P&O Britannia Caribbean Feb 2017 with a baby

[Catswhiskers2685]

Hi me and my family are travelling to the Caribbean next year, We are visiting the places listed below. Some of the party are keen to do a quad bike tour if anyone has any recommendations? We will be travelling with my 15 month year old baby so if anyone has any tips or advice it would be appreciated, we have all cruised before just not with a baby! :) Many Thanks in advance

 

Barbados, Curacao, Aruba, Grenada, St Vincent, St Lucia, Dominica, Antigua, and St Maarten

[sunbeams101]

Hello,

 

I can't give you any tips on the quad biking, but I can offer some info on the travelling with the baby part of your question!

We first cruised with our daughter around the Caribbean (on Ventura, in 2013) and it was fantastic. She was a little older than your baby will be; she was 20 months.

The Reef Children's club team are exceptional. We have since cruised another two times with P&O, purely because of the fantastic children's facilities, particularly for the younger ones (under 5's). You need to register on the first day (or 15minutes before the morning/afternoon/evening sessions start), even though she won't be old enough to be put into the daytime activities without parental supervision, she will still need to be registered to use the night nursery.

Make sure you make full use of the night nursery, if you can. It's free, and you take the baby up to the night nursery from 1800 every night. You settle them in a cot, and sign them in, and the Reef team will give you a pager so that they can contact you in case your little one wakes up or is unsettled persistently. Assuming all is well, you can pick them up anytime before 02:30

You can leave the pushchair by the entrance to the Reef for when you collect her. We had 13 date nights on our first P&O cruise thanks to the night nursery. It's a fantastic service.

 

WRT the rest of the Reef facilities, depending on which ship you're on and when you're going, they may allow you to use the softplay area in the age2-4 group, if this group has been combined with ages 5-8 (this sometimes happens when there are less children onboard - i.e. during term time). This varies though. the under 2's do have their own room for supervised play, but you may also get access to the other room if it's available.

The dedicated under 2's room on Brittania was lovely, and the 2-4 room had a little softplay and loads of toys and games.

 

Not sure which ship you're on, but I've been on both Ventura (twice) and Brittania with my children's ages ranging between 15months and 5 years old and there's always been plenty to entertain them. There is an outdoor play area on Britannia - splash zone, but it's not very big, but my son enjoyed this on our last cruise.

 

Lots of kids disco's/entertainers etc which we could join in with (but would have to stay at these) when we had an under 2 with us.

 

Kids tea every day at 1730 (I think that's the correct time anyway) in the buffet - this was a hit for our kids, and they didn't want to dine with us at dinner at all on our last cruise that we did! Lots of the usual children's favourites are on offer, spag bol, nuggets, pizza, veggies, sandwiches, jelly, yogurts, etc etc). Even if you decide to have your little one dine with you in the evening, waitors are very helpful and will source you a highchair easily. There is also a dedicated kids menu in the main dining room.

 

Cot in your cabin - if you're in a balcony cabin, have a word with your cabin steward, to move the cot into the wardrobe/dressing area opposite the bathroom. He may have to check that he's allowed to set it up there every night (ours checked with his supervisor), but we have done this on both Ventura and Brittania, and it means that you can watch TV, have more space by the bed, etc and not disturb the baby if they're asleep. If you do do this, bear in mind that it's a bit of a squeeze getting into the bathroom as you do slightly block the opening of the bathroom door. And you lose a bit of clothing space, but we just used the shelves for most things, and hung up the important things (dresses !) at the opposite end of the rail.

 

Sorry for the length response - hope you've found this useful !

 

You will love it, and so will your little one I'm sure :)

 

Incidentally which cruise are you on?! We are back on Britannia in Feb - B702D (St lucia Back to Back) we're taking our daughter (5) and son (3).

[Catswhiskers2685]

Thank you so much for your advice! I really appreciate it, it'll be our first holiday abroad with her so being a bit more clued up about the ins and outs of the ship will definitely help! We do have a balcony room so will definitely get the cot moved now that you've mentioned it! We are travelling on Britannia B703A 11th February x

[Catswhiskers2685]

I have just checked and we will be on the same cruise! We board on your second day in Barbados. Hopefully we'll see you there! X

[sunbeams101]

Yep - we shall see you the second week!

 

I will be at the night nursery every night signing in the youngest (he will be 3 so will still qualify to snooze up there, he could go into the kids club, but I think he'll be too tired judging on our last cruise), so I will probably see you there if no-where else! :)

 

One thing I remembered too - when your aircraft lands at Barbados, you will get straight on a bus, next to the aircraft, to go to the port (no immigration etc, as the cruise pax are all pre-cleared). So, if you want the pushchair, make a point of asking the ground handlers for it at the foot of the steps, before you board the bus. Otherwise the next time you see it, it'll be in the cabin. We asked for ours (and to wait a few minutes for them to dig it out the front hold), but it proved useful because we had a bit of a queue at the port before boarding (saved my arms!).It was also handy to have it, and go straight up on deck when we boarded. Things might have changed since, but I suspect this is still the drill (the last time we did the fly cruise was 2013, we've sailed from Southampton the last couple years).

[groovechick]

It's not a quad bike tour exactly, but a tour on Harley trikes on Aruba. Gets very good reviews - we were going to do it but for a couple of reasons could not in the end. Takes you round the main sites of interest. I hope if we ever go back to the Caribbean we will be able to do it next time. Just Google "trikes + Aruba" or look on Trip Advisor.

 

Drill re getting from plane to bus and embarkation is exactly as sunbeams101 says, you may have to queue a little while to complete the paperwork before embarking and it's hot in the sheds, so having the buggy will be a blessing.

[Catswhiskers2685]

Thank you! That's really good to know about the pushchair, I'm sure with all the excitement and change of scenery it will definitely be needed! And I'll check out the Aruba site sounds good! X