How do you take beach/sand toys on the ship?

My DD 4 and 6 love the sand. Our ports for our November cruise are Key West, Freeport and Nassau. We will have multiple beach excursions and I am interested in taking our own sand toys. How exactly would this work? Has anyone done this before? I'm mainly curious as to how you get them on the ship. Any tips or suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you!

I've often bought a small basket with a few beach toys for my son during an end of summer clearance etc and taken them aboard as a carryon. I don't spend much because often times I don't have room to bring them home.

For our Disney cruise we were able to ship a box to the ship in advance which was helpful. But for all other cruises we just carry on a small selection of beach toys.

We just did this same itinerary with our 3 year old. We brought a sand bucket with shovel and her puddle jumper lifesaver. You could fill the bucket with stuff and pack in your luggage, have the kids just carry it on or hook it with the handle onto your carry on.

My son took one of the small beach sets that I found at Target for about $3. We had a beach bag that we threw the googles, snorkels, masks, and beach toys in. Worked perfect. On the way to the ship it all fit in our luggage. On the way home I just looped the bag over one of the suitcase handles.

Enjoy! :)

Some of this stuff might be so cheap might want to leave it.

Thanks everyone for the ideas. I guess I should have said that we have a pretty good set of beach toys. We live near the Gulf and we are always there so, leaving them is not an option. What I'm thinking is taking an extra suitcase and putting everything in it, with our beach bag. Then we can just take everything out when needed. Then we would have an extra suitcase in case we need it when leaving. Do you think this may work? Wasn't sure if I could "check" this kind of thing.

I don't think you would have a problem checking a whole suitcase of beach toys. You could probably shove it under the bed until you need to pull them out to put them in the beach bag. Unless your set of beach toys is really extensive, you should not have any items on Carnival's prohibited list.

I have about three and a half suitcases full of "beach toys" (two full sets of scuba gear and a fairly enormous underwater camera) on every cruise. Just take whatever you want and are willing to store/climb over in the cabin.

One pail

One shovel

Lasts for hours. Then I let the kids play with them.

Pack it in your suitcase! Stuff underwear and socks or swimsuits in the bucket. In reality, kids are fine with a plastic cup and spoon...or stick, or shell....let them use their imaginations! You don't really need a bunch of toys/crap for kids...let them use their minds!

Pack it in your suitcase! Stuff underwear and socks or swimsuits in the bucket. In reality, kids are fine with a plastic cup and spoon...or stick, or shell....let them use their imaginations! You don't really need a bunch of toys/crap for kids...let them use their minds!

This is what we do. Choose pails that are stackable (i.e. one fits in the other) and then fill the inside pail with socks/underwear etc. Fill sand moulds with other things.

I tend to bring one or two buckets for each of them, a strainer (for shells), a few moulds and one shovel each. It really doesn't take a lot of room in the suitcase if you pack wisely.

My kids are 8/9 now .... I'm not sure i will pack the sand toys for our next cruise .... we'll see :D

Our last cruise, my son used them a bit, but mostly he wanted to swim. My daughter searched for shells, and used the bucket/strainer for that. Last beach stop, we bought them a watertoy day pass so they had more fun with that. But when they were younger, playing with the sandtoys was the highlight of the trip.

This is what we do. Choose pails that are stackable (i.e. one fits in the other) and then fill the inside pail with socks/underwear etc. Fill sand moulds with other things.

 

I tend to bring one or two buckets for each of them, a strainer (for shells), a few moulds and one shovel each. It really doesn't take a lot of room in the suitcase if you pack wisely.

 

My kids are 8/9 now .... I'm not sure i will pack the sand toys for our next cruise .... we'll see :D

 

Our last cruise, my son used them a bit, but mostly he wanted to swim. My daughter searched for shells, and used the bucket/strainer for that. Last beach stop, we bought them a watertoy day pass so they had more fun with that. But when they were younger, playing with the sandtoys was the highlight of the trip.

Pack it in your suitcase! Stuff underwear and socks or swimsuits in the bucket. In reality, kids are fine with a plastic cup and spoon...or stick, or shell....let them use their imaginations! You don't really need a bunch of toys/crap for kids...let them use their minds!

Awesome. This will definitley work. Nice to know I'm not the only one that plans on taking this stuff "along for the ride". My oldest loves the water, but my youngest would just be content playing in the sand with her Meme for hours. Once I get done packing, if I have an extra suitcase, I will throw it all in there, if not i'll pack it all with our clothes. :)

Thanks everyone for all the input. I love these boards, everyone so willing to help one another. :D

When my girls were little and we were driving to the ship, I always checked a plastic bin that was duct-taped closed with all their misc stuff. No problem checking it - just tape a baggage tag on it and it fit on the floor in our closet. With beach toys though, I always left them at the last beach for someone else to play with - didn't want to bring sandy toys home since there's no way to wash them before putting them back in the luggage.