Port Excursions with Children

[MississippiMom]

What do you do about child safety seats? We won't be flying, but driving to a port, so I had planned on leaving their booster seats in our car, but . . . What do I do about my 3 and 5 1/2 year olds if we get a taxi or ride a tour/city bus?

 

Am I just being a worry-wart mom? Do I just toss them in whatever vehicle we are going in and pray for the best?

 

Thanks for any insights that you can pass along.

[CruisinFinsUp]

Check the Family cruise board - lots of discussions about this over there.

 

Depending on your ports, some places have taxi's with seatbelts, others dont. From what I've read, San Juan has seatbelts, so some people are taking their carseats there.

 

When we last cruised in 2001, in St Thomas, our Princess booked Island tour was in a converted pick up truck with bench seats in the back. We wedged our then 21 month old between us and hung on. :eek: :D On St. Maarten we had closed in air conditioned tour bus, but no seat belts. We sure were glad we didn't bring her carseat that trip!!! (left it in our van at the pier parking in FLL!!)

 

This cruise we are Western Carr. and most ports are tender. I cannot imagine carting 2 20-40 lbs carseats off the boat, on the tender, and onshore "just in case" the Princess booked tour bus has seatbelts. If no seatbelts, where do you put the carseat??? (never mind no tether anchors!!) There is likely no storage space either. I'm not trying to put my kids in harms way, but I don't really know what else to do. Some situations are just not car seat friendly!! A carseat that is not installed properly is not safe either.

 

Good luck with your decision!!

[MississippiMom]

I had not even come across the "family cruising" section, yet. That is exactly where I needed to be for this type of question. And I have a feeling I will be over there on a regular basis. :)