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Royal Caribbean Nursery


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For those of you who have utilized the Royal Caribbean nursery as a parent/grandparent traveling with a baby under 3: how was the experience for you?  How much time was available to book for childcare?  Were you able to leave the ship for an excursion and leave toddler in the nursery?  Would you use it again, why or why not?

 

Please note that I am only looking for experiences from parents/grandparents etc. who have used this service.  I am not looking for opinions about what kind of mother I am for wanting to use it or how you never used it but think kids should stay at home etc. 

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And i stated in the other post, we have spent thousands of dollars in nursery time.  We loved it, and they loved our kids.  Every baby/toddler is different though but thankfully our two children enjoyed their time in the nursery.

 

You are allowed to book a set number of hours on embarkation day.  This varies ship to ship and based on how many babies/toddlers on board.  Typically between 10-20 hours on the initial day and sometimes extended to day #2.  After that they open up booking to whatever you want after everyone has had a chance to book.

 

It is $6/hour before 6pm and $8/ hour after 6pm.  

 

You can leave for an excursion.  And they will open up early if need be to accommodate an excursion. 

 

Every ship hip has different hours for nursery time.  The smaller ships are a little limited often only having open play in the afternoon and being open in the AM.  This is annoying if you want to put your little one in the nursery during nap time in the afternoon.

 

We used the nursery mostly at night and sometimes during naptime.  

 

The nursery tends to get the most full on formal nights and sea days especially toward the ends of the cruise.  Many times we have met parents who said they weren’t comfortable with the nursery at the beginning of the cruise l,  but after taking care of an infant for 5 straight days on a cruise ship toward the end they start using it at the end and we see them happily sitting in the hot tub child free.   So the nursery tends to book up at the end more than the beginning.  For this reason we typically use our initial allotment of hours for formal nights and then reserving later sea days as the beginning of a cruise most parents are less apt to put their child in the nursery.  This is a pretty consistent phenomenon we have found.

 

We obviously used it again until our daughter aged out last year.  We had one final go around as after she turned 3 she didn’t quite fly in AO as she had a couple accidents.  The staff loved her and wanted to give her one more try as they truly loved having her around but we just felt more comfortable having her in the nursery.  She was potty trained but I think the excitement and different environment threw her off.

 

Keep in mind not all nurseries are created equal.  Some are huge and have tons of space,  some are the size of maybe 3 inside cabins and that is being generous.  Capacity varies by ship but can be 4-16 babies at a time.

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13 minutes ago, rimmit said:

And i stated in the other post, we have spent thousands of dollars in nursery time.  We loved it, and they loved our kids.  Every baby/toddler is different though but thankfully our two children enjoyed their time in the nursery.

 

You are allowed to book a set number of hours on embarkation day.  This varies ship to ship and based on how many babies/toddlers on board.  Typically between 10-20 hours on the initial day and sometimes extended to day #2.  After that they open up booking to whatever you want after everyone has had a chance to book.

 

It is $6/hour before 6pm and $8/ hour after 6pm.  

 

You can leave for an excursion.  And they will open up early if need be to accommodate an excursion. 

 

Every ship hip has different hours for nursery time.  The smaller ships are a little limited often only having open play in the afternoon and being open in the AM.  This is annoying if you want to put your little one in the nursery during nap time in the afternoon.

 

We used the nursery mostly at night and sometimes during naptime.  

 

The nursery tends to get the most full on formal nights and sea days especially toward the ends of the cruise.  Many times we have met parents who said they weren’t comfortable with the nursery at the beginning of the cruise l,  but after taking care of an infant for 5 straight days on a cruise ship toward the end they start using it at the end and we see them happily sitting in the hot tub child free.   So the nursery tends to book up at the end more than the beginning.  For this reason we typically use our initial allotment of hours for formal nights and then reserving later sea days as the beginning of a cruise most parents are less apt to put their child in the nursery.  This is a pretty consistent phenomenon we have found.

 

We obviously used it again until our daughter aged out last year.  We had one final go around as after she turned 3 she didn’t quite fly in AO as she had a couple accidents.  The staff loved her and wanted to give her one more try as they truly loved having her around but we just felt more comfortable having her in the nursery.  She was potty trained but I think the excitement and different environment threw her off.

 

Keep in mind not all nurseries are created equal.  Some are huge and have tons of space,  some are the size of maybe 3 inside cabins and that is being generous.  Capacity varies by ship but can be 4-16 babies at a time.

Thank you!  Are there any ships that you remember that you would generally recommend as better nurseries?  Or that had better splash pads etc?

 

My thought is to let him spend some time in there on an early sea day to make sure he does okay before leaving him for an excursion.  If he doesn't do well we can cancel the excursion and gear more towards him.  Any other suggestions for leaving him in the nursery during an excursion?

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The bigger ships have bigger nurseries and more nursery slots.  The Oasis has I think 16 and the Quantum class has 12 slots.  The bigger ships have a dedicated play space for kids of all ages but really geared to the 3 and under crowd which is nice.  The smaller ships will typically convert either a teen club or card room into a baby play space during the day, although the smallest ships may just have open nursery hours where the nursery is closed and you can go in and play with some toys.

 

Agai., the bigger ships the bigger the splash pads,  although the some of the AMPED ships have bigger splash pads than normally expected.  Some of the non amped ships have literally a small pares no bigger than maybe 8ftx8ft that a baby can splash in.  Even the nicest splashpads neither of my kids cared for for more than 15-20 min. And then they wanted to wander to the big kid area.

 

No real suggestions for dropping of for an excursion.  We never did,  but if I was going to, I would probably get an international travel plan for a day, Verizon charges ten dollars a day to use your current plan in almost all foreign countries call Travel Pass, just for emergencies so they could contact you but other than that just prebook early to make sure there is space.  

 

Also so when first boarding the ship, I always ask the kid count and also the baby/toddler count to get an idea of how competitive nursery hours may be.  On some cruises there may be just 2-3 babies or toddlers total so then it is literally a personal babysitting.   Those tend to be the TAs and Repos.

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