Helpful tips for cruising with a toddler
September 23rd, 2009I made some notes shortly after our trip regarding tips for families taking todders on cruises. Once again, I should have written this months ago. Let’s see if I can make sense of any of our suggestions. Gabe said that I made cruising sound boring, but I’m just focusing on the “tips” here. Overall, we had a GREAT time and are really happy that we took the cruise. We chose Bermuda since we could cruise out of a port that we could drive to and because it’s easy to explore without doing shore excursions. It was a wonderful trip.
Expectations:
I think that the single most important piece of advice that I can give for cruising with a toddler is to keep your expectations realistic. We did not intend to use the babysitting services on the cruise, and we were not traveling with anyone else. We knew that we would have to make some sacrifices in order to cruise with our daughter. We knew it was going to be a very different cruise from the one that we took while I was pregnant with Maddie.
I guess if you felt comfortable with using the babysitting services, then you could have more freedom. This is not a service that we ever intend to use when cruising with toddlers. We’ll have to see what it is like cruising with family members – perhaps we’ll have some added flexibility then, too.
For the most part, we knew we were going to be with Maddie the entire time. We figured we could potentially take turns going to the casino while the other stays in the room while she is sleeping, but for the most part we all expected to be together. We knew that this would mean missing out on the ship’s entertainment (but at least we knew we weren’t missing much anyway!). We were still able to go to parts of shows and to a few trivia type events. We took turns going to the casino. We were able to spend some time in the Viking Crown Lounge while Maddie slept in the sling, so that was nice!
I think it helped that we had cruised previously. We did so many of the activities on our last cruise, so we knew we weren’t missing out on anything terribly exciting. Of course, there were a few things that we would have wanted to do if Maddie had not been with us, but they weren’t a big deal to us. We loved having her with us.
The biggest issue is dinner. We knew that the two hour dinners were going to be too long for her. We were just prepared to take turns eating while the other entertained Maddie outside of the dining room. It’s not ideal, but it worked for us (plus, we had other guests to chat with while the other was away with Maddie).
Dining:
As I mentioned in the last paragraph above, we knew to expect that the meals would be too long for Maddie (they are almost too long for us!). I think that many people would settle for eating at the buffet, but that isn’t something that we wanted to do. We did not want to miss out on the food in the main dining room.
We brought a little pack of toys, crayons, books, and stickers to keep her entertained as long as possible. This worked part of the time, at least. I’m not too embarrassed to mention that we resorted to the pacifier towards the end of the meal once Maddie started to get antsy. It’s helpful to have a small diaper bag or some type of case to carry the bag of tricks for dinner.
We brought disposable bibs, toddler utensils, and sippy cups. We had brought a plastic plate for her, but we found that we could just put food either on the table itself (for things like bread) or use the plates. Fortunately, Maddie did not seem tempted to throw the real plates on the floor. I’m sure that it would be worthwhile to bring plastic plates if that is a concern for your child. We were definitely glad to have sippy cups. They may have had small cups with straws for children, but I never noticed them.
Feeding her on the cruise was awesome. If you are buffet type people, then that works great (though I’d personally be careful from a germ perspective when it comes to what I would pick from the buffet). At the dining room, we were able to ask for whatever we felt that she would eat. They brought her bread, fruit, cheese, milk, and anything that we wanted from the kids’ menu. She also loved the daily cold fruit soup. The best thing about meals on the cruise was that they were all inclusive. If Maddie didn’t seem to care for one particular item, we could just ask them to bring something else. They were very accommodating. She ate some things from our plates.
We learned that the lunch in the main dining room is quite quick only if you ask for the Brasserie 30 meal. We did not realize this on our past cruise and always thought that the whole Brasserie 30 meal was more of a 60-90 minute meal instead of the 30 minute meal that we promised. The 30-minute lunch was perfect for Maddie.
Several times, we went to the buffet to get things for Maddie such as bananas and cheerios to put in our bags for snacks later. The all-inclusive thing really does come in handy for picky toddlers!
Stroller & Sling & Sleep:
I had read mixed things about strollers on the cruise ship. For us, our awesome MacLaren umbrella stroller was a necessity. Maddie loved being in the stroller, and we used it every day for naps. We are lucky that she naps well in the stroller! I think that an umbrella stroller is probably best, given the limited space in the cabin (as well as the narrow hallways). We had no problems with the stroller around the ship or in the cabin.
We also brought our Ergo carrier, and it was wonderful! We weren’t sure how Maddie would like it, but we thought that she may fall asleep in it. Since we didn’t have a rocking chair in our room, we had a difficult time getting Maddie to sleep by just putting her into the pack-n-play in an unfamiliar place. We ended up using the Ergo carrier to wear her around the ship until she fell asleep. This worked well for us, but I’m sure it wouldn’t work for everyone! We felt very fortunate that she would fall asleep in it (plus, we’re lucky she’s a lightweight). We were very glad that we brought both of these items. We were able to take part in some of the nighttime activities together since we had the carrier!
We didn’t have any issues with the pack-n-play. I would suggest bringing your own sheets, for sure.
Miscellaneous:
The use of the pool was not important to us, but it is important to note that non-potty trained kids are not allowed in the pool on most cruises. A few cruises offer pools for the diapered crowd, but many do not. If this is something that is important to you, then you should definitely check with the policies.
As most people suggest, it’s a good idea to bring both new and familiar small toys to entertain the child on the trip. We didn’t do any excursions, but we plan to bring along some of these items for the ones that we’re planning on our Canadian cruise.
We had travel packs of Clorox wipes for sanitizing surfaces. We had little bottles of hand sanitizer, but they also have an abundance of sanitizer dispensers all around the ship. I’m sure most ships offer the same. We had travel packs of Kleenex that also came in handy, not just for the toddler but also for the husband getting over a sinus infection.
Possibly related posts (automatically generated):
- Cruise Day 5 – Tracy Arm Fjord Scenic Cruising
Today was basically another “at sea” day but with neat scenery in the morning. We woke up early so that...