Considerations for nursery times?

[mangowife]

Hi - we're leaving in 2 weeks for our first family (11 of us!) Disney cruise! We're very excited! DS is 2.5 years old and I'm considered booking some nursery time for him in advance since reservations are required, but am having a mind block thinking through when is the best time to have him there. We dontnhave anything planned out except for an excursion in Puerto Vallarta (my in-laws will watch DS then). We'll be on the Wonder.

 

Can you share your considerations for when you pick babysitting times? have you put them there during there nap times/morning/afternoon/at sea days/port days? I know it will depend heavily on our plans but since we don't have much planned at the moment, I figured I could use your advice and plan around DS's nursery schedule. =). TIA!

[mymollysue]

We are going on a Disney Cruise next month and we booked the nursery twice in 4 hour increments (our DD will be 21 months). We booked them one evening so DH and I could go to Palo and then we booked the nursery on a port day for a few hours in the morning (we are staying on the ship). Both times are not during naps although in the evening she may get tired and want to sleep.

[YOWmom]

We cruised on the Magic with our 2 YO and 6 YO in February, and we made sure to book the nursery for the night of the Pirate Party (which was late) so that we could enjoy it with our older DD. We also weren't sure if our little one would nap in the nursury during the day, so we booked a couple of hours in the morning of each sea day, so she could get some playtime in and we could get some quiet time in the sun (and then we took turns taking her back to our room for naptime in the afternoon). Depending on how well you think your son will do at a 2 hour dinner each night, you may want to also think about bringing him to the nursery 1 hour into dinner - we clued into this a few nights into the cruise and everyone was much happier for it. They would bring her food out right away and then once she got fidgety, we would run her up to the nursery between courses, and then could relax and enjoy the rest of our dinner. Intially, we had also pre-booked her into the nursery for the big shows, but ended up cancelling as she actually loved the shows and came with us every night.