Flounders Reef and traveling with one-year-old?

[shmoogrrrl]

We are tentatively planning our fourth Disney Cruise for the Fall of 2003. We've done the three-day and two seven-day cruises in the past, but never with little kids small enough for Flounders Reef so we've usually ignored most of the info about it.

Now that we are expecting our first little one around July 3rd of this year, we need to actually pay attention and I have a few questions.

1. First of all, I'm correct that the fee is $6.00 an hour for now right? I am sure that will probably be raised by the time we go. I'm just trying to get a generic idea.

2. What are the hours that it is open? Is it something you can use at night while you go to Palo? How hard is it to match your Palo reservations with Babysitting Reservations?

3. Do they give you a beeper when you check in so that they can page you if the little one needs a change or gets fussy? I'm kinda paranoid so I can see myself worrying the whole time unless they did that!

4. Is there anything else we need to be aware of while considering the cruise with a one-year-old? Are there any types of excursions that are okay to do with a child that young or should my husband and I and the other couple we are planning this with (who will have a 1.5 year old at the time) plan to split up for Excursions and Baby duty?

Kathy

 

[GoofyDisney]

If you don't mind long-winded, here is my opinion on FR: (If you don't want to read the whole thing, just skip to the end )

We went on the 7-day in October.

Our DD is 2, and an only child who is not around other kids but once or twice a week during playdates and church.

We read the Magical Guide's opinion about the nursery. "Background checks on staff, no areas to get kid alone without attracting attention". The MG
recommended the Nursery.

But I consider myself pretty over protective. We had an interview process for our babysitter and our back-up babysitter. My husband is even more strict than I am, and we had his parents along, who come from the old school where you never let your child out of your site. Never.

All of that said,

We used the nursery. We LOVED the nursery.

At the most, there was a 1/2 Cm to child ratio during its busiest time. Then when they weren't as busy, it grew to a 4/1 CM to child ratio.

There is a split door that goes into the nursery itself, then there is a large one-way glass window that is in the front office of the nursery where AT ANY TIME you can come and peek in and obcerve your child without them seeing you.

They change butts using latex gloves. There are both men and women CMs. You could peek in and see a big burly guy, rocking the littlest baby to sleep while watching Little Mermaid. There are so many toys and books, baby swings and play mats. There is a main room with a tv, then a darker area with a tv for the night time when kids are groggy or falling asleep. If they fall
asleep, the CMs move them to the beds in the next room. They cannot eat any food you put in the diaper bags, but are given as much apple juice and saltines as they want.

One night, we fed DD dinner early, and dropped her off at 6 pm and we headed to Palos. They we went to the show. She stayed in the nursery till 11. The next two times we used it, we would drop her off at 8 pm and then head to the show and then the lounge afterwards. We would be back to pick her up at 11pm.

I agree with people who say....When you first get to the reef to make ressies, schedule every single night. Then they call you the day before and let you know if your child can come. Then you have till fours hours before any scheduled time to cancel. . Even one night, we had to cancel right at our scheduled time cause DD was not feeling well. They only charge you half price for cancellation.

We did not follow this line of thinking and had to make two trips back to the reef during the day to schedule some more time at night. So, just fill in every night at the onset and then cancel as you go.

They give you a pager, in case they need you to come back to the nursery. When we went to pick DD up one night, they told us that they had almost paged us. It seems that DD began asking for her Daddy. She wasn't upset or crying, just asking. And they would have paged us just for this, but then she got distracted and stopped asking. I consider this good thinking, that they were willing to page us just because she wanted her Daddy. She wasn't even upset, but they were interested in meeting her needs. Made my heart glad. (worked out also cause this was the night that DH was a panelist on Mouseketeer, and they would have paged him while he was on stage!)

Possibly the only negative: the hours make doing some things kind of difficult. For example: we scheduled our Palos brunch for Sunday, which is a day at sea. The nursery is not open the same hours that brunch is offered during days at sea. We had our inlaws there who watched DD while we brunched. But otherwise, there is no way to brunch on days at sea and leave your child at the nursery. Also, we scheduled a surial bath during the
morning on a day at sea. Again, the reef is not open during the morning on days at sea. So, unless you have someone with you that can watch them, brunch and a surial on days at sea may not be possible.

The Magical Guide would be an excellent resource for you to get more information about the staff, and hours and costs, etc.
http://hometown.aol.com/entropym/pages/index.htm

At the end of our trip, we wanted to tip the reef CMs. But they cannot accept cash gratuities. So, we gave them 6 or 7 phone cards to be distributed amoung them. You don't have to tip, but be aware that they cannot accept cash as they are salaried.

They charge for use of the nursery. but as DH and I discussed, we would pay more for our babysitter to come and then go play golf and go out to eat, than we are for the nursery and then we get to go have some free entertainment.

We live in a very small town, so we REALLY enjoyed being able to go to the lounge and see the comedians and have a drink. It was such a fun experience.

And we look forward to the day when she is old enough for the Club. She will go crazy for Captain Hook's ship!!!!!

The Cms are the best. They seem to really care about the kids. Shae, Mariann, Keith, Darren and all the rest. We listed all their names on the comment card at the end of the trip just because they were superb in their treatment of my DD, and all the rest of the kids we could observe while she was there with them.

I would recommend the Nursery. Use it often. DD enjoyed it. (Did I cover everything?)

I hope this helps. Have a great cruise.

 

[shmoogrrrl]

Ohhhh! Thank you! You are my hero for all that great information!!! I am glad that you had such a great experience with the nursery! I'm sure that will help me worry less about the whole thing. Since we are considering the trip with another couple who has a new little one (They will be 6 months apart) we'll have the flexibility to take turns babysitting when the nursery isn't open, which will be a good thing.

If you don't mind me asking, what other sort of activities did you do with your little one when not at the nursery? I know that the pool is available, what else?

Did you manage to do any shore excursions?

Thanks again for the GREAT info!!!

Kathy

 

[GoofyDisney]

Hello Kathy,

I am glad the info was helpful.

We did spend a lot of time in the Mickey pool! DD loved it! We had a table to the side where we kept our drinks and fruit from the fruit bar. We would swim and snack, swim and snack.

There is a CM who monitors the pool. This CM made sure our DD was in a swim diaper. (which she was) If your child is not wearing them, they will ask you to go get one on or go to the ship store and buy one. Regular diapers are not allowed, and they want little ones to be in swim diapers. If a child has an accident, the entire pool is cleared and drained and closed for at least two hours.

We went into the kids clubs during open hours so DD could play on the stuff there. Meals were fun because the staff was so attentive to her.

DD loved Hercules and Disney Dreams. She loved the 24 hour movies on tv. She loved the verandah in our room.

There were no beach type excursions that allowed small children. And we wanted to go to the beach and snorkel. There are excursions that small children can attend, but they are all tours or bus rides. And I was not crazy about the lack of safety in the taxis or buses, so rather than travel, we stayed pretty close to the ship.

St maarten: We went out in the morning and just went to the beach right by the ship. It was nice and quiet. We rented two chairs and an umbrella and played in the water all morning. Then went back to the ship for lunch and went back out to shop in the afternoon.

St. Thomas: We spent our day here wandering through the downtwon and then came back to the ship to get in the pool.

Castaway Cay was great. Eveyrthing was accessible. It is of course more crowded since all 2500 people are in one place, but it doesn't feel too crowded.

If I can think of anything else I will let you know.....

 

[redpants]

We have traveled on DCL three times with our 1 year old DS. And--we love it! The nursery is great, all the DCL staff are great, and we never worry about anything.

One "secret" thing we found was Deck 4, whcih isn't really secret. But, since it wraps all the way around the ship continuously, we would take our son down on it and he could run until he was exhausted--which he loved since the ship can be quite confining at times! One time, he actually went around Deck 4 three times--and as you may remember, four times is a mile!

Have fun!

 

[npall]

We took our 15 month old ds last Aug. on the 4 day cruise. He had a wonderful time, he loved Disney Dreams and the Island Magic show alot. We used the nursery only once for about 2 hours. We did sign up for all the evenings but the 2nd time ( the night we were scheduled for Palo's) the cm's paged us because ds was upset. When we got there one of them was holding him and seemed genuinly concerned about him. We picked him up and luckily my mom cruised with us so she stayed with him ( we were all at Palo's)and my dh and I enjoyed dinner but of course Disney wouldn't be disney without this next part! Palo's delivered my mom's meal to the cabin and even sent up dessert as well!

I am a stay at home mom and he's is only in nursery settings at church but I would not hesitate one moment to leave him there again. All the girls and guys are wonderful with children. I do wish they would do some arts and crafts with them (the kids do watch alot of tv there)

We didn't do any excursions, but ds loved Castaway Cay. Redpants is right about deck 4. DS was not walking yet but crawled like a mad man, so we would take him up there and let him go at it~!

We are going back Sept 1st and my son will be 2 yrs 4 mos old. How time flies!

You'll have a great time.