- Lakelyn was 2 years old on this cruise. It was fine. Small boat, you pretty much saw everything the first day. The food was average. They have an app you can download which has a messenger thing on it and I think it was like $5 for the entire cruise to be able to message your party. It was actually really worth it since you can't use your cell phone service. They also had a couple of internet packages to chose from for like posting to facebook and such. We did get this, but the only down fall is they block any type of videos like netflix and stuff.. They had tons of photo places set up before dinner times to have your picture taken and the photographers were decent. Not the best, but they instructed you and did what they could to get the kids attention and pose you and stuff like that. You could view your printed pictures a few hours later or the next day, but the photos themselves were super expensive and there is not an option to buy like a digital package for all of the pictures. You also get the ones that were put out, so if everyone has touched them that's what you get. The play area for the the kids was OK. Consisted of a slide for small toddlers, a medium for kids probably 48" and then a large slide. Also had sprinklers and such between the slides and plenty of seating. Bar tenders came around constantly asking if you needed a drink and not just alcohol. They were great about getting regular sodas and such too. There was only one pool and it was fairly small. There was a burger place and a Taco place outside near the pool area as well as a bar. The rooms were your typical small cruise room and my biggest issue with this cruise was the room was hot!! You couldn't turn down the a/c as it was as cool as you were able to get it. I had them check it several times and even know they admitted to the room being warm they claimed it was normal. It was not! I had to argue with them to get me a fan. Once we got that situation somewhat sorted with a fan, it was manageable. Lakelyn was not fully potty trained yet, so we brought all of that stuff with us and didn't really get any type of questions for it. I'm mainly referring to the water slides/sprinkler area. We did not take her to the pool. It was too small and she had no interest. She played on the slide the entire time and we were totally fine with being able to sit in our chairs right by it and watching her. We brought on a small umbrella stroller which made it easy to get on the ship, off the ship, and to shop around and do our beach excursions. Getting on the ship was awesome. They let us bypass the line and go straight to the check in and then they didn't make us take her out and fold it up for the metal detectors either which was nice! Having it for the beaches too was great because even though pushing it in the sand sucked, when we had to wait in line for the shuttle to take us back to the boat she was passed out and was able to sleep in the stroller instead of someone having to hold her the entire time in the heat. The crew always made a point to notice her and accommodate her! Really did an awesome job with that! They had several Dr. Seuss themed things going on. We did the story time, build a bear, parade, breakfast. It was fun and we enjoyed watching her enjoy it! We did send her to the child care place one time while we did a show or something and they were great! No problems and she actually did well there too which I was surprised about. They gave us a little phone in case they needed us. They had several workers in there and it was very well "baby proofed" I guess you could say. I felt safe leaving her in there knowing she wasn't able to escape out of there and that they do alot of checking before letting anyone take her out. We did do an "adult only" comedy show one evening and they let us bring her in which I was happy about because it was late and she fell asleep almost immediately. We were still able to enjoy stuff while having her. Overall, it was a breeze taking her with us. We didn't have any problems other than the hot room situation and feeling some movement from the ship being so small.
This is the Disney Dream boat vs our small carnival boat on the right. Such a big difference in person.
Some photos of us during the first cruise, I was clearly pregnant with Tallen.
The photographers did a much better job at trying to get her attention and also getting photos during dinner, and there were so many options prior to dinner you could stop at. Photographers here were much better and I didn't have to ask them to get all of the photos.
Second cruise was again Carnival Ecstasy out of Charleston on Thanksgiving day 2018:
- I won't go into a lot of detail about the ship, you can read that above. Everything was the same. We did have Tallen this time and he was 10ish months old and Lakelyn was 3 1/2 years old. Lakelyn was fully potty trained, but Tallen obviously was not and he was also on formula still at this point. He ate regular food too, but still getting regular bottles throughout the day. This made it a little tricky, but not all that bad. We had one of those formula cup things that you can measure out 3 bottles worth in and always kept a bottle of water with us. We again had an umbrella stroller but it was a double one this time. Check in went the same and was great, getting off the boat went great. The biggest difference on this cruise was again it's a small boat so you feel a lot of movement and we had extremely rough seas!! I have never been sick on a cruise, but I was sick along with everyone else and crew members. The day we got on the boat was cold and windy so you couldn't play in the water or anything so there wasn't a ton to do and we had been on this cruise before so we had seen like everything on there. The second day we were at sea and this was the worst day. I stayed in the room the entire day super sick. Couldn't do anything other than lay in the bed. I even had zofran with me from my pregnancy with Tallen and it didn't touch the nausea! It was so bad! The kids weren't bothered and Tyler did take them to do some stuff and try the pool and things like that. It did storm and was kind of windy and cool so they didn't stay out there long. We did a lot of napping and I did a good bit of black Friday shopping online! The next day we were at port and this was also an issue because our excursion was delayed by an hour and a half. we were to be down there at 8AM, get there and they delayed it to 9:30AM because of the rough seas - which is fine, but at least make the announcement on the boat or something. Wasn't a huge deal though, we just walked over to the shops for a bit. Got back over there at 9:30 waited with everyone else, start walking over to where you board the tender boat and by this time were close to 10:30 and they let us know its CANCELLED! So now, half of our day is gone and we have to scramble to find something to do. I get that it was a safety thing and it had to be cancelled, but it still really sucked that half our day was wasted. We ended up catching a boat ride from one of the local people out there and they took us somewhere kind of close to Atlantis. a group of us walked around to find how the heck to get to Atlantis and then stood in line foreverrrrrr to buy tickets to get in. We chose just to do the beach thing there which was the same price that we were refunded from our excursion (the refund was an onboard credit though and we had to pay out of pocket for this). We were also able to walk through the aquarium part and stuff too here. Overall we probably could have done whatever we wanted here because nobody really checked anything, but we seriously only had like 2 hours by this time. Lakelyn was set on a beach so we went to this little cove thing they had because their beach access was SCARY bad waves. We spent a little time there then ate a quick and super expensive lunch there and then walked through the aquarium and then paid for a taxi this time back to the port. Again, if we had the day to plan to go there it would have been much more fun, but we made the best of it and it was fine. The next day back was much calmer seas and sitting out by the kiddie slide area wasn't too bad with the breeze, but when the water sprayed on you it was chilly and the kids did get kind of cold too. So again, the cruise and everything itself was not bad, we just had bad weather. This made us not want to do this ship ever again and vowed to do bigger ships at that point forward.
If you look at the pictures closer, you can see the kiddie area I have talked about. The slides that they loved, the area around the slides they could play in and sprinklers and tons of seating for the adults. Royal Caribbean had nothing like this for the smaller kids.
Also, the Cat in the Hat breakfast we went to on both Carnival cruises. It's cute and something for the kids to do. They also have story time and like a build a bear workshop for kids too. Much more kid friendly than our Royal Caribbean one.
Example of our double umbrella stroller and just let them nap on the go.
Cruising is fine if your kids are flexible enough to sleep where ever, so that you don't have to miss out on much. This was Tallen during dinner one night of our 2nd Carnival cruise.
And Lakelyn...
Third Cruise was Royal Caribbean - Mariner of the Seas in May 2019:
-Lakelyn was 4 and fully potty trained, Tallen was 1 and not potty trained and again I was pregnant. We brought the double umbrella stroller and they were not nearly as accommodating with us as Carnival was. I think like 3 separate times we had to close it up and unload the kids and reload them in the stroller again. I get the protocol, but its an umbrella stroller and there's not storage on it.. you can see the entire thing. We got on the boat and the boat itself was pretty nice! Much nicer overall than the Carnival Ecstasy. However, there was NO type of sprinkler or play area for kids under 48" other than the pool. Which they did have 2 pools which both had a "beach" type ledge which is like ankle deep and like 4 decent size hot tubs as well as a separate adult area that had its own pool and hot tubs. You'd think the grumpy adults that didn't want to get splashed would go to their adult pool, but nope they still hung out over at the other ones and complained and got rude with kids that were being kids. They had the wave rider thing, a basketball court, a big water slide, a climbing thing for kids, escape room, this trampoline jumping thing, hammocks. However, if you are not 48"-56" tall you basically cannot do anything other than the regular pool or the little climbing thing (this climbing thing is something you'd see at like Mcdonalds or something and its in a area that is SUPER HOT and there is NO water around it besides the surfing thing, but you don't get wet from the surfing thing unless you are surfing on it). So, here is where it gets good.. you are NOT ALLOWED in the pools or hot tubs if you are not fully potty trained, not even with swimming diapers that are specifically made for this. So there is NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING for anyone that is not potty trained to do besides sit in the hot sun. This was super, super frustrating and really made us and tons of other parents very angry. We ended up just saying "yes he is potty trained" because I was not going to watch my baby cry because he was hot and wanted to play in the water with his sister! What could they really do make me prove he was or wasn't potty trained? Sorry, but get rid of gigantic basketball court that NOBODY used and put some sprinklers up for these babies and toddlers! This was the BIGGEST issue. Luckily we only had 1 day that we had to worry about this because we only had 1 day at sea. So, since we found all of this nonsense out on the first day on the boat we had planned to take Tallen to the child care room during his nap time and spending some one on one time with Lakelyn together for a bit and then also taking her there and then spending some time together just us. Well, Tyler goes and gets Tallen changed and a bottle and takes him and they have like 5 kids in there and she said they're full. The next opening is 2 days from then... this would be our last day on the boat and we would be out doing an excursion so we wouldn't need it. So needless to say you couldn't even take your kid to the child care because they were always "full". This gave us even more reason to ignore their constant asking if Tallen was potty trained! And when I say constant i'm not lying.. so many different crew members would continuously come up to us and ask us if he was potty trained or that he couldn't be in the water. The trampoline thing was shut down the entire cruise as well as the escape room which we wouldn't have been able to do anyway because you had to be i think 16 and over. Tyler did do the surfing thing which left me watching both kids in scorching hot environment with NO water and very little shade for about 2 hours so that he could do it 2 times. I wanted him to be able to do it though so we all suffered the heat. They did not have very many photo places like Carnival did and the photographers were AWFUL!! Like my 4 year old did better than them! We prepaid for the digital photo package with gave us all of the photos which I did like but wish they had better photographers and more photo options. The food was decent. They didn't have nearly as many bartenders or crew members walking around asking to get you a drink and if you dare ask for a soda they weren't as friendly. They had this soda machines in like 2 places on the boat where you can fill your cup with soda, but they were like always out of drink. Also the bars only had coke, diet coke and sprite from a 2 liter bottle. The crew members were not nearly as friendly or accommodating to the kids as they were on the Carnival cruises. We had a couple of decent ones, but not alot. There also wasn't shows or things for the kid either like they had on Carnival with the Dr. Seuss stuff. The excursions were nice, had no issues there. They also have the internet package thing which was actually pretty pricey, but you could watch youtube and such even though the signal wasn't the greatest and this also allowed you to facetime and text through imessage and all. So, while overall if you have older kids or are cruising with adults this would have been great, I DO NOT recommend this boat with little kids. I can't speak for other Royal Caribbean boats, but I have learned a lesson in make 100% sure there something for little kids to do before booking a cruise.
They had 2 of these pools, you can see the ledge that is shallow which was the only option for small kids, except they weren't allowed to play there if they weren't potty trained.. so basically the hot sun is where they got to hang out.
This is the basketball court and rock climbing wall.. was rarely used on this cruise. We literally saw like 3 kids play here and climb the wall. Easily could have been made into a kiddie area.
These are the hommocks and the "climbing" thing that, again, were so pointless.. nobody came here really because its boring after a couple of minutes and it's also SOOO HOT up there. There's no water to cool off in or anything. Just HOT AIR.
If you look at my totally exhausted and burning up child with super red cheeks, you can see the surfing thing that Tyler did, which had us sitting here dying in the heat for about 2 hours so he could ride 2 times. You will also see the large green and yellow slide as well as a blue slide. Neither of which anyone under 58" I believe it was could do. Or maybe the blue one, you could be 48". I can't remember it was irrelevant to us since Lakelyn was not 48"
These are a couple of the "professional" photos that were taken and yes i basically had to beg for the photographer to "take one of just her" "take one of just him." "grab one of me and her" Tyler got none of just him with the kids.
Cruising with little kids at least for us was not bad. You just have to make sure there's stuff for them to do, and that the childcare is available to use. Also, it will depend on you and your family. Are you ok with pushing around a stroller and letting them sleep in it while you enjoy shows and stuff on the boat. Or do they have to be in the room and asleep in a bed at a certain time? You for sure want to make sure you are flexible with this and that your kids are too. If they wont sleep in a stroller, it may not be so fun having to either hold them constantly or go to the room at 8pm each night. Unless you are cool with that. I will say it also really helps if you have others cruising with you. Both times on Carnival we had Tyler's parents with us and the last one on Royal Caribbean it was just us. Also, make sure you bring plenty of diapers and wipes and a sippy cup or bottle for them. Make sure whatever they need you bring because there really isn't an option to go buy them on the boat or even off the boat. I always bring overkill on diapers and wipes. I always bring both kids a cup/bottle. I have a blanket for both kids which helps them feel like its home when we go to bed.
He slept in the bed with us, but behind him and in front of Tyler, you can see his blanket and his lovie deer thing.
She slept on the Pullman bed that she was technically not allowed to sleep on cause she wasn't 6, so we lied and told them Tyler was sleeping on it, but you can spot her blue blankie, and if you know her.. she is obsessed with it. Also bottom right of the photo, you can see her sippy cup.
Our next cruise we are hoping it will be a Disney one. Everyone has said its the BEST! We did Disney World last year for 5 days and while the cruise will be more expensive, I'm hoping it will be worth it! Side note about Disney World, TOTALLY worth it! Tallen was 11 months old and rode like everything. Hardest part with waiting in lines without the stroller.. kids always wanted to be held. Also, DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT go in the summer time! Unless you like heat! We went right before Christmas and it was a DREAM! It was fairly cold (cold enough I had to actually buy a jacket and blankets) but with all the walking and stuff it was so much nicer than the heat! I also really recommend staying on the resort and doing the dining plan if you are a family that likes to eat and not about packing lunches and stuff. We all had a blast at Disney World!
Up next for us is Great Wolf Lodge! I'll be sure to let you know how that goes! If you have any other questions about cruising with little kids, just let me know! I'd be happy to answer!
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