We are going on Allure with our kids in February. Our youngest will be 3 and I'm very excited to show him all the possibilities. :) I'm motivated to get him potty trained so he can enjoy Adventure Ocean - hope that's not too difficult for us.

 

 

We potty trained our son in November (Thanksgiving week) to get him ready for the June cruise. We did the "3 Day Potty Training" method, and while it took more like 2 weeks rather than 3 days, it did the trick. The only issue we had is that our son is not potty "self sufficient", which is what they require for Adventure Ocean. DS has amazing control and never has accidents, but he still needs help with wiping and getting his pants up/down. The AO staff is not allowed to help with this. So, we just took DS to the bathroom right before dropping him off, and then took him again when we picked him up. Since he wasn't there very often, it turned out not to be a problem. We also had a back up plan of checking him out of AO just to use the bathroom, then putting him back in for the rest of the session. We never had to do this, but it was an option.

 

The AO staff was really great, and they were patient with us/DS when drop-off proved to be a little bit difficult.

 

The babysitters we had were also excellent.

[QTMichele]

I'll have to look into this "3 day training" technique. With my girls, I was very patient and let them lead in the potty training when they seemed ready (around 2 1/2). It worked very well and both my girls were trained in less than a week with only a few accidents. On the other hand, I'm not so sure when my son will be ready to "self" train. He's interested now, but I'm not certain he's quite ready without a lot of work from me. I'm willing to put the work in, but I'd prefer to wait just a little longer to see if he'll be more ready, if that makes sense.

 

I'm glad things worked out for your son! It wouldn't surprise me if we had a simliar plan to yours, especially with BMs (my son has had issues there for a long time). Thanks for sharing your experience!

[kittycruize]

Can you tell me if you went on the Eastern or Western itinerary? If you went on the Eastern, can you tell me what you did in St Martin? I am looking for a beach adventure without too much travel, but am not having any luck, and do not want to go to Orient beach!:)

[LisaT91403]

Can you tell me if you went on the Eastern or Western itinerary? If you went on the Eastern, can you tell me what you did in St Martin? I am looking for a beach adventure without too much travel, but am not having any luck, and do not want to go to Orient beach!:)

 

We were on Eastern, and went to Orient Beach (and had a FANTASTIC day there...couldn't have been better!) I have heard that Le Galion is great for kids. We didn't go because we had mixed ages in our group, and some wanted the "action" of Orient. But we would have gone to Le Galion if it had been just us.

 

You can read about it here:

 

http://www.sint-maarten.net/St-Maarten-Beaches/LeGalion.html

[kittycruize]

Can you tell me if you went on the Eastern or Western itinerary? If you went on the Eastern, can you tell me what you did in St Martin? I am looking for a beach adventure without too much travel, but am not having any luck, and do not want to go to Orient beach!:)

[kittycruize]

Since we will be with young children-3 and 6- we don't want to go to a nude beach!:cool: I cannot find any other shore excursions for any other beach! Also, what did you do in St Thomas/St John? Thanks for your advice!:)

[LisaT91403]

Since we will be with young children-3 and 6- we don't want to go to a nude beach!:cool: I cannot find any other shore excursions for any other beach! Also, what did you do in St Thomas/St John? Thanks for your advice!:)

 

 

Orient isn't "nude" unless you go all the way down to the clothing-option section. There are still some topless sunbathers, but my 3 year old didn't notice (way too busy building sand castles and playing in the water...and he wouldn't have noticed anyway). We had kids up to 10 years old with us, and nobody cared. But, it's whatever you are comfortable with. Le Galion is still on the French side of the island, so I'm guessing you could have topless people there too. You should post on the Ports of Call board for St. Martin if you are really concerned. We did not do an "excursion"...we just hopped in a cab...really easy, and a lot less expensive than paying for an excursion.

 

We went to Megan's Bay in St. Thomas. Again, no "excursion"...just got into a cab. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have picked Megan's. It was a very nice, calm beach...which was great for our 3 year old. But, it was super crowded. You basically had to try to find a patch of sand to squeeze your towel onto so you could sit down, and it was wall-to-wall people in the water. Too crowded for my tastes, and not comfortable just to sit in the sand.

[kittycruize]

Thank you for the advice! Where would you go in St Thomas? If you grab a cab, what about car seats? Just not sure what to do on either island!

[LisaT91403]

I'm not sure about St. Thomas...you should check on the Ports of Call board for St. Thomas.

 

I don't really want to start yet another car seat discussion. There have been a million of those on this board, so you can search, read, and decide what you want to do. I will say that the cabs in St. Thomas were open-air safari type vehicles with long bench seats...more like a bus than a car. The ones in St. Martin were 14-passenger air-conditioned vans.