Cruise with small kids

yourdeadwright

Looking at a Caribbean cruise for January ,

Just wondering has anyone ever done one with small kids, 3 & 5

Was it a good experience

Strumms

I haven’t personally but I have been on a cruise with extended family who had small kids with them, all loved it…plenty for kids to do on the ships, on shore excursions they loved, the entertainment in the evening, shows and music is all family orientated… up till around 9pm… so I’m willing to bet you and they will love the adventure.

SweetSand

We started cruising when kids were 2 and 4 and have done good few after but all pre Covid so all of my experiences will be just that, make sure you check all of the current requirements as I believe there are still some restrictions depending on cruise line. So assuming everything is pretty much back to normal - yes, cruising with kids is great fun. We loved the option of the kids club. Starts with 3yo and kids are separated by age. Your two most likely will be in one group as usually it’s 3-5 or 3-6yo. They have age appropriate toys, games, activities and etc, usually they make a show/performance to showcase to parents at the end of the week, small stuff but kids love it. Our kids loved it so much that we had hard time to get them out of kids club :))) Great security as well as in they are very strict with checking in kids and out. Some lines have an option of bringing kids to lunch with speciality kids buffet and most have an option for you to leave kids on board while you are gone on excursion. Besides kids club - there is so much to do, starting from swimming, aqua park and slides, mini golf, shows, daily activities, excursions in the port and etc. In the last few cruises we found that staying onboard while ship is docked is amazing as in most of people were gone on excursions so you have the whole ship pretty much to yourselves. Waterslides with no lines, pools with no people and all this. Food is another thing - so many options. When kids were younger - we would bring them to buffet for their dinner first and kids club afterwards and two of us would have a normal dinner in one of the restaurants or wonder around the ship, stop for a drink and try different places for food. I can go on for ages, bottom line - we all love cruising :) Which cruise line/ship are you thinking about? YouTube has multiple in-depth videos about any ship and I would recommend watching them once you have a shortlist of ships for your dates/budget. Helps getting an idea about cabins (balcony if possible for us, for that extra space), food, facilities, entertainment and etc. Def watch the newest available as will be most relevant. I used to read cruisecritic a lot but not sure how it is now.

If you will be traveling from Ireland - my biggest concern wouldn’t be the cruise but the length of the flight and jet lag. Jet lag is real and it’s true what they say - for every hour of time difference it will take 1 day to adjust. So say traveling from Ireland to Florida with 5 hours time difference - it’s 5 days out of routine for everyone. You will all be up at 5am for 4-5 days and ready for bed before 7-8pm. Ideally, spend 5-7 days before cruise in Florida and a week on the cruise. No problem if you ll be in US prior to cruise.

Last thing, make sure you realise all the extra charges that come at the end of the cruise like mandatory service charges which you do have to pay in addition to cash tipping which is expected but not mandatory.

If you have any questions- I ll be happy to answer :)

Bojill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119629336#Comment_119629336

A lot of the cruise lines have all in packages, so there are no extra charges at the end.

The price you pay is the final amount unless you decide to do an excursion or purchase something on board.

For example Princess has the plus package which covers drinks, WIFI and all tips/gratuities.

893bet

On a similar vein is there any big cruses that depart from Ireland?

SweetSand

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119633531#Comment_119633531

Yes, most cruise lines do have packages/promotions going on all the time. We ve done it both ways: with and without package. You really have to see what works for you though as any package is not “free”. Funny, I was actually pricing (in the beginning of the year) Princess cruise Canada/NE for 2022 and difference of package vs no package for 4 of us was around $2K. Reading small print is very important as well, some promotions do not cover 3 and 4th passenger, have limit on drinks as in max price or quantity and etc.

yourdeadwright

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119629336#Comment_119629336

Cheers for the advice

One thing don't they say jet lag only happens when you travel East, So it would be when we return,

Its something to do with it being easier to delay your internal clock rather than advance it

SweetSand

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119634339#Comment_119634339

:))) I wish it was true. While it is definitely easier to adjust traveling West vs East, there is no avoidance of it. This is what’s going to happen (based only on our experience): you are going to land say at 5-6pm in Florida (if not later if you have connecting flight). It’s already after 10pm in Ireland so kids are going to fall asleep probably an hour before landing. The minute you get into the car - they ll fall asleep again and same in the hotel and stay asleep (most likely) for their normal amount of night sleep, say 9-10 hours. Once they are up at 3-4am - that’s it, they are up for the day as it is 9am in Ireland. So if your 3yo still has naps- it will happen at the normal Irish time but will be so much earlier in US, and same with going to bed in the evening, kids will be exhausted by 5pm. As adults what we do is we try to stay up as late as possible on that first day, if you can last until 10pm - you are winning the battle. But with kids - you can’t really do anything. And this scenario will repeat for the next few days with bedtime eventually shifting to later and kids waking up later. Going back to Ireland is a completely different beast :) - your plane will leave in the evening for Ireland (my personal preference is the later the better). By the time you have some food, get tired, fall asleep (if) it’s almost time to land, so you ll essentially miss the whole night. Our trick is to get into bed as soon as we get to the house in Ireland so say 8am and set the alarm up for noon. It’s always very hard to get up but you have to. You ll all stay up late for the first few nights as well and getting up in the morning is extremely hard. It definitely takes us longer to adjust in Ireland. But once over it - it’s like it never happened:)))

deisemum

I'm going on my first Princess cruise for Los Angeles next spring, not looking forward to the flights though. We have a Princess Plus package.

yourdeadwright

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119635793#Comment_119635793

Ye sorry i totally thought of that from my point of view as an Adult , but of course its the kids who will struggle,

I guess its worth the effort