Cruise with toddler
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Don’t have much in the way of advice but if your toddler isn’t potty trained yet (mine wasn’t at age 2), I’d check your cruise lines policy about swimming! We were looking at cruises when our son was that age but all of them stated that, unless potty trained, babies/toddlers weren’t allowed in the pools onboard which killed it for us as that would’ve been his main source of entertainment while at sea! X
@Jess what cruise line were you looking into? Royal Caribbean has splash pad options available for them. We did that every afternoon after nap and before dinner!
@Amber We looked at Norwegian (NCL) and Royal Caribbean - NCL was a firm no unless potty trained and, as you say, Royal Caribbean they’re allowed in splash pads if the ship has one but we didn’t want to be tied to having to be by the splash pad and wanted to be able to swim as a family which put us off.
@Jess you actually want to swim in the pools? Lol they're just always way too crowded for my liking so I really loved the splash pad option. I got to be in water with my little one and not worry about it being so crowded. It was nice.
@Amber I use the term ‘swim’ loosely haha, I had visions of us floating around the pool with him in a little inflatable, pushing him back and forth between us… which we ended up doing in a hotel on a regular holiday instead 😊 We’ve never cruised before so wasn’t aware how crowded the pools are or aren’t. Coincidentally we actually booked a cruise for this December which we’ve since had to cancel as we found out I’m pregnant and the cruise line doesn’t allow babies under 6 months old and our new babe would be 5 months old during the dates we’d booked… feels like we’re just destined not to cruise at this point 😂🙈
@Jess oh man that stinks. They also have restrictions on how far along you should be too 😂😂😂 you'll get there. But yes, I too enjoy having little one in a floaty and just chilling in the pool, but definitely can't do that on a cruise ship. They do indeed get packed unless you're going super early! The splash pad allowed for LO to be able to run off some energy too instead of just being held the whole time!
@Amber thank you so much for this info!!! Didn’t even know there were travel seats. I’ll have to research. Would you mind sharing which one you used
@Amber that’s a good idea, thank you!!! Look at that face, hope we do too. Thank you!
@Gabby we got this travel carseat https://a.co/d/38ZULVS it is a very simple one. But we got it because of it being lightweight. We also got a carrying case for it that we carried it in since we needed to travel through airports.
We took a lot of snacks so she could have a variety and in case snack time fell on the odd time where things were actually closed to be able to get her a snack (she was also just over 1 so we were just getting into exploring solid foods and we were more careful with what we chose for her). Get a travel stroller that has some storage space. We got an all terrain travel stroller that folds up nicely with a carrying case, BUT it did not have a lot of storage and we were needing to bring an additional bag with us everywhere for everything (bib, spoon, water bottle, diapers, wipes, hand sanitizer, etc). If new stroller do test runs at home so they get used to it. Speaking of hand sanitizer, you can get a good foaming travel hand sanitizer for the kiddo! She loves the bubble aspect of it lol. We took a travel car seat (one that was light weight) but it was more for the plane. we didn't do excursions but we did get off the ship on dock days in the morning before nap time to explore.