Infant-specific review of Carnival Glory - Western Caribbean

The cruisers - myself, DH and DD (8 months old). It was DH and my 3rd cruise, second with Carnival, and DD's 1st. :-) With the little one along, we were limited in what we could do overall (few late-night shows), but we still enjoyed the experience. My full review is on the Carnival board (http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1324599&highlight=), but I thought I'd touch on some of the kid issues here (and I tried not to repeat myself too much, although some sections are unchanged).

Getting there - We took 2 flights to and from Miami, with a stop in Atlanta. DD was quite interested in both take-offs getting there, but had little interest in nursing to decompress her poor ears and even less interest in the pacifier. We did not purchase a seat for her either direction, but were able to get one on the ATL to MIA leg as the plane wasn't super crowded. It was better than having her in our laps the whole time. She didn't love it, but it was nice to have the option for a bit. We installed the car seat without the base so we didn't have to lug it along.

Embarkation - For both the airport and the embarkation line, we carried DD in our Ergo, which worked well. Our umbrella stroller (Ignite from First Years) served very well as an occasional conveyance for DD, but a conveyance for our car seat, carry-ons, etc. I did have moments where I wished for the full-sized stroller as we could have snapped in the car seat and it isn't super wide (just doesn't fold up super tiny), but we did okay with what we had an it was fairly easy to lug around.

Day 1 - Miami - We got to the room and saw no obvious place for DD to sleep. What followed what an interesting game of "pass the buck". Talked to the steward about a PNP and he had never heard of one...bad sign. He said that we'd have a crib by turn down. I asked about getting an extra PNP because I knew that Camp Carnival had them and he said I'd have to ask up there. We did and they told us to ask at guest services. Guess services sent us back to Camp Carnival. Needless to say, we ended up with a crib.

That's where is got odd, at least from my perspective. The crib was outfitted with two flat sheets and a blanket. I guess that's okay for older kids, but I wasn't going to chance it. The PNP sheet worked perfectly. I was a little concerned that it would get taken and laundered with everything else since it was white and indistinguishable from the other linens so we kept taking it off the bed and sticking it in the closet when we left. I think we confused the heck out of housekeeping. In retrospect I think I probably could have and should have talked to them and just asked them to leave her bed alone, but I didn't think of it. I was surprised that Carnival was still using cribs (although I shouldn't have been, since I called and asked), but I was really surprised that they didn't have fitted sheet for them, for liability purposes alone. It's time to make the shift to PNPs as many other lines have, IMHO, seeing as they are clearly the same size so fitting in the room isn't a problem.

Day 2 - "Fun" Day at Sea - We had fairly rough seas and I felt queasy. People who sagely told me that DD wouldn't get sick were 100% correct. It made no difference to her whatsoever. Perhaps it was the rocking off the boat, but we took pictures right around 5 and didn't have to stand in any lines. When we'd had our fill, we took DD back to the cabin for a pre-dinner nap in her dress. :-)

Day 3 - Cozumel - We grabbed the stroller to haul our stuff and the Ergo to haul DD and made our way to Cozumel. I had looked at the shore excursions ahead of time and deemed that I needed a carseat for most of them so we elected to shop. I think they had the best prices. I scoffed at $5 tiny t-shirts that I would have given my right arm for by the time we got to Grand Cayman. It's a good port to pick up maracas, which we found in GC for $4 and DH deemed the best purchase we made of the trip from the enjoyment she's gotten out of them already. If the day had been nicer we would have had more competition for the beach chairs in a small beach section, but it was nice nonetheless to sit for a bit and listen to the ocean.

Day 4 - Belize - We just walked around town here, again with DD in the Ergo, and I felt a bit uneasy and exposed. I think it would have been worth lugging the car seat on the tender to do a low-key shore excursion. We didn't spend much time here, but got a decent deal on mahogany ornaments in the shopping area near the ship ($3/each).

Day 5 - Roatan - This was by far our favorite port. We were at the Mahogany Bay port and and it was artificial as heck, with a lovely shopping area and beach restricted to cruise ship passengers, but it served our purposes just fine. We skipped the ski lift chairs (wary of doing them with a baby) and took a lovely little walk past the Duty Free shopping to what seemed like miles upon miles of lounge chairs. We even got to enjoy some time in a hammock. DD got to dip her little toes in the ocean for the first time (to say that she hated it would be putting it mildly) and DH had a nice swim. I did my best to take as many physical and mental pictures as I could to last me through this cold winter. Ahhh...paradise.

Day 6 - Grand Cayman - This was our first time at this port as we had to skip it on our last cruise do to sea conditions. We elected to try to get to Seven Mile beach on our own. I had heard that you could take a bus there and we didn't have our car seat in port with us so that seemed like a fine idea. Apparently their "buses" are indistinguishable from their taxis (think 15 passenger vans), except they display the letters "WB" and only cost $2.50 pp (no charge for DD). We would definitely bring a car seat and try to arrange for a vehicle with seat belts next time as riding around on Grand Cayman, as with almost all island driving, scares the daylights out of me, even more so with DD in tow. I felt super irresponsible.

Through a miscommunication we ended up pretty far from where we intended to get off the bus, but we elected to walk back. I never could figure out if our J&J sunblock was waterproof, so we had Waterbabies on her. We had been putting her toes in her mouth so I had taken it off her toes before we left. As we walked along the beach with DD in the Ergo, I thought it saw her toes getting brown. Uh oh. We reapplied sunscreen to her feet and she appeared to suffer no ill effects. We tried the water at Pebbles Beach (not far from Sea Grape). DD continued to find the ocean to be a terrible, awful idea and couldn't understand why people enjoyed it. We got some great pictures.

Day 7 - Actual Fun Day at Sea - DH and I thoroughly enjoyed our last Sea Day. There was lots of eating and lots of sleeping to be had. The temperatures and the sea conditions were perfect. We did learn that Camp Carnival had apparently shifted the open play time for infants from 12-2 to earlier in the morning. No mention of this was made in the Fun Times; I guess we had to get some sort of Camp Carnival newsletter? Oh well. We went back to the for a nap. Around sunset, we got our lazy selves to the jogging track with the stroller. DD really enjoyed the feeling of the breeze on her face and we got our workout in that way.

Overall, it was a nice, relaxing day, but it just made me sad, as the last day usually does.

Debarkation - We elected to do the Relaxed Debarkation option, which I really liked. I was glad we had the Ergo with us still so DD could nap as we waited for our zone to be called.

Your Time Dining - We really liked this option. Having a baby on vacation with a variable nap schedule, we ate dinner all over the map, from 5:45-8:30. Flexibility was really key for us and we would have happily had most of the staff for multiple nights, it just didn't work out because our dining times were so sporadic. DD clearly made an impression on the waitstaff as she was greeted warmly by name all over the ship for the entire week. It was really nice. The only downside was that our variable time confused the heck out of our room steward who had no idea when to make up our room. After a few days of unsuccessfully putting the "Cruizin'" sign outside of our door, we just took to calling housekeeping to let them know when we left our stateroom, which worked fine.

Food/Dining Overall - Tasty overall (see my regular review for more specifics on the actual food). We prefer the MDR to Lido and attempted it as much as possible. We regret not starting DD on solids before the cruise, because she would have had something to do while we ate as opposed to fuss. We took turns walking with her. Grandparents or friends would have been useful, too, but by golly we made it work and the staff was very accommodating.

Entertainment - Traveling with an infant you can bet we didn't go in much for the entertainment. We didn't spend time on Lido during the day and couldn't hear it from our balcony, which was honestly a pleasant surprise as we wanted to hear the ocean. Towards the last few nights I made it out for a few of the R-Rated comedians. I particularly liked Happy Cole. DH made a brief and not-so-fruitful foray into the casino. Roulette will do that.

All in all, we had a great time. There isn't much about the experience we would change. I think the key was having been on a cruise before and setting reasonable expectations of what we would be able to do with an infant and what would be off the table. For more non-kid related details, see my review on the Carnival board. :)

We started cruising with each of my kids at 7 months too!! Right at about 18months both my kids started to be able to stay up a bit later and enjoy the evening production shows. Actually they both loved them. Music, costumes, dancing they were just mezmerized. You will get to do a bit more as they get older. My DD is 5 now and she has been on 12 cruises and my DS is 2 and he has been on 5.

Thanks for sharing! We're going on our first trip with our 10 month old this week so reading about other babies traveling was very helpful!

Julienatul - Good to know! I will keep that in mind for the future (although we are currently on a mission to move her bedtime up, not back).

B_Mc - Glad to have helped! I hope my info wasn't so Carnival-specific as to be useless. I hope you report back and let us know how your trip went.

Thank you! We will likely be on the Glory in June with our baby, who will be 10 months old. This is very helpful! We will be driving to the port so thankfully there will be no airports to contend with. We are taking a Canada/New England itinerary (DH and I went on your itinerary 2.5 years ago on the Valor and loved it!).

We're planning to bring the Ergo and possibly my Baby Hawk (DH says the Ergo alone will suffice since we both use it). Our stroller is a big one that we only use occasionally - it sounds like we should plan to snag an umbrella stroller.

Did you bring a blow-up pool to bathe the baby?

We are thinking of just bringing our pack & play rather than trying to figure out the portacrib situation. If not we will definitely bring our own pack & play sheet (in a color) because I'm not comfortable with a loose sheet or blanket in a crib. Plus, our PNP is a familiar environment for DD to nap in.

Looks like the Baby Hawk is pretty similar to the Ergo. In your shoes, I'd just bring one, but as you've said you are driving, so overpacking is less of a big deal.

We brought a duck tub: http://www.target.com/s?keywords=duck+bathtub&searchNodeID=1038576|1287991011&ref=sr_bx_1_1&x=16&y=9 and it worked very well (fit easily in the shower). We has aspirations of using it as a pool on our balcony, but the cruise was so port intensive that we just didn't have time.

If you're driving, I would definitely bring your PNP. No reason not to. I was totally kicking myself for not bringing the PNP sheet in a color, but I was glad that we had *something*. Maybe the flat sheet tucked in for an older child is reasonable, but I don't like it for an infant.

Sounds like you've really got it together! Happy cruising!

Thanks for the review! We're bringing our will-be 8.5mo DS on the exact same itinerary and were looking for a review with an infant. :) We'll have family and friends with us though, and do plan on using the babysitting services at night occasionally as well.

That's great! I'll look forward to reading your review. :-)

I'm taking an one year old. Can i ask why didnt you try more adventurous excursions?

KW

Re-reading this again post-cruise and I have to chuckle because we took you up on your advice to buy t-shirts and maracas in Cozmuel and have gotten far more worth out of them than the $5 and $1 each we paid for them!