Independence of the Seas review with a 20 month old!

So after months of reading everyone's advice here, here is my 2 cents!! We did a 6 night cruise on Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas for my sons first cruise. It turned out to be the perfect length for us.

It was also a great ship. Now Royal's 3rd biggest class (thanks to Quantum), there was a baby splash pool so he had a place to swim in diapers.

I'll start with our room. We chose a balcony like we used to do pre-children. I am so glad we had the extra space. The pack n play was waiting for us but their version was narrower and longer than the Graco pack n plays. We have a mamadoo mattress topper for the pack n play but it didn't fit right in theirs. So we opted to turn the couch around so my son would be surrounded on 3 sides but the walls and back of couch.. and then we put our suitcases next to the "open" side so it was a blocker. The steward put a blanket and sheet on top of the cushions and my son slept very comfortably all week. There was also a small curtain that was the depth of the couch so we were able to give him a little "darkness" while we stayed up reading or what not. We also brought a cheapo sound baby monitor so we could go on the balcony and hear him.

We moved the "coffee table" to a corner of the room so with the couch turned around, we had a huge open space for my son to play as well.

I brought dollar store magnets for him to play with on the walls which entertained him for hours.. and then I just left them there. We also rented one of the toy bags from the Royal Tots Nursery but you need to do it EARLY to get what you want. Originally I wanted to bag with the play food but we were told we had to come back at 8 pm.. and people started checking them out at 5. So it was gone, but my son ended up really liking the other bag I chose. You get to look in a book to "see" what is in each bag (but some pieces get mixed up anyway). You can switch throughout the week but my son really liked it and we were barely in the room so he was happy all week with it.

The library also had about 15 board books you could check out which was great for us since my son loves flipping through books.

The programs for the toddlers this week were "eh." Someone had previously raved about them but they only had open play for the kids on the port days for 3 hours.. not all day. We were told the reason was b/c it is now holiday season and the meeting rooms are all booked for a lot of other things so there is less availability. They had morning programs on sea days like music and art for a few hours but it would have been nice if there was something all day long. One night they had the motorized cars for the kids to play in and 2 nights they had an "under 3's disco."

We used the nursery for day care 4 times. One night we rolled him in while he already was asleep n his stroller so they kept him there in his stroller till we got him. One night he was ok until he got tired and then he started flipping out so they called us on cell phones they give us and we got him. The staff is really caring and great.

We told the waiter at dinner we needed to be in and out in about an hour and it was fine. There is a kids menu and they will give you crayons and a mat to color. High-chairs are readily available but we brought a foldable booster seat b/c my son refuses to sit in a high chair anymore.

Here are things I packed to be prepared.. and go figure, we used like none of it. We had 76 diapers and used about 38. I wanted to be prepared in case of diarrhea. Granted we *may* not have changed my son as often as we should have sometimes.. and he also didn't poop as much as at home. But I am glad we had the diapers. We had 3 packs of wipes and used 2 completely and started a 3rd (we wipe everything down and clean him after dinner, etc). I brought powdered pedialyte (no need for us this time), and individual packs of non-refrigerated powder probiotic (we use probiotic once daily at home so this was great). I brought a brita water bottle so i could give my son filtered water. I also brought the take n toss cups and those worked well.

I'm tired so I am going to stop here. Everything else was pretty much normal cruise stuff I think.. but ask your questions and I will go into lots more detail. :)

Glad you took the time to write and share your review.

Keith

Sorry I cut that short last night - not sure why i decided to write the review when it was later at night and I was already tired!

Anyway, you do need some degree of flexibility when on the cruise with the toddler. We were with friends and the boys had slightly different lunch/nap schedules but we pushed my son a little and her son ate a little early and we all managed to be together a lot of the time. Thank god for the buffet being open most of the day for snacks!

Milk was available pretty much everywhere there was coffee so we never had to worry about where to find the whole milk at any given time.

One thing that REALLY bothered us was getting back on the boat through security. My son was fast asleep in his stroller and anyone who has a bad sleeper knows they do not want to disturb them. So security made us take him out, fold up the stroller to put on the conveyer belt and then put him back in. I was so pissed b/c it is really hard to get my kid back to sleep. They should have a better way to scan the stroller if a child is sleeping considering they claim to be family friendly. So the next time my son fell asleep, we just had to stay off the boat until he was awake or had a long enough nap that it wouldn't matter if we woke him up.

We basically just used the shower.. I did not bring a blow up tub. My son did hate it but he liked playing with and holding the sprayer. The other option was having him sit on the floor of the shower and we would fill the ice bucket and just dip a washcloth in and wash him off that way. There is really no room for a blow up tub!

Welcome back :)

I don't remember having to remove the kids from the stroller and sending it through the scanner. We were on Freedom and Indy for both of their Inaugural years and I am sure that people tried sneaking things on in the strollers and that's why they scan them now - such a shame :(

Welcome back :)

 

I don't remember having to remove the kids from the stroller and sending it through the scanner. We were on Freedom and Indy for both of their Inaugural years and I am sure that people tried sneaking things on in the strollers and that's why they scan them now - such a shame :(

it was HORRIBLE. I was livid because he was so peaceful. I asked if they had a wand or could just hand check the stroller quietly, both of which would not have disturbed my son. instead... we had to pull him out and pray he would go back to sleep so we could eat lunch. they need a better way!!

I know these posts are somewhat old, but hoping you will see this. I get the fact that Adventure Ocean is wonderful and yada yada. But how did you, the parent, feel about security? I have real bad anxiety and I always think of the worse! Just want to know what security measures they take to make sure your child is safe and in case of emergencies, etc. My son will be 4 and we are sailing on the Independence. Thanks!

Security is fine. No adults are allowed past a certain point. Relax.

How was the kid's menu for the MDR? Was it the typical children's fare- pizza, chicken finger, mac n cheese..? Thanks!