Cruising With Toddler

[dday2021]

My DW and I are in the planning stages for a cruise in March of next year. We are planning on taking our DD who will be 19 mo at the time. I'm wondering what kind of activities there are for a toddler of that age, how "soundproof" the walls of the cabins are in case she cries while we are in our cabins, and anyones experience positive or negative while travelling with a toddler.

Thanks

 

[sap1227]

We cruised when DS was 14 months and again when he was 20 months. We had the best time when he was 20 months old. He would knock on the door to and climb in his stroller to leave the room (and say "bye bye boat"). He loved running around and exploring the boat. He love The Golden Mickey show. And made it at least through the main course each night. He is NOT a good restaurant child, so we were very pleased. We stopped at the dollar store and Walmart and got him some new toys that we only showed him during dinner so that helped him stay occupied. On the other hand, we saw about 5 minutes of the other 2 shows (we were able to see them both on our last cruise, so it was not a huge deal).

There was a toddler in the room next to us, and I heard them twice, so I am sure they heard my DS as well. I think it is kind of expected on a Disney Cruise (we always tried to do whatever we could to make DS happy, so he would stop crying).

As a side note, we saw a lot of people with miserable toddlers. I saw more than a couple of toddlers being "spanked" (in one case hit on the arms) for not sitting still during the shows and dinner. Those familes did not seem to be enjoying the cruise much. If you are willing to follow your child's lead you will have a great time. If there is something you really want to do, you always have Flounders to fall back on.

I hope you have a great time. If you have any other specifc questions, feel free to ask

Christy

 

[HooKooDooKu]

When your child starts crying, those in cabins around you WILL hear. Perhaps not enough to wake someone from a deep sleep, but enough to disturb them if the crying lasts a long time.

I speak from experience of being "in the cabin next door".

 

[LisaGoeke]

We recently took two 28 month olds on a cruise. Unfortunately, we did not have the best of times. I felt most of our time was spent chasing them around or stopping them from getting into things. I was also sad that we did not get to see a whole show because we had to leave since they couldn't sit that long. Yes, they do have a nursery and I highly recommend leaving your child there, even if just for a few hours. (Our boys got sick about 1/2 way through the cruise so we couldn't use the nursery.) I think they had the best time when the nursery had "family time", where you can bring your child in and let them play with the toys. They were great through dinner (if they didn't sleep through dinner).

I say go and have fun!

 

[DMS_cruisers04]

dday, don't worry about your DD crying when you're in YOUR cabin. I would think most everyone taking a Disney cruise has to have, atleast, a pretty good idea that there are going to be kids aboard. And I would hope most would realize it's going to be a lot of kids. It happens and people just have to deal with it.
Now I don't want anyone to get me wrong, I understand that there are quite a few people that like traveling DCL, that don't have kids. However, a crying child is no worse than a hacking smoker, a blaring tv or just a loud-mouth "in the cabin next door".
It could be worse, one of those could be sitting next to you on your plane ride home.

 

[SFed]

On our first DCl cruise our daughter was 10 months old. She has been on all the cruises below, so we have probably experienced about everything possible with a toddler on the ship.

I think the most difficult part for you will be dinner. Be sure to do early seating. We also ordered her food first so she could eat, and then if she was restless by the end, she could go to Flounders.

We used Flounders quite a bit during the evenings. For the most part our DD was happy to play after dinner and then go to sleep. We would always check in to make sure she was sleeping at a reasonable hour. If not we would pull her out and take her back to the room.

My biggest advice is being able to go with the flow. Sometimes they cooperate and you can see the whole show, and sometimes they don't. If I could figure out how to get a 20 month old to cooperate at all times I could make enough money to live in the Walt suite year round (which is my ultimate dream by the way).

On our last cruise she graduated to Oceaneers Club. She turned 3 on the cruise, so she was the youngest in the club. But she is also the youngest in her preschool class so she is used to playing with older kids. She had a ball, but there was no way she would go to sleep in the club (some kids did as they get mats out, turn down the lights and put movies on). So our nights were a bit earlier, but a nice benefit was I was up earlier and saw many sunrises at sea.

Also, if they are still in diapers, you can request a diaper genie.

Good luck.

 

[gshoemate]

We to will be traveling with our 20 month old DS in a few months, we plan on taking the umbrella stroller and using it often, that way we don't have to chase him around.

SFed - When you say you took DD to Flounders after dinner, did you have reservations or were they flexible enough where you could do it without? It's hard to coordinate when we actually want him to go to Flunders and hope there are times that we can decide at the last minute and they will take him.

 

[SFed]

gshoemate

If I recall when you sign into Flounders after boarding you get 3 guaranteed times and then can be put on the list for any other requested times. They then call you each day and tell you whether the kid is in or out. I think in all the cruises there may have been one time we did not get everything requested. We have, with one minor exeception, found the Flounders staff to be exceptional.

 

[cat1239]

We traveled in September with my son who is 2. He had the time of his life and all he talks about is going back on the Mickey boat. He loved the shows and sat through the entire show. We had a few hiccups at dinner, but the servers were GREAT! Whenever they noticed that he was getting bored/antsy they would come by and distract him/entertain him. At lunch one day one of the servers took him and walked him around the dining room. A very brave soul since he ran right out of the restaurant. Once we got home he kept asking to go and see Mickey each night (something we would do each night on the ship). He had his typical 2 year old moments, especially since he was soo excited, but we knew when to slow down and what his limits were. All in all we had a blast and would do it again in a heartbeat. Do bring a stoller.

Cathy