Easterh excursion with 3.5 yr old and 11 month old?

[lildeb724]

I am completely confused about what to do for excursions. I was hoping to do two beach days. 1 would be CC and not sure what the other one should be. (By the way if I want a float for the day do I need to book that in advance). Should I go to the beach at St Martin or St John? If so should I do a DCL excursion or should I do it on our own. I really want to do whatever is easiest. The other day I was hoping to shop - wasn't sure what island was best for shopping either. Anyway any advice for what to do with the kids would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[CM_Mom]

Plenty of floats for rent on CC so no need to book in advance.

Didn't do beaches anywhere else so can't give advice on that. St. John is gorgeous but it's a 30 minute boat ride there and back so you might want to consider a beach in St. Thomas or St. Maarten. This might be a good situation to wait and book on board and get the advice of the Shore Excursions folks. Maybe others can comment.

 

[lbgraves]

Honestly, I wouldn't do any excursions with children that young. We chose not to with our 3 & 5 yos last year. They didn't even want to get off the ship for very long before asking to go back to the Mickey Pool. I was lucky to get off the ship for 30 minutes to shop for souveniers. In St. Marteen there are booths not very far from the dock where you can get the basics. There are some very cute tropical outfits for little girls & nice Tshirts. We didn't go beyond there. In St. Thomas we had to tender & that added time to the shopping venture. It was nice because we were right by the market and found some wonderful things to buy to remember our trip. CC was our only beach day. Just too messy IMO to deal with 2 in diapers...or even one really. We enjoyed the deserted ship in port. We took turns staying in the room with the kids for their naps & that let us enjoy time at the adult pool or spending time with DISers.

 

[chasbos]

St. Maarten is a very lovely island but if you are just going into Philipsburg I would suggest leaving the children in the clubs or just getting off the boat for a quick look. We spent a week in St. Maarten last December and we took our kids (12, 10. 8 & 5) they liked walking around Philipsburg for about 1/2 hour and then they had had enough. That was on a Monday. DH and I went by ourselves on the Tuesday and wow was it busy. We saw many families from the Disney Ship and many not so happy kids! I think that there were 6 cruise ships docked that day though and I have never seen a little street so crowded and the beach at Great Bay was all people too. So I would suggest getting out of Philipsburg fast to maybe Orient Beach, but it is farther away and the ship is not right there if you want to go back for a rest or lunch.

Hope this helps and don't get me wrong St. Maarten is beautiful - little ones just do not see the beauty as we do!

 

[TheWog]

Great Bay Beach is right at the water taxi stop and entrance to Front Street. You could consider that. Didn't do beaches on St. Thomas, but I do know the trip to Red Hook and then the ferry to St. John can be fairly long with little ones.

 

[MarcyIn Florida]

My best advice for travelling with 2 small kids is (1) don't do planned excursions and (2) be really flexible. We've had good experiences with venturing out on our own, at our own time and on our own schedules. If someone has a meltdown, we go back to the ship. If you're on an excursion and one of the kids gets cranky, sick, tired, etc., you and the other cruisers have to suffer through it, and it's not fun for anyone.

Marcy

P.S. I have a 4 yo and a 19 month old -- I'm speaking from experience, not as a kid hater. BUT, as someone who cruised a lot pre-kids, I did find it disruptive to have uncontrolled children flipping out during long excursions that they never should have been on in the first place.

 

[lbgraves]

Marcy, It is nice to see someone else who feels the same way. I would much rather have the kids be happy on the ship than miserable just because I insisted on dragging them someplace I wanted to go. It is simply easier on me to not schedule anything like that for us right now. I also decided that I didn't want to deal with the no carseat issue on the busses or in the taxis. Not sure about other kids but if mine are allowed to ride without a seat, they will try to insist on doing that all the time even after we get home. Definantly NOT worth that hassle!

 

[PeachyK]

I don't think you mentioned St. Thomas.

But this would be my choice to do your own thing with two little ones. We got off the ship when we were ready, with a few waters, gatorades and beach towels, we hopped in a cab and went to Magens Bay. It is beautiful, very calm water, there is a snack bar with pretty good food too. We made arrangements for our cab to come back to pick us up at an assigned time, I think it was 2pm and then he gave us a quick tour of the island before dropping us back at the ship.

I would absolutely do this again, exactly the same way. They had floats and chairs for rent too. This was my family's favorite day, not rushed, just us relaxing.

My husband was floating on the calm water with my son thinking life doesn't get any better than this when he heard those fateful words "Sir, can I get you anything from the bar?" He looked up to see a lovely young woman in a bikini holding a tray, I think he had a tear in his eye when he order his beer, from sheer happiness.

PS. We had brought some $2 bills for tipping when he gave her one, she just went nuts, she thought it was great and was going to frame it or something. Needless to say we didn't have to look hard for her the rest of the day.

Great memories