erniebert

Oh we had this same issue on our Wonder TA… I’ll preface this by saying I’m an introvert. I am friendly but don’t feel the need to make friends with everyone I meet… we had 2 kids with us on this cruise and there weren’t many children on the cruise so staff were being extra friendly to them which is lovely but at dinner we couldn’t get through 5 minutes without our own servers, servers from neighbouring tables, supervisors of all levels continuously coming to talk to us. 
 

The Head Waiter even came over one day and started telling our 3 year old he was calling the Captain to close the swimming pool unless she ate all her lunch (which hadn’t even arrived yet) - we just didn’t want to go back particularly

There was a stowaway pianist on the Wonder TA - in the lifts as well as public areas. He was great 😊 

Loving your review, we are booked on the Westbound TA with our 2 kids in October… have you spotted many kids onboard? I’d guess not! 
 

also cat pics… these are Pip and Posy our two lovely rescue cats 

My husband and I are having a… difference of opinion about which cruise to choose. We are hoping to go on a Caribbean cruise March 2023 with our two children who will be aged almost 4 and almost 8. 
 

Our options are

•10 day cruise on Vision stopping at Fort Lauderdale, Labadi/Labadee, San Juan, Philipsburg, Basseterre, Castries, St. John's/Antigua, Fort Lauderdale
 

•11 day on Vision stopping at Fort Lauderdale, Puerto Limon, Colon, Cartagena/Colombia, Oranjestad, Kralendijk, Willemstad, Fort Lauderdale

•8 day on Odyssey stopping at Fort Lauderdale, Labadi/Labadee, Oranjestad, Willemstad, Fort Lauderdale

Odyssey is about €1000 more total, we haven’t been in the Caribbean since 2014 due to having babies, and we’re travelling from Ireland for the cruise. We haven’t cruised on anything newer than Oasis previously.
 

Obviously nobody can make the decision for us I’m just wondering which of us more people agree with 🙂 (I’m assuming me of course) 

The non-refundable fare rules are any change to ship and/or sail date is considered a cancellation and you'll pay the $100/pp penalty for that change. Since you're not pregnant at this time or expect to become pregnant and be past the 24 week cutoff for sailing in December, you're probably going to have to pay the penalty.

 

I'm sorry.

I’m actually happy enough to pay a few hundred dollars and go on a different cruise rather than lose the 1300+ we’ve paid as deposit!

We have booked an 11 day Caribbean cruise in December but had completely forgotten about Zika virus :( We are hoping to add to the family in the not too distant future so obviously we can’t go on the cruise. We’ve booked through a US travel agent and a non-refundable fare. My understanding of reading the small print is that we can change to a different cruise - am I right? The one we are looking to change to is less than we have already paid off the December one so I presume we lose the difference? Or can we use it to book drinks package or something?

I know my travel agent is best person to call I just won’t get a chance to this week with the time difference and commitments

I cruised at 12/13 weeks pregnant - food wise I had zero appetite anyway, I was so sad not to be able to face anything. I do remember asking for two plain jacket potatoes in the MDR one night for dinner as it was all I could stomach... it arrived with a big pot of sour cream on the side and just looking at it put me off food for the next 24 hours! Pregnancy is a funny thing >.<

Also hot tubs aren’t recommended if pregnant

Love the look of Jolly Beach

Another vote for Carambola beach club - we had a great day there

I’m not one to take pictures of the ship so can’t help there but if you search the #myindy on Instagram you should see quite a few from the press cruise post-refurb.

We also liked the sports bar, it had a nice vibe to it, didn’t feel like the usual cruise ship bar at all.

The chips in Fish & Ships were grand, not sure I’d bother with it again though.

Grease was very good, well worth going to

The new area on the sports deck with swing, climber and hammocks is a nice addition.

I’ve often had the issue of not getting a seat in certain bars after dinner/before a show on all the ships we’ve been on. It wasn’t such a big deal this time as we were travelling with a preschooler but it did seem busy

I’d be interested to try Oasis class again - we did it as a TA with bad weather and it was awful. It was so crowded as nobody was outside at all

We just got off Indy this morning and had a wonderful cruise. We commented several times between ourselves on the quality of the food particularly

In the WJ. It was very crowded on embarkation day and one other lunchtime when everyone was in a rush to eat at the same time to get to see Grease but otherwise we never had an issue getting a table quickly. I think it was probably one of our best cruises ever

Oh thank you - we're on her soon and I am so excited! I'm loving seeing all the photos

We had a good experience - missed our transatlantic flight home following Royal’s mess up of disembarkation. Phoned Choice Air from the airport and they booked us on another flight leaving within the hour (on a much more upmarket airline as it happens, it was a lovely flight)

Yes some fabulous photos on Instagram too using those hashtags.

This time three weeks we’ll be on her and I am so freaking excited!!!

I thought on another post you indicated your daughter was 3-1/2. If so, that's not a toddler. Most people think of toddlers as under 2 - having just learned to walk, hence toddle. Splash pad area is usually for babies and little ones. You might find staff would question an "older child" being in there. She might find the bigger slide a challenge! Just a heads up that she probably can use both, but be prepared for staff to ask questions. They might tell you one or the other to stop people trying to use big kid area in swim diapers.

No, she is still 2, turns 3 next week five weeks before we sail. She will be 3-1/2 for cruise in December but that ship doesn’t have the slides so shouldn’t be an issue!

What I’m getting from all the responses is it’s open to interpretation which I don’t like as I know RC can be inconsistent

We will be travelling on Independence with our fully toilet trained toddler in a few weeks... I’m finding it hard to find concrete info online about whether she will be allowed use the small slides in Splashaway Bay as she is potty trained? She wouldnt be big enough for the bigger slides and it will be a bit of a disaster trying to keep her away from the smaller ones as she’s not going to understand

Splashaway Bay is separated into two areas. The smaller circular shaped zone on the left with the smaller slides and other activities is where children with swim diapers will be allowed to play. The larger area on the right with the bigger slides is for potty trained kids

 

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I hope you don’t mind me jumping in - we have a just turned 3 year old and will be cruising with her in a few weeks. She is fully toilet trained but I think the bigger slides will be too big for her :-/ do you think she would be allowed on the smaller slides?

Can I throw a curveball here... it’s very kind of you to pay for the whole family’s cruise, it’s very generous. Perhaps it should be up to your son and DIL as to what room type they are most comfortable with? Surely everyone being content and excited for the trip rather than your DIL and perhaps son feeling anxious or worried, would make for a more successful trip. In an ideal world it would be great if everyone was relaxed and laid back and had the same comfort levels with different scenarios as others but it’s not how the world works and trying to change that may just cause tension and/or stress all round

Thanks for the recommendations - maybe a balcony would be worth it if we can stretch to it, hadn't really thought about that option. She's a great sleeper at home in her owncot but doesn't handle change well!!

We are strongly considering booking a cruise for October 2018 - a 14 nighter. This would be our daughters second cruise, she was just turned one on her first. The last one was a disaster, she wouldn't sleep in the pack and play or in our bed and often only slept for 4-5 hours a night after taking 3-4 hours to put her down.

Anyway I'm just wondering how others have got on with older toddlers? We won't have a suite or anything and it's Independence of the Seas - I don't think the insides have a curtain separating the bed from the sofa bed... are we mad?!

We'll be on Celebrity Eclipse in a few weeks with our 12 month old and just wondering what the story with high chairs is? Do they have them in the main dining room? buffet? other smaller eating establishments? It's our first cruise with Celebrity but I don't ever recall seeing one on RCI (I wouldn't have been looking before!)

We've just booked an 8 day Norwegian Fjords cruise on Celebrity Eclipse in April and we'll have our one year old with us. It'll be our first time on Celebrity, first time sailing with our daughter and first time visiting Norway! I am really looking forward to it while also being terrified at the thoughts of going away with her so really looking for any advice/hints/tips that you knowledgeable folks can share!

We will be on a budget so will mostly be eating at the buffet or main dining room but in terms of the specialty restaurants, from what I've read Qsine and Tuscan Grill would be child-friendly, as well as Bistro 5 - do I have that right? We are planning to go early in the cruise and speak to Maitre D in any of the restaurants we're interested in eating and just double check that there won't be an issue but good to know in advance. We're very conscious that everyone on the ship is on vacation too so don't want to impinge on people's enjoyment but also don't want to not do anything ourselves! Given the price of babysitting we'll probably only have her minded one evening so might go to Murano that night...

I know she won't be in the pool as she'll be in diapers and it wouldn't be warm enough for her anyway even if she was allowed. Hoping we might get a go in the hot tub at some stage if we can work it around when she's napping in her stroller!

We sailed on Oasis for her Westbound transatlantic and I really couldn't recommend it. We didn't have great weather, meaning the pool decks were only really in use for three or four days. As the cruise director kept saying in response to the numerous complaints about overcrowding at events and shows - Oasis is a large ship made of small venues. Unfortunately when the outside decks are taken out of the equation the ship can feel incredibly crowded. Eg at some of the karaoke sessions people showed up 90 minutes early and still didn't get seats. Embarkation and disembarkation were also a nightmare - it took us almost 5 hours to get off the ship and we had to queue in a crush in Southampton for hours for embarkation also. If you search I'm sure you'll find plenty of posts about it, there were a lot of disgruntled passengers

We just got back from the Oasis TA and due to the shambles that was disembarkation and transfers we missed our 3.40pm flight from Miami. We arrived at the airport at 3.30, phoned ChoiceAirs emergency number and they had us on a 6pm flight within 10 mins. Our original routing was MIA to JFK, 2.5 hour layover and then fly to Dublin all with Delta. The new one was fly to Zurich, 1.5 hour layover and then fly to Dublin with Swiss. It worked flawlessly, I really couldn't complain. It helped that Zurich is a much nicer airport to transfer in and Swiss a much nicer airline than Delta - we even had real cutlery, warmed bread rolls with dinner and complimentary Swiss chocolate :)