Royal Cruise with 2 & 4 year old

We were just surprised with a trip on Allure of the Seas for a 7 day cruise with our 2 & 4 year olds leaving Dec 27.

I am very overwhelmed!

Here are some questions: Stroller?? I have a double sit-stand.

Babysitting?

Drink Packages?

What is included for adults & kids and what costs extra?

My husband is legally blind so any suggestions for us.

Excursions - Haiti, Jaimaica & Cozumel

Can you leave your kids on board and leave for excursions? is that safe?

is it safe to have them on the excursions? are there any excursions my 2 year old can do?

Thanks

Included drinks are: ice water, coffee, tea (iced or hot), lemonade or flavored water, milk and juice at breakfast. No package needed if those drinks are good for you.

You can buy sodas in the can if you don't have a package. There are several different packages....but in general, you'll need to drink about 7 drinks per day for the packages to "pay" for themselves.

Labadee, Haiti is the private beach....no excursion needed at all! Very pretty place...it's a pure and simple beach day!

Yes..the clubs will be open on port days...I would recommend doing ship's excursions if I'm leaving the kids behind....

Sure, you can take them on excursions, if the age limit fits your brood! Some things aren't suitable for very young kids.

I'd recommend hitting the library for a guidebook on your ports, so you can see ALL that's avail. in Jamaica and Coz.....you may find you don't NEED to pay for an excursion at all...many things are easy to do on your own.

We took our son at 25 months on a Panama Canal cruise, and he loved it.

It stopped in Jamaica, and he really loved it there.

In Jamaica, we visited Dolphin Cove, which is an excellent stop for people with children or those who love animals. There are various swim with dolphin programs, and a dolphin touch programs for nonswimmers, pregnant women and children. The Princess tours do not allow children under the age of 8 to participate in dolphin touch programs, so if you want your children to participate in this excursion you would need to book it directly through the Dolphin Cove (and please don't tell them you are arriving on a cruise ship since previous trip advisor reviewers were refused booking when they told Dolphin cove they were traveling to Jamaica on a cruise). The Dolphin Cove has a lovely touch tank, where your child can hold starfish, and you can feed love birds by hand and get your photograph taken with lots of parrots on you. There is also an opportunity to take pictures with either sharks or stingrays. Please note the time of the shark show, since

this show is very bad and the performers in this are also the same people who help you pose with stingrays and sharks. You should visit the other attractions during the shark show, and for the 15 minutes prior to the shark show since the trainers are preparing for the show and can't help you touch the animals. Dolphin's Cove is also located right next to the spectacular Dunn's River Falls, which my family greatly enjoyed visiting. Lunch was excellent jerk chicken at Scotchie's. Richard Brooks at excursionochorios@gmail.com provided us with an excellent tour of Jamaica. He guided my family through Dunn's river falls, and helped my mother pick out an authentic Jamaican meal at Scotchies.

My son and I went back to the ship so my son could take a nap, and my husband and the grandparents went to visit Dunn's River Falls, which is quite lovely but probably a bit challenging for a two year old (unless you can carry him or her).

We have taken our kids same age to those ports and yes we have left them on board. It's safe. But at times we also take them off the ship too. Depends where and what we want to do.

We take a small stroller and a carrier for our back. But our kids won't walk. If they do we carry all our things with stroller.

The sit n' stand is a good stroller your two.

You could contact the special needs department and let them know about your husband if you'd like - they could do things like arrange for a dining table toward the front of the room (to avoid a long maze to get to your table) and possibly other arrangements that would make things easier.

Have a great time!

Best,

Mia

We were just surprised with a trip on Allure of the Seas for a 7 day cruise with our 2 & 4 year olds leaving Dec 27.

 

I am very overwhelmed!

 

Here are some questions: Stroller?? I have a double sit-stand.

 

Babysitting?

 

Drink Packages?

 

What is included for adults & kids and what costs extra?

 

My husband is legally blind so any suggestions for us.

 

Excursions - Haiti, Jaimaica & Cozumel

 

Can you leave your kids on board and leave for excursions? is that safe?

is it safe to have them on the excursions? are there any excursions my 2 year old can do?

 

Thanks

We were just on the Allure a few weeks ago with our 21 month old daughter. We used the nursery for her a few times, but were disappointed in it. I think if we used it during the day on sea days we would have had a better experience. I can explain more if you want.

Since your Husband is blind I would suggest you contact the special needs department. They can let you know if there is anything special needed for him.

As a previous poster mentioned Haiti is its own private island. You can easily just walk or take the shuttle cart to the beach there with everyone. I have also been to Dolphin Cove in Jamaica but it was just me and my wife at the time and did not really pay attention much to children as it was on our honeymoon when we went. From what I remember it would probably be good for both of your kids and they did have a little swimming area. It will probably be about an hour drive from port as well.

For drink packages, I for one will always get the alcohol package (cue the jokes about my screen name) but for me they are worth it. The mixed drinks run you around $10-$12 each and beers are around $6. The premium includes sodas and bottled water which is nice. It works out in the end for me. But if you only have one or two drinks a day and not much soda you wont need a package. They do serve plenty of free drinks in all the restaurants (iced tea, water, lemonade, juices, milk).

As for what is included, you can get away with not spending anything if you were cheap enough. The ship has many free dining venues. The kids program will be free for the 4 year old, and the nursery is $6/hr from 11-5 and $8/hr from 5-midnight i believe. The times might be slightly off there. There will be a lot of free activities including the shows. There are also specialty restaurants where the carge is around $30-$40 per person but your 2 year old should be free and the 4 year old might be cheaper.

If you have any specific questions let me know. I'd be happy to answer them.

If you can please explain about the nursery. Our youngest is 2.5 so I would like to know more about it. He does go to daycare everyday so it should be fine for him, hopefully!!

Overall the nursery was pretty good. The main problem that we had was that on the first night we had her in there (night 2 of the cruise) they ended up keeping her up until we picked her up at midnight. We had told them that she would probably get tired and could have her bottle and go down around 9 or so, but it didnt look like they tried. Basically they just told us that she was playing quietly the whole time. This had her lose a lot of sleep, and stressed my wife out as it was our first experience with any nursery really. It really messed with our daughter's sleep schedule and threw everything off for the entire week.

The one time we used it during the day I believe that all they did was plop her in front of the TV for 3 hours. My wife had went to check in shortly after we dropped her off as she was screaming when she dropped her off and she had calmed down and was in a stroller in front of the TV watching some cartoon. When I picked her up she was in a stroller in front of the TV watching cartoons. And the staff seemed like they rushed me out without giving an update. At the time I did not realize that when my wife checked 3 hours earlier that she was in the stroll watching TV. If I did know that I would have asked more questions so I cannot be sure that is what they did, but it appears that way to me. It seems like they just do whatever to keep the kids quiet.

Oh, and the second night we dropped her off we had thought that maybe we just werent specific enough the first night so we had told the staff that she is pretty tired and that they should give her the bottle and try to put her to bed around 8:30. They called us at 8:45 saying she was freaking out and wanted us to come down. By the time I got down there (less than 5 minutes as we were eating at Samba just one floor up from the nursery) she was already calmed down and they told me they think she is just tired. Well duh, I told you that she was and she should go to bed at 8:30.

We were fortunate enough to have my mom with us and the rest of the cruise my mom had actually wanted to go to be early so we would just have her sleep with our daughter.

The nursery staff were very accommodating to changing the schedule around as well. ORiginally they had told us if we cancel within 2 hours we will be charged, but we did that a few times and they did not charge us at all as they said they know plans change with the little ones and they were busy anyway.