traveling with multiples!!

[kritter]

thanks so much Nancy P for the awesome tip...I am soo sure others will find it helpful as well...

How was your trip???

 

[rgribik]

Hi, I have twin boys and 3 girls. We went on the Magic cruise for the boys 2nd B-Day. Didn't use flounders, sorry. We ate the early dinner and then took the kids to the shows. The older girls never wanted to leave the clubs, so we really didn't have to worry about them. We went last April, and after much research we hurried to the port and hurried to register them, and hurried here and there. Guess what? You don't need to hurry! We could have signed them up for the clubs just about anytime we wanted. The cruise was great, even though our weather wasn't so good. We had 2 connecting rooms(same for Disney) and 2 pack-n-plays. Alittle crowded, but who cares! The folks that take care of your room are just wonderful, so helpful. Same goes with your dinner servers. We travel alot with all the kids, we just expect problems to pop-up and when things go smooth it's like a treat. We also took smaller umbrella strollers for the cruise, to cut down on space we would take up.

 

[kritter]

Hi, I have twin boys and 3 girls. We went on the Magic cruise for the boys 2nd B-Day. Didn't use flounders, sorry. We ate the early dinner and then took the kids to the shows. The older girls never wanted to leave the clubs, so we really didn't have to worry about them. We went last April, and after much research we hurried to the port and hurried to register them, and hurried here and there. Guess what? You don't need to hurry! We could have signed them up for the clubs just about anytime we wanted. The cruise was great, even though our weather wasn't so good. We had 2 connecting rooms(same for Disney) and 2 pack-n-plays. Alittle crowded, but who cares! The folks that take care of your room are just wonderful, so helpful. Same goes with your dinner servers. We travel alot with all the kids, we just expect problems to pop-up and when things go smooth it's like a treat. We also took smaller umbrella strollers for the cruise, to cut down on space we would take up.

WELCOME!!
Oh what else can you tell us/me about the cruise...going in oct....

 

[rgribik]

Well, we would all love to go again!! The part we liked least was Nassau, but dh and I had been there before. It just isn't the place for little kids, we let them look around, buy alittle then headed back to the boat. The pools are very, very crowded, so they are alittle tricky with toddlers and watching the older kids. If you can stay in the toddler pool and handle the crowds you can use the pool. Food is everywhere, with many choices for picky kids. It was great. The stage shows are really good. There are plenty of chances to get your picture taken with the characters(you can buy these at the picture place--kind of pricey). Castaway Cay is a great beach, very shallow water to play in. Beware, we are early people and the beach was fairly empty, but after lunch we headed back to the beach to see all 9 million families from the boat playing on the one strip of family beach It is like a zoo. Did the bike ride with infant seats on the bike, it was really nice. The restaurants were good, but being the early dinner, they really move you through fast. So sitting and enjoying a slow meal is not going to happen. Our older kids ate in the club for lunch and loved it. Any specifics just ask!!

 

[kritter]

RGRIBIK,
thanks for the info.. Were the pools always crowded on the days at sea????
Was it hard for the kids to sit through the shows?? Howmany shows did you see..Last question I promise did the kids get sea sick??
Ok how old were your twins when you went on the cruise??
Thanks for all of the info..Got any pictures. to share with us??
Kristin

 

[rgribik]

The boys turned 2 on the cruise. The pool where the toddlers can go also has the slide by it, so it was crowded pretty much all the time. Our weather was kind of chilly, but it was still busy. We saw both of the shows offered at the time, and we would have liked to go to the movies or a club, but like I said we kept the kids with us. Next time we would let the boys stay at flounders or the club so we could do a few more things. The shows were very good and our kids didn't have a problem sitting through them. The shows are not very long, and lots of people with kids got up and left. We sat in the back rows so we had more freedom to leave. Remember, you can't really get lost or go too far, so if you have to split up(with dh and one twin), and go back to the room it's no big deal. I envy you having that to look forward to. We are going for a "honeymoon" weekend getaway to Dis next weekend, then taking all the gang in late July(hot, but we combine it with our week in Hilton Head). None of our kids got sick on the cruise, and the oldest(dd12) usually has to take something to ride rollercoasters. We even had a bad storm at sea, and they were okay. The little ones didn't even notice the motion. Dh and I wore patches. The worst time is when the boat starts up again after being idle at sea, then you notice the motion.

 

[kritter]

The boys turned 2 on the cruise. The pool where the toddlers can go also has the slide by it, so it was crowded pretty much all the time. Our weather was kind of chilly, but it was still busy. We saw both of the shows offered at the time, and we would have liked to go to the movies or a club, but like I said we kept the kids with us. Next time we would let the boys stay at flounders or the club so we could do a few more things. The shows were very good and our kids didn't have a problem sitting through them. The shows are not very long, and lots of people with kids got up and left. We sat in the back rows so we had more freedom to leave. Remember, you can't really get lost or go too far, so if you have to split up(with dh and one twin), and go back to the room it's no big deal. I envy you having that to look forward to. We are going for a "honeymoon" weekend getaway to Dis next weekend, then taking all the gang in late July(hot, but we combine it with our week in Hilton Head). None of our kids got sick on the cruise, and the oldest(dd12) usually has to take something to ride rollercoasters. We even had a bad storm at sea, and they were okay. The little ones didn't even notice the motion. Dh and I wore patches. The worst time is when the boat starts up again after being idle at sea, then you notice the motion.

Can I ask why you did not let your kids go to the clubs..I am kind of leary of it...Since i never really have left my kdis with a "true" babysitter my parents only and my cousin a few times and that is it...
Wondering how the kids did at the pirate night??
What timeof year did you go??
Also what other suggestions do you have for the cruise???
thanks,
kristin

 

[rgribik]

We went in the middle of April. I stayed for the first part of the pirate party, then I had to take the boys back to the room. They were falling asleep. It was late, you are outside, it was windy. Dh and the girls partied for the rest of the time. I didn't use flounders only because of my own over-protective "neurotic" (as my dh says) feelings. I am a sahm and my kids don't stay with too many people, just because I am here all the time. The girls can look out for each other, but the boys can't tell me anything yet, so I just didn't do it. Looking back at how much fun my girls had in the clubs, I should have tried flounders, because my kids don't have any problems staying with others.

 

[kritter]

We went in the middle of April. I stayed for the first part of the pirate party, then I had to take the boys back to the room. They were falling asleep. It was late, you are outside, it was windy. Dh and the girls partied for the rest of the time. I didn't use flounders only because of my own over-protective "neurotic" (as my dh says) feelings. I am a sahm and my kids don't stay with too many people, just because I am here all the time. The girls can look out for each other, but the boys can't tell me anything yet, so I just didn't do it. Looking back at how much fun my girls had in the clubs, I should have tried flounders, because my kids don't have any problems staying with others.

Great thanks so much for the information...I am the same way aobut who stays with my kdis...getting a bit better now since they are getting older and they can tell me a ton more...I think my girls will be scared with the whole pirate thing...we will be on the cruise for halloween....so I am hoping that is not tooo scarey...and all...
thanks so much for sharing...
kristin

 

[Pea-n-Me]

kritter, we'll be on Magic next month!! This will be our third Disney cruise, and #4 is already booked!

Our two turned 6 on our first cruise. It was so much fun we had to just do it again. This time we're going with friends from home and have been looking forward to it since we booked 16 months ago. I'd be happy to answer any questions if I can. Our kids always enjoyed going into the Oceaneer Club together - that's when having a built in friend comes in handy! This time they'll be going into the Lab for the first time (other than when they went in there with the Club). DS will have his best friend from home with him and DD has met some Dis friends online and we're having a meet so she'll know some girls in there, too. (Dis meets are great because you get to meet others on the same cruise with kids the same age).

One day last cruise was really great - DH went off the ship, the kids went into the club, and I spent the afternoon in the hot tub with a Dis friend, pina colada in hand. So nice to finally have a little time to myself on vacation! You'll really love it!!

 

[kritter]

Pea,
thanks so much and let me say I am sooo jealous...

I would love a few minutes to myself..
Ok a few ?'s been reading tonight that you want to be on the starbaord side of the ship my neighbor told me port side so that is what I booked..Driving Dh crazy tonight since I want to tell the TA to try and change it...I heard that starboard side is the best to stand on verandah and see the fire works?? What do you think...what room do youhave booked?? we have a cat. 4 and thinking of upgrading to a three...Do you think it is worth it more space etc...

Ok enough ?'s for you tonight...
kristin
thanks so much...

 

[Pea-n-Me]

We have only been on the starboard side and will be again this time. We had a verandah last time and we enjoyed watching us pull into port. Are you doing a 4 night or 7? We never saw fireworks, they didn't have them last time we cruised. Have you considered two adjoining rooms, like two Cat 6's instead of a suite?

We've only had reguar rooms, not suites. You can do whatever you like, but the way I think of it is that with the money we save booking an inside room we can take another trip to Disney! We eeked out a trip this fall by booking an inside room next month so that about seals if for me. Also, our newbie friends are across the hall and they have a verandah so I'm sure we'll be hanging out in there a bit. One of our Dis buddies is in the Walt Disney Suite Cat 1 and he's going to have a meet in there too which I'm looking forward to. We've considered splitting the WD Suite with friends but it only sleeps 7 and the friends we could do that with have two kids too so it wouldn't work.

 

[kritter]

We have only been on the starboard side and will be again this time. We had a verandah last time and we enjoyed watching us pull into port. Are you doing a 4 night or 7? We never saw fireworks, they didn't have them last time we cruised. Have you considered two adjoining rooms, like two Cat 6's instead of a suite?

We've only had reguar rooms, not suites. You can do whatever you like, but the way I think of it is that with the money we save booking an inside room we can take another trip to Disney! We eeked out a trip this fall by booking an inside room next month so that about seals if for me. Also, our newbie friends are across the hall and they have a verandah so I'm sure we'll be hanging out in there a bit. One of our Dis buddies is in the Walt Disney Suite Cat 1 and he's going to have a meet in there too which I'm looking forward to. We've considered splitting the WD Suite with friends but it only sleeps 7 and the friends we could do that with have two kids too so it wouldn't work.

We are doing the seven night on the magic. We have the cat. 4 booked...I would love a three....but the cost is a huge difference...Two rooms I would not feel comfortable with having the twins in there own room witha door to the outside be aftraid they would "escape."
I think I will stay with the room that we have for now...
thanks for your help.Hoping we will bea blet os ee the fireworks...

 

[medic2707]

Good evening to all, I wanted to bump this thread back to the first page.

I am the proud father of DS11, DS6 AND Twin DD's2. We are planning our first trip to Disney since our princesses were born. I've had to do lots of begging to get my wife to agree to take the twins to Disney for their third birthday. We have taken both boys to Disney for the first time when they were three, however, my wife said we need to wait until the girls are six since there are two of them. I am glad to see there are so many other twin families who have survived trips to Disney during the early years of twindom. We are planning a week in Orlando followed by a 4 day cruise for the twins third birthday. They will turn three on the second day of the cruise.

Kritter, I think you DD's will love the club. If I can offer one piece of advice, at least let your girls try the club and plan for some adult quite time. We took our Boys on the Wonder three years ago. They both said they enjoyed the cruise more than the parks . Our big mistake was not letting the boys spend more time in Club. We wanted to spend the majority of our time with the boys as a family. They, on the other hand, did not want to leave the club. We almost had to use force to remove our children at times By the time we relized they wanted to spend their vacation playing with new friends doing what kids love to do, and were safe doing it, our cruise was 3/4 over. Just remember everyone has different ideas of what fun is.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Hi Medic What a nice family you have, two and two! Sounds like great timing for your trip - the girls turning 3 and able to go into the Club together with your DS6, and your older son hanging out with the tweens, LOL (will probably spend a lot of time down in the new Ocean Quest area, Deck 2). It's nice that you've cruised before, too, so you know what to expect. Let us know how the planning's coming!

 

[kikakeko]

just a note to bump us up!!
The girls turned 4 this Tuesday my babies are babies no more. But their party was nice lots of family and friends. It seems that they always get a raw deal though because their birthdays being so close after christmas. But like we need more toys.

 

[kritter]

Good evening to all, I wanted to bump this thread back to the first page.

I am the proud father of DS11, DS6 AND Twin DD's2. We are planning our first trip to Disney since our princesses were born. I've had to do lots of begging to get my wife to agree to take the twins to Disney for their third birthday. We have taken both boys to Disney for the first time when they were three, however, my wife said we need to wait until the girls are six since there are two of them. I am glad to see there are so many other twin families who have survived trips to Disney during the early years of twindom. We are planning a week in Orlando followed by a 4 day cruise for the twins third birthday. They will turn three on the second day of the cruise.

Kritter, I think you DD's will love the club. If I can offer one piece of advice, at least let your girls try the club and plan for some adult quite time. We took our Boys on the Wonder three years ago. They both said they enjoyed the cruise more than the parks . Our big mistake was not letting the boys spend more time in Club. We wanted to spend the majority of our time with the boys as a family. They, on the other hand, did not want to leave the club. We almost had to use force to remove our children at times By the time we relized they wanted to spend their vacation playing with new friends doing what kids love to do, and were safe doing it, our cruise was 3/4 over. Just remember everyone has different ideas of what fun is.

thanks for the advice I think and am hoping that the twins will enjoy the clubs.. I will feel bad letting them go to the clubs and not spending family time...But hopefully they will love it and we can have a nice time enjoying the boat and the cruise ourselves....
What type of room are you getting on the cruise...???
Nice to meet you..and welcome...glad that our little thread is growing..
kristin

 

[kritter]

just a note to bump us up!!
The girls turned 4 this Tuesday my babies are babies no more. But their party was nice lots of family and friends. It seems that they always get a raw deal though because their birthdays being so close after christmas. But like we need more toys.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUR GIRLS!!!!!!

Mine turn four on the 7th of Feb.. I know I feel like it is hard to tell people what to get them with their b-day being so close as well...what did they get and what did they like the best...
Ok what kind of cake too..this is always hard for me since I am not a great cake baker....

 

[skent10]

I'm relieved to hear others have a hard time with birthdays as well. My twins will turn 5 ( ) on February 24 and will get a birthday party for the first time (previous years were just family parties).

They're in the same preschool class, so we figured we'd invite the class. But DD wants to invite her friend from ballet, and DS wants to invite the neigbor's boy he plays with--how do we do this? We're having one big party for both of them, but do we make a different invitation to just invite the little girl to DD's "party" and the little boy to DS's "party" and the classmates to a party for both? Or invite the female classmates to DD's and the male classmates to DS's (the genders are evenly split in the class)? Am I even making sense?

I hate the whole present thing, and the idea that people will feel obligated to bring two presents to the party--and especially for those two little kids who don't even really know the other twin very well. How have you all handled it in the past?

And as an aside, it was DD and DS who wanted to share the party--I was prepared to have two different parties at two different times (although I must admit I was highly relieved when they said they wanted to be together!)

 

[Pea-n-Me]

They're in the same preschool class, so we figured we'd invite the class. But DD wants to invite her friend from ballet, and DS wants to invite the neigbor's boy he plays with--how do we do this? We're having one big party for both of them, but do we make a different invitation to just invite the little girl to DD's "party" and the little boy to DS's "party" and the classmates to a party for both? Or invite the female classmates to DD's and the male classmates to DS's (the genders are evenly split in the class)? Am I even making sense?

I hate the whole present thing, and the idea that people will feel obligated to bring two presents to the party--and especially for those two little kids who don't even really know the other twin very well. How have you all handled it in the past?

Ours are boy/girl, too, so this makes complete sense to me. I have to say the whole birthday thing has gotten rather complicated. We do one large (really cool) pool party because we have it where my husband works and it's essentially free to do it there except for the food we have to buy. After swimming we have the use of a large banquet room for the party.

To be honest, when my kids were younger, I always wrote both names on the invitation figuring we were celebrating their birthdays together. I never thought about it from a gift standpoint, those I could live without. But one day here on the boards last year, I read a complaint from a parent whose kid was invited to a twin birthday party and was resentful about buying two gifts. It was an eye opener, then I felt badly.

So this year, their 8th, when I did the invitations, for family and very good friends I wrote both names. For the kids they wanted to invite from school who we didn't know too well, I wrote just one child's name. Some of them brought two presents anyway, some did not. Either way was fine because I knew it was a choice.

It has gotten a little more complicated as far as who to invite. We can have about 16 kids (and their parents). They wanted to invite some of their cousins, good friends from school/sports teams and from our neighborhood. I also wanted to keep it somewhat on an even keel between boys and girls, but it happens that DD has a lot of boy "friends" since she's with them a lot because of her brother (and socially accepted as "one of the boys" ). Luckily this year it turned out to be pretty even and both somehow wound up with roughly the same amount of gifts which I was relieved about (I was afraid DS would have a huge pile and DD would have just a few). Again, I don't really care about the gifts (would prefer Disney Dollars ) but I didn't want DD to feel slighted.

The one good thing about having just one party is that you only have to do it once a year! I'm figuring in a couple of years it may be time to do separate parties, we'll play that one by ear. I wish it wasn't around here on thier birthday, it seems like there are so many more options in the warm weather.

kritter, re: cakes - we've done two different cakes in the past. Definitely do-able. But we decided it was a lot easier to do one large one. Because their birthday is around Halloween we often do a Halloween theme not only for the cake but for the decorations and such which is nice because we get to reuse them (though we've also done cakes/themes which could be for girl or boy like Nemo and Spongebob). I put out a big urn of hot mulled cider for the adults, a basket of apples, a bit of Halloween candy, and pizza which we order out (so much easier than cooking or making sandwiches which I've also done before). Instead of goodie bags with candy we usually give a bag of bakery cookies with a few Hershey Kisses in them, figuring they're going to have tons of candy for Halloween anyway. I've also done candy apples as favors but I made them too far ahead and they melted a bit. Now I actually look forward to the party each year because I've got it down to a science.