Advice on taking a Toddler cruising?

[icartjetta]

I need advice on taking a 2 year old and paying for the babysitter or waiting until she is 3 and paying full fare and putting her in the kid's club. And then there's the question of taking a 2 year old at all! Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

 

[lbgraves]

Well, if you take her when 2 you will be paying such a small amount for her fare that the flounder's fee will be worth it. You can spend quality family time together & really relax. As a mom I know that doesn't happen often. Don't go depending on being able to go to Palo or do anything specifically and you wont be disapointed. They don't enjoy the Magic forever, so enjoy it while they are young.

 

[CM_Mom]

My personal opinion is that a cruise is what you make it.

Lots of folks have cruised with little ones of various ages and have a fantastic family time. Others plan on ditching their kids in the club and spending gobs of adult time without the kids and are upset if things don't work out that way.

Seems to me like the folks who report having the best time are those who go with a pretty open attitude about activities, a go with the flow mentality and expect to have a great time no matter what happens.

 

[lbgraves]

That's exactly what we did and we enjoyed ourselves tremendously. DS 5 wanted to be in the clubs all the time but DD 3 didn't so we had alot of quality time with her in the morning. If you don't have expectations, you aren't disappointed. We are doing the same thing this time and not booking any excursions. W can just do what we feel like & what the kids are comfortable with.

 

[aprilgail2]

I took my daughter at 2 1/2 and we had such a great time...her whole fare was 99.00! She hated flounders so we spent all the time together and really had a great time!

 

[DisneyZell]

we were on the 10/2 Magic with our 2 year old (turned 2 in July). We had a great time. Our 5 year old was in the clubs most of the time, and so it was just us and the 2 year old. The Mickey Ear play area (no, it's not a pool, but it does have fountains and stuff), was fun, but he wanted to get out so often that it made it difficult. Frankly his favorite part was wandering the ship (I saw stuff I wouldn't have seen otherwise), and seeing the characters.

We put him in babysitting 7-8 times while we were there, for dinner's, to see a movie, and a couple mornings while we were sailing so we could have some down time to ourselves.

Pretty much daily we would get up, eat breakfast, drop our 5 year old off at the clubs, go to the pool, wander the ship, pick up the 5 year old for lunch (most days, though he did stay in the clubs a few times during lunch), then back to the room for a nap. The rocking of the ship seemed to help him sleep during the day, so that was wonderful, but don't forget your clothespins to shut the curtains as much as possible!

We are shooting to go again in 2007, and DO look forward to putting both kids in the clubs so we can have some adult time, but I wouldn't have traded the time we had for anything!

Good luck in your decision, the Disney Cruise is wonderful.

 

[gassmandy]

We took our daughter when she was 7 months and --although it was an entirely different experience compared to when we were childless--we had a blast. I am taking her on the 14 day PC cruise next Aug. and she'll be 2 and 4 months. She loves WDW now--we have AP's and go a few times a month--so I know she'll have a great time!!! Like others said--don't have certain expectations of how it will go (i.e.-perfect!) and you'll have fun. My dd is 18 months now and when we went to MK yesterday--her reactions were so different than a month ago. She was so much more into it!! I say go for it now and try Flounder's.

 

[MarcyIn Florida]

We cruised DCL when our oldest was 2.5 and again when our youngest was 18 months. Each of them loved it.

Although we planned to use Flounder's a lot, we only used their services twice on the Magic and once on the 4 day Wonder; we just had a great time with the little ones.

My best suggestion is to try to stick to you child's regular schedule as much as possible, even if it means "disrupting" some things you want to do. Once we realized that feeding them when they are normally fed (and not according to dining room hours), letting them get a lot of exercise (the dance floor next to Parrot Cay is a great place, as is the shuffleboard deck -- they loved retrieving the shuffleboard thingies when we played), and just going with the fow worked best, we hd a great time.

 

[spencersmom]

I agree with everyone who said to stay flexible and to keep them on their normal routine. We thought our son would love the kids club but he doesn't unless we are there so we have stuck together as a family and are all having fun. The Mickey pool is awesome though so to wait until their potty trained is worth it in my opinion. My son would have had a hard time at 2 1/2 not potty trained and us telling him he can't go in any pool. It would have been tough. The other suggestion I have not quite on this topic though is to bring something like a shovel and bucket for them to play with at the pool. There isn't anything like that. Yesterday in Grand Caymen we bought a boat and some shovels and my son and two other boys played like angels for 2 hours in the pool. It's bulky but well worth the $7 I spent. He is back in there this morning with Dad and it's only 8:30 am.

The best thing is to go with little to no expectations and whatever you end up doing will be a surprise.

Enjoy-Ginny

 

[RickW]

I have posted this before, but it gives you something to consider when thinking about the "extra charge" for Flounders:

According to the DCL brochure that I have, the cost to take a child under 3 on the 7 day cruise is $139.
The cost to take a 3 year old is $399-$1399 (I assume that the difference is based on stateroom category and season).

Let's assume that you are in a Cat 12 duing low season, and you paid $399 for your 3 year old. That is $260 more than the 2 year old. This means that, in essence, you are paying $260 for the "free" use of the kids club. At $6 an hour for Flounders, your 2 year old could spend over 40 hours in Flounders during the cruise and you still wouldn't pay as much as you would for a 3 year old who can use the club for "free".

If you are in something other than a Cat 12 during low season, the difference is even more dramatic.

Now, of course, this ignores the issue of Flounders' limited space, but I don't think that I will consider the cost to be a determining factor for the amount of time our 2 year old will spend there during our cruise.

 

[WDWDennis]

We took our 11 month old with us on a 10 day Royal Carribean last year. We were nervous, but our entire family was with us, so we figured we would have a lot of help. Well, we got some help, but it was still difficult for us. First, the room was quite small. So small in fact, that we had to turn our couch up on end so the pack and play (their crib) would fit and we could still have room to get around it(barely). Then, him being only 10 months old, he was taking at least 2 and sometimes 3 naps a day, so when he needed a nap, we had to go back to our room and stay with him the whole time. We could not watch tv, b/c it would keep him awake, then we could not go to the bathroom, b/c we might trip over his pack and play trying to get past it. Then, it seemed that every time he fell asleep, the captain or whoever would come on the speakers and wake him up! (do ya see where I'm going with this?? ) Actually, some days we would just stroll him around in his stroller until he fell asleep. That seemed to work pretty well, but his naps werent as long. BUT, it kept us out of the room!!

Oh yeah, having the stroller was another hassel. We brought our big one, so we could use it to carry lots of stuff, plus he would have shade to nap, as opposed to our unbrella stroller. That thing BARELY fit through our door, or down the hallways when the maids cart was in the hall.

Finally, after day 3, I asked if they had a bigger room. We DID pay for a bigger room, b/c they charged us for our son, saying we had to sleep 3. Ok, they showed an outside room, that was slightly larger, but not enough that it would have been worth the hassel of moving. I told him to forget it and went back to my room. When I got there, the guy called me and told me to come back, he may have somthing for us. He gave me a connecting room down on deck 1 or 2 in the front of the ship. It was PERFECT!! this gave us 2 rooms and 2 bathrooms. We put Masen in the second room, with the door cracked and put his music on. This gave us freedom again. We had our whole room to ourselves and we could do whatever we wanted. HEAVEN!! There was only one small problem, now we were directly under the stage, where they do the big shows every night!

You wanna talk noisy!? But, it was still better than what we had and we were happy.

Ok, I'm done my rant now!! All of that said, we still had a wonderful time, but I wouldnt bring a baby again, at least not until he was potty trained. They through us out of the kiddie pool on a port day, b/c they didnt want any non-potty trained kids in the pool. We did have the swimmy diapers, but that wasnt enough, so that really stunk.

We are going on a Disney cruise in 3 weeks and he is staying home with Grandmom this time!! ITs going to be a nice long, relaxing trip with no one to answer too (well, except my wife). Were going to miss him, but I am SO looking forward to this. Our next cruise with him probably won't be until he is three, so he can play in the oceaneers club.