young children on a Disney cruise.

[darnheather]

My oldest was 4.5, and she was completely star-struck by the characters. It was absolutely magical. It's so hard to predict when that wonderment and magic ends and they realize it's people dressed up. Maybe I have another year? She was old enough to stay up for all the shows, and genuinely had a ball. Great age.

Totally depends on the kid. My daughter at 7 was convinced that they really were Mickey and Minnie and especially the princesses. It was magical and made me cry!

 

[oakleycat]

We have always traveled with our kids, but waited until the youngest was 6 to take a cruise. We had been on a Disney cruise before kids and wanted them to be old enough to really use the amenities: kid's club, late dining with dine & play, movies, late-night fireworks/deck dance parties. Our little one at 6 was able to handle all that and has loved cruising ever since. It's the perfect mix of family time with some alone/adult time for us. I don't think he would have done well with the kids' club at 3.

 

[kathi]

Our daughter was a few months shy of 6 on her first cruise (Magic). She did great and wanted to be in the kids club and was not afraid at all.

I don't think I would want to sail with a child who would not go to the kids club because there are a lot of adult things to do and I would not want to pay for a DCL cruise and only be able to go to the pool and family events. We traveled with friends a few years back and they had a 2 year old with them (along with 2 older children) and they admit the toddler ruined their cruise (they were in the Walt Disney Suite - so it was EXPENSIVE). Their daughter did not want to be in the nursery at all (and was just generally just being 2 and was out of sorts) Our friends had couples massages and dinner at Remy and Palo booked which became problematic. We watched her for some of the time so they could go do things (and we changed our Palo reservation to be served in their suite which was AWESOME).

I think it really depends on what you want to get out of your vacation. Some people are happy to hang out with a baby/toddler and only do kids things, in which case, any age should be great! I personally don't feel you get to take advantage of everything the ship offers and would prefer a different/cheaper vacation with a small child and would save a DCL cruise for later.

 

[3monkeys4me]

I think it really depends on what you want to get out of your vacation. Some people are happy to hang out with a baby/toddler and only do kids things, in which case, any age should be great! I personally don't feel you get to take advantage of everything the ship offers and would prefer a different/cheaper vacation with a small child and would save a DCL cruise for later.

I think this is key when planning any vacation with kids. We have never gone into any family vacation with the thought that we would have time off of being a parent. We look at any couple time on family vacation as a bonus. Sometimes it has happened. On cruises and Aulani our kids have spent a bit of time in the kids' clubs or doing their own thing. On vacations with the extended family we have snuck away for dinner or whatever while a grandparent or aunt/uncle have hung out with the kids. But we always know that anything can change at any time. Maybe a kid is sick or just wants mom or dad or whatever.

I do really appreciate time with my husband. When my kids were younger that almost never happened. We don't live close enough to make it easy for the grandparent or other family to watch our kids while we went on a couples trip and our friends are busy with their own families. So that meant date night was throwing a steak on the grill and opening a bottle of wine after the kids were in bed for a lot of years. So when it is vacation time AND the kids have somewhere safe to be entertained while we can eat in peace or go to a show or whatever, we jumped at the chance! But, it didn't always work out that way. And many times we ended up hanging out with one or more of the children. It doesn't ruin our vacation though, since I figure that I am parent on vacation or not and I would rather be a parent on vacation than at home. Other people might prefer to deal with a clingy kid at home though, and that is understandable. Everyone (well, most of us!) only have so many dollars for vacation so you have to decide for yourself what the purpose of you vacation is and what will be most enjoyable for your family.

 

[smoof]

My son was 13 months old on his first cruise. The day he turned 18 months old he went through the Panama Canal, and has been on a third with a fourth scheduled. I think it is so much easier than other vacations with small children. You get the Disney experience without dragging them to parks, etc... On our first cruise we traveled with friends with a 5 month old (again before they upped the minimum age). Will they remember anything at a young age, probably not, but you have the memories of them enjoying themselves.

 

[Ravenne]

3+ and fully potty trained for me, personally, largely because I don't want to have to pay for the nursery, but I still want a break to enjoy some adult time.

 

[lklgoodman]

My dd had just turned 6 when she went on her first DCL cruise. It was the perfect age to take her because she was absolutely in love with all the princesses and Mickey and friends. The first night of the cruise we were walking down a hall and ran into Rapunzel. She sat down and talked with my dd for a long time, I kept telling dd that we should let Rapunzel go, but Rapunzel said it was OK, and she just kept talking to dd. After we left Rapunzel, we ran into Tiana and she did the same thing, sat and talked with dd for a long time. They really were the perfect princesses, you could tell they both really loved children. My dd loved the club at that age and would happily go to them for a few hours each day. I must admit though, I don't feel like I really took advantage of the adult areas/activities. I feel like I spent too much time just making sure we went to every character greeting and activities that my dd would like and didn't do much of anything else. My dd is now 9 yrs old and doesn't really care about the character greetings, she is over the whole princess thing. I had to drag her to get a pic of us with Donald and Pluto on our last cruise. I have to say, it's nice being able to skip all the greetings, gives us a lot more time to enjoy other things. I'm glad we did them when she was younger and still cared about the characters. Now if they had the characters from the Descendants movies on board I would have to pry her from them. I know my dd wouldn't have gone to the club when she was 3 or 4 yrs old, now she loves going to it. On our last cruise we went to get her so we could eat lunch together and she didn't want to leave. Another mom with a little girl about 3 or 4 yrs old was begging her dd to go into the club. I felt bad for her, she said her dh and her hadn't had a second to themselves because her dd refused to go to the club. Not sure how old your kids are. If they are toddlers, they won't be able to go into the pools(unless they are completely potty trained), but there are separate splash areas on the ships for toddlers-3 yr olds. My dd never went to the nursery, but I've read good things about it also on here.

 

[adg06]

Babies and toddlers are kind of annoying wherever they are

I completely agree! My youngest is almost 4, and I finally feel like we can take her places... LOL!

 

[smiths02]

My dd had just turned 6 when she went on her first DCL cruise. It was the perfect age to take her because she was absolutely in love with all the princesses and Mickey and friends. The first night of the cruise we were walking down a hall and ran into Rapunzel. She sat down and talked with my dd for a long time, I kept telling dd that we should let Rapunzel go, but Rapunzel said it was OK, and she just kept talking to dd. After we left Rapunzel, we ran into Tiana and she did the same thing, sat and talked with dd for a long time. They really were the perfect princesses, you could tell they both really loved children. My dd loved the club at that age and would happily go to them for a few hours each day. I must admit though, I don't feel like I really took advantage of the adult areas/activities. I feel like I spent too much time just making sure we went to every character greeting and activities that my dd would like and didn't do much of anything else. My dd is now 9 yrs old and doesn't really care about the character greetings, she is over the whole princess thing. I had to drag her to get a pic of us with Donald and Pluto on our last cruise. I have to say, it's nice being able to skip all the greetings, gives us a lot more time to enjoy other things. I'm glad we did them when she was younger and still cared about the characters. Now if they had the characters from the Descendants movies on board I would have to pry her from them. I know my dd wouldn't have gone to the club when she was 3 or 4 yrs old, now she loves going to it. On our last cruise we went to get her so we could eat lunch together and she didn't want to leave. Another mom with a little girl about 3 or 4 yrs old was begging her dd to go into the club. I felt bad for her, she said her dh and her hadn't had a second to themselves because her dd refused to go to the club. Not sure how old your kids are. If they are toddlers, they won't be able to go into the pools(unless they are completely potty trained), but there are separate splash areas on the ships for toddlers-3 yr olds. My dd never went to the nursery, but I've read good things about it also on here.

I could totally have seen my now 11 year old son not wanting to go into the kids club when he was 3 or 4 (even though he went to daycare). I actually could see him still not wanting to, but we will have grandparents on our cruise and his 5 year old siblings. Maybe because my twins have each other, I could see the clubs as "you get to do something fun" whereas my 11 year old would always be the kind of kid thinking that we were dumping him off there.
That's why I think almost 6 for the twins and 12 for our oldest will be good (plus grandparents with us)...and we are only doing 4 day. Basically, if they want to do kids clubs, awesome...but I think we can have a good time even if we have to be with our kids the whole time.

 

[Jess_S]

We took our son when he was just under 2. He had a great time, so much so that he asked to go back on the "Mickey Boat" for a full year afterwards. Sadly, we haven't made it back on the Mickey Boat since -- but I'm hoping we'll go again in 2019.

 

[Amandine]

Totally depends on the kid. My daughter at 7 was convinced that they really were Mickey and Minnie and especially the princesses. It was magical and made me cry!

When my daughter was around the same age she lost a tooth just before we visited Cinderella's Castle, and when she met the Fairy Godmother she told her that she was afraid that the tooth fairy wouldn't be able to come that night because she didn't have a ticket to get in. Fairy Godmother hugged her and told her not to worry, because all fairies get year-round permission to come to Disney anytime they want, and she was sure the tooth fairy would come. She was so excited she was telling EVERYONE. It's one of my favorite magical Disney memories It's so awesome when they're small enough that they totally believe it's all real!