Cruising With Children Advice and Tips

If you do decide to take one or more young ones, your first test will be the muster drill (maybe, after Covid, the drills got much more simple, jusst show up and get checked off the list. Prior to Covid, just before the ship leaves port, you were required to participate in a mandatory safety drill. Everyone on the ship was required to put on their life jackets and report to a Muster Station. There you would stand (packed like sheep) until everyone on the ship is in the same miserable position you are in. Young children did not like this for too long. My advice was to avoid waiting by leaving your room at the last minute. You got reminded of the drill time several times until a last minute call went out. After the last call, wait a bit then go.

Milk is always available but you may need to ask for it. Most cruises provide milk cartons for breakfast. If your room has a refrigerator, you can stock up your backpack with milk at breakfast, return to the room filling your refrigerator. If you do not have a refrigerator, you will need to go to the buffet area each time and ask for milk. Room service can also bring you milk but usually you have to arrange this ahead of time�.not to helpful if your kid is about to cry.

If your child is one or younger request a crib, although it takes a bit of precious space. Hopefully your kids are tired and crash when they hit the bed at night. My one year olds never seemed to be ready to sleep or liked to cry a bit before falling asleep. Knowing my neighbors can hear a crying baby, I preferred to take my kid out of the room to fall asleep if they wanted to fight it. On both cruises with infant kids, I had a quiet place outside where we could sit, listen to the waves crash and fall asleep. After a few nights doing this, they know the sounds of the spot meant bedtime.

We like to keep moving on shore excursions. If we are not near any food and one of our kids is hungry it is nice to have food in our pack. Since the cruise does not provide a sack lunch, you will have to make one. Of course, you can always buy a lunch on shore somewhere. My suggestion here is just for snacking. The morning of the shore excursions, at the breakfast buffet, stock your daypack full of lunch and snack food. I bring small plastic containers that can hold food. Some of the items we grab are fruit, crackers, cold cereal, hard boiled eggs, pastries and muffins. Usually they will tell you that bringing food off the ship (especially fruit) is prohibited. Sometimes they even threaten there is a fine. Usually they are only worried about fruit but the cruise adds in food as well. Hide the food in your bag, in another bag with diapers. If there is an inspection of bags, it is usually really pathetic, a going through the motions type of drill.

It is possible to leave your kids on the boat all day while you are on a shore excursion. We always took them with us when they were young. Knowing we can see a lot in one full day, we brought 2 child carrier backpacks on some cruises. This way, if our 3 year old could not walk anymore or wanted to sleep, in the pack he would go. Your kids will likely be very tired when they get back to the boat. If your kids are 5 or older, it is really easy to leave them on the boat all day long in the kids center. Teens are no problem at all on excursion day. They can pick.

This is when the cruise ship can not dock on shore but must shuttle passengers to shore by smaller boats. If you want to get out early, find out when tickets will be distributed. Get one person to wait in line for your group. Be on the first few boats off the ship so you wait very little and have the most time on shore. Or, the opposite if the shore activities are limited, just wait until mid morning to go after the rush.

Larger class cruise ships may have a do it yourself laundry mat available. This is especially nice if the kids cloths are dirty from traveling before you even got on the cruise. If the ship does not have one, most ships will offer a fill this bag for 30 bucks deal about halfway through the cruise.

Although my cruising experience is with young children, I spent considerable time outside the play centers talking with parents, teens and watching the reactions of those under age 5. My conclusion is this: try to go without kids; you will enjoy the trip much better. If you have only 1 child, still book the trip. One is manageable and you will still have a good time. If you have 2 young children, do not go. Every 3 year old went into their fun class crying, basically saying "not again". A toddler will have more fun with the parents on the ship so why would he/she want to be dumped into a daycare? That will leave you with 2 young kids most of the time on the ship. Chances are, they both will not make it through the adult activities and shows that you want to see without acting up. I put my kids through lots of stuff, and I enjoy a good travel challenge with kids, but even I was overwhelmed on the ship with a 1 and 3 year old. Once they are older, around 5 years old, they love the activities on the ship. The older they get, the easier it is to cruise with them. The teens I talked with rarely even saw their parents! Those 10 and up all made friends easily they claimed, preferring to do activities with each other instead of their family. Years later, when my kids became teens, sure enough, they were easy on a cruise, the goal was just to keep in touch once in awhile and still do some family together activities.

Most ships have two ways of eating dinners. One is a formal sit down dinner in a nice restaurant. The other option is the buffet, where breakfasts and lunches are served. Unless you are feeling particular brave with your youngest kids, you will likely eat dinner at the buffet, most parents do that have more than one kid. You may also have the option of room service but kids can be picky so having lots of choices ready and available is wise.

If your kid or kids are sleeping, you can just send one adult up for the food while the family stays in the room. Most ships allow you to take a plate of food just about anywhere. If you have a kid really acting up, you can even find a table outside the buffet area, out on the deck. Usually there are tables far removed from everyone.

Breakfast and lunch buffets are simple but I always grab some things for the kids to snack on incase they do not eat enough. Cereal boxes, bananas, oranges, muffins were my favorite to stuff into a backpack. We used washable bibs at meal time, hence the backpack to carry them in (and our stash of food out).

Cruising with Children

Mandatory Safety Drill

Food and Meals

Luggage Delivery

Milk for infants

Shore Excursion Food

On board Laundry Service and Mats

Shore Excursion Days

Tendering to Shore

Getting your Kids to Sleep