birky_27

I saved a little over $700 on a sailing I had already booked for FOS eastern caribbean in March 2015. We still had the balcony credit even with the BOGO.

Then decided to book a 7 night western caribbean D1 balcony on the Allure for April 2016 and it ended up being around $1000/person with taxes.

One more thing that I forgot. You do have to book ahead at the nursery. It can fill up but there is always a possibility that they could have openings later on but not guaranteed.

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We were on the Indy this past December with our 22 month old. Like someone else mentioned there is an open house on departure day. Go to them! Especially for the nursery. They will give you all the information you need and answer all your questions, we had tons because this was our first cruise with a child. This also gives your child time to meet some of the staff, other kids, and get to know the space. There is a fee for the nursery and it does go up a few dollars for later in the evening. Overall, I thought the fees were reasonable. I think they may have been $6/hr during the day and $8/hr during he evening but I can't remember exactly. I felt comfortable leaving our son there and was confident that the staff were well trained plus they give you a phone that they can call if there are any issues and they don't hesitate to call! Our son woke up from a nap there and was really upset, they called, and my husband went right up to check on him. The toys and play area were clean which I was worried that they wouldn't be. Even though our son didn't send tons of time in the nursery he did enjoy the time he spent playing with others there, except for the whole nap situation.

There are also play group times where you can take your child to play with others that are the same age.

They are located in different areas around the ship at different times during the day. You can get a schedule of these playgroups from the nursery during the open house. A parent does need to stay with the child during the playgroups but there is a staff member there to help the children play and interact together. We found that all these staff members were warm and welcoming and made our son feel welcomed and at ease. The only thing that disappointed me was the fact that the playgroups were on the schedule as things like farm play or zoo play and we went to the ones we thought our son would like only to find out that there weren't really any themes, just toys without a theme. I'm not sure if any of this has changed since RCCL and Little People aren't working together anymore.

As far as the baby splash area, our son loved it. He had a blast even though it wasn't deep plus there were Fisher Price toys in the water that RC put in for kids to play with. I will tell you that I did see numerous parents with their diapered children in the other "restricted" areas and lots of older kids would make their way into the baby section from time to time. One little girl around the age of 6 came in to the baby area and would take toys from the younger kids. But we don't let small things like that ruin our fun.

We did take him with us to several shows and he did just fine. There wasn't anything vulgar that I would have been worried about him seeing and he is pretty well behaved. Most times he would nap during the shows because of the dimmed lights and music, we used this to our advantage!

Have a wonderful cruise!

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Nothing super interesting but we did find a driver's license on the very top of the closet. We made sure that it was turned in to guest services immediately. On our last cruise on the IOS we noticed several things stuck in the ceiling in different spaces. DH pulled them out and they were just folded up pieces of cruise compasses from a year or so ago. Nothing was written on them so I'm not sure why they were there other to be a sort of "time capsule."

The other thing isn't really a found item but something that someone mentioned earlier jogged my memory. Once we found a bottle of water was open in our fridge on the very first day but it didn't look like any of the water was gone, you could just see the condensation on the inside like the lid wasn't on tight. We didn't even think about mentioning it to our room steward because our room wasn't completely ready yet and we just figured it would be taken care of and disposed of. It was never removed and we were charged for it almost immediately. We did make a visit to guest services to have it removed though which took some time to explain. Lessoned learned though, make sure to check out EVERYTHING on the first day!

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Anytime I have ever called before the wait time was 10 minutes or less. During the last month I have called three times, for three different reasons and my wait times were 93 minutes (at 11:30am), 128 minutes (at 8:00 pm), and 67 minutes (at 3:30 am). I asked after the 128 minute wait why the wait times have increased so much from previous calls and I was told that Jan, Feb, and March were the three busiest months of the year. Don't know how true that is but I have had a job dealing with the public when certain things, like wait times, were out of my control so I am sympathetic towards the operators and their hardwork. The good news is that by waiting on hold for so long I got to save big bucks on a price drop.

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I would suggest the 7 day based on our experience while cruising with our toddler. I would suggest getting a cabin with at least a promenade view but a balcony or suite would be best. Our 21 month old (at the time) never had a chance to get bored while on the Independence this past December. We only used the nursery once but attended play groups several times. My son loved the baby pool, parades, shows, pretty much everything. He cried when we got off the ship and he still talks about the "big boat" and water.

We booked a 7 day on the Freedom for this next year because we know he will do wonderful and we will all enjoy ourselves. We have been on smaller ships with less for children to do and personally I wouldn't even consider them for us just because they don't fit our needs.

Obviously only you know your family and their needs and wants and regardless of your decision I'm sure you will all have fun. Happy sailing!

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Who will the director be on the Independence for a cruise on Decemember the 15th?