Cruising with frozen breast milk

[RunLove20]

My husband and I have a unique situation with our 8 month old son. He takes donor breast milk. We have the opportunity to take a cruise this June, and I’m hoping another mother has cruised with frozen breast milk before and can help/offer some tips or advice!

 

We have a Yeti cooler that can keep the milk frozen for almost 5 days, BUT it’s a larger cooler. I know Carnival has strict cooler size requirements (12x12x12). When I’ve called Carnival, I’ve gotten conflicting responses.  I’d hate to get to the port only to be told we can’t bring the cooler aboard and then my son’s milk will perish. 
 

It seems Princess is more lenient. I haven’t researched RCCL yet. 
 

Anyone have advice? We definitely need the larger cooler because he drinks 30oz a day and that’s quite a bit of frozen breast milk bags we’ll need to bring aboard. I’m also not confident that daily ice from the room steward will keep the milk frozen. 
 

We may just have to wait on cruising, but I hope not!

 

Thanks for the help!

Laurissa 

[mom says]

I can't answer your specific question, but there is a family cruise forum that may be able to provide personal experiences.  https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/28-family-cruises/

 

Also, while I've never cruised on Carnival, almost every cruise line has a Special Needs department that handles medical assistance for passengers. Contacting them may solve your problem. They may even be able to provide a freezer.  You won't know til you ask.

[RunLove20]

1 hour ago, mom says said:

I can't answer your specific question, but there is a family cruise forum that may be able to provide personal experiences.  https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/28-family-cruises/

 

Also, while I've never cruised on Carnival, almost every cruise line has a Special Needs department that handles medical assistance for passengers. Contacting them may solve your problem. They may even be able to provide a freezer.  You won't know til you ask.

I’ll be sure to check that out. Thank you!

[Itchy&Scratchy]

On 4/23/2022 at 2:32 PM, RunLove20 said:

8 month old son.

is he 8 months now or will be 8 months in June?

The daily ice will not keep them frozen.

If you open the Yeti cooler many times a day, it most likely will not keep the rest of it frozen either.

 

I had the opposite situation when DS was 9 month old - we left him at home with the grandparents, and I pumped and dumped while we were cruising. 

 

Any way he'll switch to formula by June? We switched mine to formula between 9 and 10 months (right after the cruise) because I was a sleepless zombie with all that pumping at work and breastfeeding every hour at night. It's probably not the advice you are looking for, but I thought I'd mention it. It does make life easier, if there are no contraindications to switching.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Itchy&Scratchy

[death_star]

So we definitely have had experience with this with our 2 kids. In 2019 on carnival liberty we took all of our frozen milk to guest services and they put it in their freezer. DW and I could come and go without waiting in queue to ask them to get some out for us. 

 

Fast forward to last week on royal caribbean and they did not let us do anything like that. They were originally going to give us a glovebox sized medical cooler which would have not held our 8 nights of milk. Our steward ended up finding a black and decker mini fridge that had one of those small ice cube freezer areas. We were able to keep everything frozen in there and to be safe I made ice packs with the ice they brought us daily and sandwich bags. 

 

As for the cooler they can't tell you no. It's a medical necessity so. You also need to get a medical fridge/ freezer arranged which they should be able to do.  That would help greatly. 

 

My back up plan had they not found the freezer was to make a solution with the ice which lowers the freezing point so it actually gets colder than normal. I feel like I saw a thing on that once on Mythbusters maybe?

 

Hope that helps.