Cruising with an Infant (Celebrity)

[alissab]

Hello all,

My husband and I were supposed to go on a babymoon cruise in May with Celebrity, but it has of course been cancelled. We would like to take the future cruise credit they offer because we love to cruise and it is such a great deal. Our only concern is we will then have a baby joining us. This is our first baby so we have no idea what our new life will look like, but if we do take the future cruise credit it will have to be before December 2021. That means we will have a 6-15 month old coming along with us. 

 

Our current thought is to try out a Bermuda cruise (which given the current sailing options baby would be around 8 months). We figure since we will be docked for 3 days we can take our time exploring and plan the days around baby's schedule without feeling too rushed or like we are missing out. Also, we don't mind missing out on main room dining or shows and we hope to bring along some grandparents/family to help out.

 

I am hoping for advice, opinions, or anything specific about cruising with a baby on Celebrity.

 

Thank you!

[1025cruise]

Go for it. People cruise with infants all the time. 

[cb at sea]

Hey...whatever you do at home, you will do on your cruise.  You are now a FAMILY....and that's how you'll be vacationing from now on!  I would book a balcony, so I could have somewhere "to be" when baby is napping or down early for the night!  Life changes when you have kids!  Go with the flow!

 

[soozles]

We went on a celebrity cruise to Bermuda with our then 8 month old. We chose bermuda because we can drive to NJ, and liked just staying in one port for 3 days. As long as you have the mentality that you probably won’t see much of the island, you’ll be fine. We had all these plans of what we would do on each day, and then very quickly dropped them all. 
 

if you go before they are mobile, it’s actually not that bad. My son loved strolling around the ship. We did our daily ship tour every morning, and he very quickly made friends with the people in the coffee shop, the pastry man in the buffet, cruise director, and captain. It was also fairly easy to keep him occupied, and he was able to actually try a bunch of new foods on that cruise. Be aware though that celebrity doesn’t offer any babysitting services for under 1 year old. They do have a toddler time in the kids club for a couple hours a day, but you have to be with them. 
 

as for the ports, we went to horseshoe beach on the first day, which was fine but so crowded, and the line to get an umbrella was insanely long. We spent a couple hours there, but he was getting tired and cranky and it was so hot. The second day we took the ferry to Hamilton. I probably wouldn’t do this with an infant, honestly. We did go into a museum for some AC which was actually very interesting, but I felt being there with him was a little stressful. He was hot and cranky, wanted to sleep, but couldn’t comfortable nap in the stroller because he was so sweaty. And then having to wait for the ferry with an overtired baby is just not the most fun thing in the world. On the third day we just went to the beach in the Dockyard. It wasn’t as pretty as horseshoe bay, but my son didn’t seem to notice or care. We didn’t want to venture far on the last day. 
 

He has since been joined by another baby, and we are hopefully going on a cruise with them in September. They will be 11 months and 21 months at the time of the cruise. The cruise is supposed to have 2 days in Bermuda, among a couple other islands. We basically already decided we won’t do any island touring, we will just stick to the beaches off the pier that are close by. The kids won’t care and I just feel like it will be less stressful. In case someone has a meltdown we can easily get back to the ship instead of having to worry about cabs and ferry’s. 

[INeedAMaiTai]

I took my middle on her first cruise when she was 6 months old (cutest passport picture ever).  You just go with it.  The only change was not going to any sort of club sort of thing at night.  We made sure we had plenty of nap times; even a few in the bars on the couch.  The best was at dinners.  She would gum on a roll or some other safe snack while we ate.  One of the best moments was she wouldn't calm down at dinner and the maitre d picked her up and paraded her around the dining room, which she enjoyed and we could finish our meal.  The staff likes babies and kids (as long as they are pretty good).  They are all missing their kids and family at home, so a little life for them to laugh with is great.

[ToniV]

Remember, your baby can’t enter pools or hot tubs, not even the family pools. Must be toilet-trained.

[Stricks08]

Go for it! We took our 9 month old twins on the Silhouette last November and it was great! It was definitely a different trip than we had pre kids but still amazing. They loved just going from place to place seeing all the people and hearing the live music.The staff and crew are amazing with little ones. One thing that worked really well for us is that we brought a small blow up kiddie pool with us - we used it on our balcony and up on the lawn club, the kids loved it and it was super easy to manage.