Formal Night with 3 and 1 year old?

[jetmet]

What do people think of bringing a couple of young kids (DS-3 DD-1) to formal night on a Royal Caribbean 4 night cruise (Jewel)? I can think of some pros and cons of bringing them...Very interested in input, as this will be our 1st cruise.

 

Pros:

They'll look really cute

 

The food (Is it better on Formal Night?)

 

Pictures

 

 

Cons:

They likely will not stay calm and happy the entire meal, and won't be great for the ambiance of everyone

 

Getting everyone dressed and prepped will take a lot of time and energy

 

Stress...

 

Thoughts and advice would be appreciated. In general, how accepting have you found other passengers and RCI staff to be of a child having an occasional and unavoidable meltdown/moment of indiscretion?

 

Thanks-

Kevin

[rebeccalouiseagain]

it's really a trade-off. I think you will have to see how the kids do in the dining room. How long does your 1 year old sit in a high chair at home? What is your usual meal time? Is it the same on the ship? Will your child be grumpy in the evenings or are they more pleasant after a nap?

 

There is babysitting on Royal for 12 months and older. It might be worth it for you and your husband to use that for formal night. I think it would be more enjoyable. You can still get a group picture in your dress clothes and the three year old might enjoy the formal dinner but I doubt the 1 year old will.

[CarnivalGirl3]

We just got back (Disney Magic). We took dd, 14 months, to main dining each night. We typically traded off though as there was no way she was staying the whole time. There weren't any fewer kids on formal night than on the other nights. The servers were great!

 

We go, she'd eat fruit/color, we'd order then one of us would walk around with her till food arrived. Then dh would take her after dinner so I could enjoy dessert and coffee.

 

We also did dining room for breakfast and lunch (minus last sea day, where we ate by the pool). Personally, that's too much sit down and eating (wasting time) for me, but that's what dh wanted to do.

 

At home, dd eats maybe one good meal a day. On the cruise, she ate 3 good meals! The servers gave her lots of attention and had no issues with the extra mess! (Yes, we tipped!)

 

If you're open to going with the flow, and know what your child can do, I say go for it!

[angelndscz]

What do people think of bringing a couple of young kids (DS-3 DD-1) to formal night on a Royal Caribbean 4 night cruise (Jewel)? I can think of some pros and cons of bringing them...Very interested in input, as this will be our 1st cruise.

 

Pros:

They'll look really cute

 

The food (Is it better on Formal Night?)

 

Pictures

 

 

Cons:

They likely will not stay calm and happy the entire meal, and won't be great for the ambiance of everyone

 

Getting everyone dressed and prepped will take a lot of time and energy

 

Stress...

 

Thoughts and advice would be appreciated. In general, how accepting have you found other passengers and RCI staff to be of a child having an occasional and unavoidable meltdown/moment of indiscretion?

 

Thanks-

Kevin

 

If you think your kids will have a meltdown, don't bring them. You can still dress them up and take pictures before/after without them being in the dining room.

[kitty9]

Personally, I love seeing the little ones on formal night. Sure, there are hassles, but the memories are worth it.

[CarnivalGirl3]

dd's only meltdown the whole trip was once we got back to ship after tendering. She had been signing 'milk' for 30 minutes and was NOT happy she wasn't getting her milk. (Dh doesn't agree with nursing in public.)

 

As soon as we handed our cards to the staff, she screamed. No one was upset or made comments. In fact, they moved out of my way so I could run with her to our room!

 

But, we watched her and paid attention to her. She's in that stage she'll act out if she's bored.

 

With carnival, they server lobster and steak on formal night or something as good. I don't remember with DCL and well, NCL sucked so I don't remember either.

 

If it's something that will cause you stress, then send them to the nursery. Personally, dd didn't cause us a bit of stress but we're laid back and we're ok with walking around/leaving.

[B_Mc]

We've done it and enjoyed it! You will see lots of children there.

[gerif]

Of course, only you know how your children behave in a restaurant. Some are great and can amuse themselves with food and small toys. Others, not so much. I say bring them but one of you needs to be prepared to leave and finish dinner in the cabin at the first sign of a meltdown.

[crusinmama06]

As the others said - you know how your children will behave. My girls have always gone to the MDR with us - and they've been cruising since they were infants. If I knew they would meltdown - then I would have gone elsewhere. But generally we made it through dinner.

[RedsGirl]

I have a 18mo and a 4yo and we did 14 nights on the Oosterdam in November. We took both girls to the dining room each night bar one, and this included 4 formal nights.

 

To be honest the dress code in the MDR on formal nights varied wildly anyhow, but my older daughter loved getting dressed up in her special dresses. We had open seating dining, however after night 2 we bascially requested to be sat in the same section as we liked our wait staff and from that point on we were assigned the same table each night. The girls were treated like royalty - after the third or fourth day my older daughter's entree was brought out almost immediately, paper and crayons were waiting for us. Not long after that the high chair was also there ready and waiting. They were fantastic at getting the girls food out fast, along with drinks. We would have been theer a good 1 - 1.5 hours each night, and both girls were great. A couple of times DH took the baby back to the cabin early while we finished dessert, and she really only had one bad night and if she had continued in that vein DH or I simply would have taken her out, but luckily she calmed down so that was fine. Miss 4 fell asleep at the table a couple of times after big days - we had a bench/banquette seat though so no-one could really tell :)

 

We go so many compliments on their behaviour - many times in the dining room and even on shore we had people come up and say they hadn't realised there were children in the dining room and how well behaved they were, that was lovely to hear.

 

In fact on the ship in general, the staff doted on them, and they got alot of positive attention from other passengers - in fact we really only got 'the look' for one woman in particular.

 

I have to compliment the Club Hal staff too (Jeremy and Kate) who did a fantastic job and kept Miss 4 and her ship-mates well entertained with cretive and fun activites. She had a blast.

[sherryf]

All kids are different, and how well yours will do in the dining room depends on many factors, including their personalities, how much experience they have with dining out, etc. The first time I cruised it was a family trip with my first husband's family. Our kids were 8, 5, and 2. His sister's kids were 6.5, 3.5 and 9 months. We fed our kids off the regular menu and the boys (8 & 5) were thrilled to pick prime rib or salmon off the "adult" menu. They knew that they'd get the best food by behaving themselves at dinner. My daughter (2) started with fruit every night, ate off of our plates, and sometimes fell asleep on my lap, but she was never disruptive.

 

My SILs daughters (6.5 & 3.5) ordered chicken nuggets off the children's menu every night. They were sick of them after the 2nd night so wouldn't eat and were restless and whiney. SIL insisted that was all they would eat and didn't even offer to order from the regular menu for them, yet when Grandma gave the 3.5 year old food from her plate, she readily ate it. They gave up and ate in the buffet the rest of the week.

 

Attitude, flexibility, giving the kids food they will eat... it all contributes to how well the kids will do in the MDR. Plus, they look so cute when you get them all dressed up for formal night. :)