? for crusinmama06

[Cruizingwithtoddlers]

I hate to have to single you out, but you are the best for answering questions:D

So here it goes....

I see that you have been on the RCCL freedom of the seas, what ports did you visit?

We are scheduled to go in Dec 2008 on the RCCL Liberty of the Seas and we are doing San Juan, Puerto Rico

Philipsburg, St Maarten

Labadee, Haiti

If you by any chance have been there, can you suggested anything to do in port with a 4 1/2 and 3 1/3 yr old?

Also we have a E1 balcony room, will the fold out sofa be big enough for the 2 boys to sleep on?

Sorry for singling you out, but you seem to answer quickly, and honestly and I have learned so much by reading your tips and all. Thanks again!

[Dr_DNA]

Wow, I'm impressed cruisinmama! You get your own questions!

 

The corporate spy/cheerleader thing really is working for you, isn't it? :D

[twopugs]

Sorry, I am going to tag onto this question with another for Cruisemama

Cruisemama, you have some great answers but one of your posts has me worried out of my mind. You mentioned that one of your daughters had a bad episode when they were 8 months and had a seizure. This post has given me nightmares. We are going with our 7 month old son and I am already so paranoid about germs. If you don't mind answering....was it a particular virus on ship that she caught? Where there signs that she was ill? Did you feel the medical treatment on board was good?

(again, sorry.....new mother very worried that this cruise was a bad bad idea)

[crusinmama06]

Wow, I'm impressed cruisinmama! You get your own questions!

 

The corporate spy/cheerleader thing really is working for you, isn't it?

 

Jealous :p ;) (Woohoo I get extra bonuses from RCCL when I get called out in a forum...LOL!)

 

Yes I have been on an Eastern Caribbean route a few times (not on Freedom, that was Western) but I can help you with those ports.

 

Let's start with the cabin. If it is the same couch that they have in the suites, then yes the kids will fit. They fold out into a full sized bed.

 

BUT, please double check this with the main RCCL board because a E1 *may* have a different type of couch. But I will post the picture of our couch folded out so you can see how big it was.

 

 

San Juan - unfortunaly you are going to arrive too late to really do any site seeing (or go on any rainforest or falls tour) That's what I don't like about that port. What most people do is just to explore Old San Juan.

 

Labadee (copying my response from another post) - Great beach day. When you arrive you will be met by men carrying beach chairs :D (you may want to bring a few bucks for a tip for them). There is SeaTrek Aqua park...$15 pp per hour. We didn't do that, my kids were content with a water mat...lol)

 

The labadee zip line (kids must be at least 60" tall and 75lbs)

 

There will be a free beach buffet. (food was good enough in my book). The free drink was fruit punch (worked for my kids). Watch for the bugs on the picnic tables.

 

Not to miss - Dragon's Breath Point. Hop on the open air tram (it's free and does a circle of the area). The tram takes you to Dragon's Breath Point. Climb up to the top and listen for the "Dragon Breathing" :eek: (yes it's hokey but I liked it...lol...and the rocks do sound like a dragon is breathing). GREAT photo op up there! And will only take about 30 minutes out of your day, total.

 

St. Martin - We have been on the "Under Two Flags Tour" (an air conditioned bus tour that takes you to different parts of the island). Most recently we have been going to Orient Beach. It is really beautiful there. Don't waste your money on going with the cruiseship unless you really want to...lol. Grab a taxi instead. Orient Beach is a true European beach so tops are optional. And there is a clothing optional resort at the far end of the beach (Club Orient...nothing to see, I assure you) Some families get concerned because they don't want their kids on a beach where they may be exposed to some topless bathers. Honestly, my kids didn't even blink because it wasn't everywhere. Most of the people there are fully clothed.

 

There is another beach closer to the ship called Divi Bay. Some have reported that it is not as nice as Orient but there is more clothing there...lol.

 

Have a great cruise! :D

[Cruizingwithtoddlers]

Thank you for the quick and detailed response. We were not planning on taking our car seats with us on the cruise. So I guess the taxi idea is out of the question. The Dragons breath point sounds really cool! We will definitly check that out. I guess we will just walk around San Juan and do the beach thing in Labadee.

I will post in the main RCCL board about the cabin sofa.

Thanks again. I look forward to maybe cruising with you some day, you and your family are probably a blast on cruises. Also I saw that you are doing Disney in Sept, we will miss you by a month we are planning on going in Oct, maybe next time eh?;)

Thanks you are AWESOME!

Errin

[crusinmama06]

Sorry, I am going to tag onto this question with another for Cruisemama

Cruisemama, you have some great answers but one of your posts has me worried out of my mind. You mentioned that one of your daughters had a bad episode when they were 8 months and had a seizure. This post has given me nightmares. We are going with our 7 month old son and I am already so paranoid about germs. If you don't mind answering....was it a particular virus on ship that she caught? Where there signs that she was ill? Did you feel the medical treatment on board was good?

(again, sorry.....new mother very worried that this cruise was a bad bad idea)

 

 

No of course I don't mind answering. WARNING - LONG RESPONSE.

 

The trip was a back to back with Walt Disney World followed by 7 days on Disney Magic.

 

It was February. We were there to celebrate my older daughter's 5th bday. It seemed like everyone onboard was coughing/sneezing/etc. By Day 5 my older daughter started coughing. So on the morning of Day 6, we took her to the doctor on the ship just to her checked out. The doc wanted her to have some cough medicine so he told my hubby to take the baby and my older daughter up to the cabin and I would wait for the medicine.

 

About 20 minutes later everyone started running around the med center. A nurse grabs me and says that someone just called from my cabin (my sister in law) and that my hubby was bringing in my daughter.

 

Well I thought, my older daughter probably fell on her way up the stairs and got hurt or something.

 

Then I see my hubby running down the hallway carrying the BABY :eek: . She was blue. He eyes were rolled to the back of her head. She wasn't breathing well. And she was foaming at the mouth. :eek:

 

The doctor came running out and grabbed her. My husband was frantic. He said that he put the baby down for her nap in the cabin. He heard strange noises coming from the pack n play. And when he checked her, she was blue. :( My SIL and older daughter were in the cabin too...so they were able to call the ship's hospital to alert them that he was coming.

 

They stuck her on an oxygen monitor and I saw the number 80%.

 

They immediatly intebated her. And the nurse started to try to get an IV started. Her veins were so small :( They ended up giving her valium to get her to stop seizing.

 

She had never seized before. She wasn't sick (before this). So this totally came out of no where. She had no fever (before this).

 

Fast forward a little, after she was stable, the doctor wanted to find a way to get her to the states. The doctor called the captain and asked for a medical evacuation. The captain attempted to dock the ship at Castaway Cay 3 times but the weather was too bad. The captain told the doctor that he couldn't risk us going in a tender boat since the seas were so rough. The original plan was a tender to the Bahamas. Then a military transport plane was going to lift us back to Port Canaveral Medical Center.

 

(Mind you that the same day my hubby had been scheduled to be on a kayak tour which was cancelled due to weather. Can you imagine if we hasn't been there when the baby started seizing? That's why I am so vocal on those kinds of threads...lol)

 

So anyway, the captain decided that it was too risky to get us off the ship in the Bahamas. So he turned the ship back toward Port Canaveral. So instead of arriving at PC at 8am, we were now set to arrive about 7 hours earlier.

 

I spent the worst night of my life with the baby in the ship's hospital.

 

When we docked there was a medical team who boarded the ship and whisked us off to PC Medical Center.

 

Once at PC, they couldn't find the reason for the seizure other than she started to get a fever, her body reacted and she seized. The frightening part was that she had a COMPLEX febrile seizure that lasted 40 minutes...not a normal run of the mill, simple febrile seizure.

 

We weren't cleared to fly out until Monday (this was Saturday). So we spent the weekend in the hotel room waiting to fly home.

 

In a nutshell...the ship did the best job they could. Those docs were much more concerned with my daughter's health than the doc at PortCanaveral (he was rather cold)

 

We didn't use the ship's nursery. She was breastfed. So we did everything we could to prevent her from getting sick....but it happened.

 

We don't cruise during cold/flu season anymore. She has been on 3 more ships since that (she's 3 now). And we don't leave the kids in camp while we go to port.

 

She goes to a pediatric neurologist now. She has had 3 more seizures since that day on the cruise. All of them were due to fevers. Her little brain just sort of misfires and short circuits when she gets a fever. She can go from no fever to 104.9 in the matter of minutes. And the fast temp increase causes her to seize.

 

Now knock on wood, she has been seizure free for over a year. Kids do grow out of this.

 

So we went on a ship having a completly healthy child. This came out of no where, But the doctors did the best job possible. :)

[twopugs]

Thank you so much for your response. When I booked the cruise I had no worries and was sure that cruising was the most baby friendly way to travel. Now, I am having serious second thoughts.

[crusinmama06]

Thank you so much for your response. When I booked the cruise I had no worries and was sure that cruising was the most baby friendly way to travel. Now, I am having serious second thoughts.

 

Hey if I can have THAT experience and still get back on a ship, then there really is no need to worry.

 

What happened to my daughter was a RARE circumstance.

 

I was just reading cruise ship "events" and it lists everything that happens on cruiseships...I can tell you that the majority of the stuff occurred to seniors.

 

Think back and try to remember the last time you watched the news and saw something bad happen to an infant on a cruiseship. (probably haven't ever seen one)

 

NOW think back and try to remember the last time you saw a child DIE at Walt Disney World (Mission Space) :eek: Does that mean you won't take your child to Disney? No of course not. ;)

 

Things can happen anywhere. No matter how much we try to keep them safe.

[cruizinwithkids]

Cruisinmama, can I bother you for a totally unrelated question. Do you visit Disney board(s) as well? My brother and wife are taking their kids and they are clueless. I'd like to point them to a board to do some info gathering.

 

Thanks.

[crusinmama06]

Cruisinmama, can I bother you for a totally unrelated question. Do you visit Disney board(s) as well? My brother and wife are taking their kids and they are clueless. I'd like to point them to a board to do some info gathering.

 

Thanks.

 

There is a message board called Dis Boards BUT it's tough to follow with all of their vernacular. Like when they post you'll see something like "I booked CL at WL because I'll be able to see the FW at MK but I would rather stay at AKL" :rolleyes: (Translation: I booked Concierge Level at Wilderness Lodge because I'll be able to see the fireworks at Magic Kingdom but I would rather stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge"

 

Needless to say, THAT board makes my head hurt...lol. :eek:

 

The BEST research site for all things Disney is

http://www.allearsnet.com/

 

It's really easy to find out the info you need pretty quickly. They have a section on character meals, best dining, pictures for all of the resorts, when to book what.

 

Also, I bought the book "Unofficial Guide to Disney" and it really helped me figure out some insider tips.

[cruizinwithkids]

:D Thank you very much!!!

[taylorsmom]

Michele,

 

I have a question for you, can the portable eddie bauer car seat be used on a plane? thank you for all your helpful info.

[crusinmama06]

Michele,

 

I have a question for you, can the portable eddie bauer car seat be used on a plane? thank you for all your helpful info.

 

Nope, taxis only. On airplanes you are only allowed to use a FAA approved car seat (there aren't many that are FAA approved)

 

If you try to bring any other kind of car seat on the flight they will ask you to check it.

 

There is a kind of FAA approved restraint but it is pricey...

http://www.amazon.com/CARES-Kids-Safe-Aviation-Restraint/dp/B0012E4FV8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1204177356&sr=1-1

 

This is a list I found of some of the carseats that are FAA approved (look for the ones with an airplane icon next to it). Maybe your current car seat is listed.

 

http://www.carseatsite.com/recommended_car_seats.htm#Travel%20Seats

[Dr_DNA]

Jealous :p ;) (Woohoo I get extra bonuses from RCCL when I get called out in a forum...LOL!)

 

Who wouldn't be? :D No, really just humbled to be in the presence of the great one ;) (who, BTW, is racking up all kinds of perks for being a RC cheerleader) :D

[Dr_DNA]

I was just going through all of this, and I think that this thread is going to stick. CruisinMama Q's. I like it. I see thousands of questions coming your way CruisinMama, so hopefully you have time to answer all of them. :D

[crusinmama06]

I was just going through all of this, and I think that this thread is going to stick. CruisinMama Q's. I like it. I see thousands of questions coming your way CruisinMama, so hopefully you have time to answer all of them. :D

 

LOL...yeah I already blow off enough work to be here. ;)

[tricialee]

One more thing about the fold out couch. Our sons were 3 and 7 when we last cruised, and they did not like the idea of sleeping together. (the older one kicks a lot and takes up a lot of space). We just asked the room stewart to make up the bed sideways. They were both short enough for this to work and it gave them much more room.

 

And about Disney, the disboards are really your best place for the kind of information you get here on this board. There is a page somewhere that explains all the abbreviations. cruisinmama is right, they can be tough, but if you get past that you will do fine.

[Cruizingwithtoddlers]

One more thing about the fold out couch. Our sons were 3 and 7 when we last cruised, and they did not like the idea of sleeping together. (the older one kicks a lot and takes up a lot of space). We just asked the room stewart to make up the bed sideways. They were both short enough for this to work and it gave them much more room.

 

Thats a good idea. I dont know if they are going to like sleeping together, but I guess we will see, it is 10 months from now and who knows what they will be like :rolleyes: On our last cruise with them, we had 2 pullmans and my husband and I slept on them and the boys slept on the twin beds. The pullman was a bit small (since I am used to a king bed), so we decided that we wanted a balcony room and we will just use the fold out sofa for the boys.

[GaTechCruiser]

I know the fear that you experienced with your DD. I had a similar experience on an airplane when mine was 3 1/2 months old. She is 11 months old now. She actually vomited and asphyxiated while I was holding her. Thank God there were 2 pediatricians on board and a RN that necessitated her and saved her life. It was very scary getting back on a plane with her, but we have done it. It was considered an "acute, life threatening situation" we had her on a monitor when she slept just for our own piece of mind until she was 9 months old.

Also by reading your posts, I am not going to leave my child while I am at port

Thanks for all your advice. I can't wait to take her on her first cruise in 7 weeks!![/color]

[Cruizingwithtoddlers]

I was just going through all of this, and I think that this thread is going to stick. CruisinMama Q's. I like it. I see thousands of questions coming your way CruisinMama, so hopefully you have time to answer all of them. :D

 

 

I agree, they should rename the thread to "Familly Cruising with crusinmama06"

She is the family cruising Queen!

[crusinmama06]

I know the fear that you experienced with your DD. I had a similar experience on an airplane when mine was 3 1/2 months old. She is 11 months old now. She actually vomited and asphyxiated while I was holding her. Thank God there were 2 pediatricians on board and a RN that necessitated her and saved her life. It was very scary getting back on a plane with her, but we have done it. It was considered an "acute, life threatening situation" we had her on a monitor when she slept just for our own piece of mind until she was 9 months old.

Also by reading your posts, I am not going to leave my child while I am at port

Thanks for all your advice. I can't wait to take her on her first cruise in 7 weeks!![/color]

 

:eek: Thank God she is alright and the peds/nurse were onboard the plane. I swear you never totally relax from something like that. Gab is turning 4 and we still have a video monitor on her while she sleeps. :(

 

I hope you have a great cruise!

[MyPiePie]

I'm hoping you can help me with.

 

Do you know if Enchantment has hook ups if we were to take a dvd player for our room?

 

Did the cabin stewards leave a towel animal for each child each day? Serioulsy, I can see my 6, 4 and 1.5 year old fighting over towel animals :o .

 

I am thinking of booking another Cruise, tossing around the idea of Carnival. I have been on one cruise with them. I remember a few differences I didn't like. I haven't cruised on them with kids though. Can you tell me the major differences regarding kids. Why do you like RCI better?

 

Thanks!!!!

[crusinmama06]

I'm hoping you can help me with.

 

Do you know if Enchantment has hook ups if we were to take a dvd player for our room?

 

Did the cabin stewards leave a towel animal for each child each day? Serioulsy, I can see my 6, 4 and 1.5 year old fighting over towel animals :o .

 

I am thinking of booking another Cruise, tossing around the idea of Carnival. I have been on one cruise with them. I remember a few differences I didn't like. I haven't cruised on them with kids though. Can you tell me the major differences regarding kids. Why do you like RCI better?

 

Thanks!!!!

 

I don't know specifically about the hookups for Enchantment. Do they have the new flat screens yet? I know that the hookups to the flatscreens are dismantled. They did something to them where you cannot hook anything into it.

 

Generally it's one towel animal on one bed (usually the main bed). We gently move it to the counter and by the end of the cruise we have a towel animal zoo. But you have to tell the cabin steward not to remove them each day. On one of our cruises, the poor woman removed a bunny and I thought my youngest was going to have a heart attack. :eek: I slipped the cabin attendant some cash and by the next night there was a whole zoo in the cabin...lol.

 

Regarding kids and Carnival, as far as the kids are concerned, Carnival has an awesome program. My preference for RCCL over Carnival lies more with the ships than with the childen's program. My kids love Camp Carnival. I know my youngest prefers it over RCCL because they have more physically active programs for the little ones...where RCCL has alot of programs that require alot of sitting.

 

On most RCCL ships there is a dedicated solarium for adults only. So when the kids want to go to AO, you can relax without other kids jumping in the pool with you. ;) And there are just so many more things to do on RCCL than Carnival...the Voyager and Freedom class have the parades and ice skating. Then on Freedom classes there's the H20 zone and flow rider. Most ships have rock climbing. And even some have a trampoline (isn't Enchantment one of them)

 

Carnival ships have mini golf (as does RCCL). Some ships also have the movies by the pools (which is nice). Carnival ships have the slides (height minimums range from 42" - 48" pending on the slide). And now with the Evolutions of Fun, some ships are being fitting with a small water park area.

 

Yes my kids prefer RCCL, but they never had a bad cruise on carnival either. :)

[woostercruise]

I'm hoping you can help me with.

 

Do you know if Enchantment has hook ups if we were to take a dvd player for our room?

 

Did the cabin stewards leave a towel animal for each child each day? Serioulsy, I can see my 6, 4 and 1.5 year old fighting over towel animals :o .

 

I am thinking of booking another Cruise, tossing around the idea of Carnival. I have been on one cruise with them. I remember a few differences I didn't like. I haven't cruised on them with kids though. Can you tell me the major differences regarding kids. Why do you like RCI better?

 

Thanks!!!!

 

We were just on Enchantment. There were hookups on our TV, but for some reason we could not get the picture to work, just the sound. I'd be happy to answer any Enchantment questions. My boys are 4 & 6 and loved it!

 

Kate

[cmrules]

If you want to get two kids to sleep in a bed together, ask for an extra light weight blanket. Roll it lengthwise and place it inbetween the children like a bumper. It works like a charm with my kids.