Conquest Class for Young Kids?

[mruhaak]

Okay... It's my turn to ask for advice!:confused:

 

I was hoping to plan a 7 Day Eastern Cruise for January 2008. I have a the quote from Disney, which was my first choice, and it is just a little higher than I was hoping for.

 

I have another quote for a 7 Day Eastern on Carnival Freedom. It is $700 less for the same type of cabin.

 

It will be Myself, DH, DS 4.5 and DS 1.5. I know that DS 1.5 will not be old enough for the clubs.... but that evening group babysitting is available. I am not going to count on that, since I know you never know how it will go with a 1.5yo... but I feel there are other negatives to waiting another year until he is 2 and old enough for the clubs. (First DS will be in school... and I feel 2.5 is a tougher age than 1.5 for second DS)

 

Does anyone have experience with this age children on the Conquest class ships? I know Disney is very catered around kids and of course this will not be. Is there enough family-friendly activities for us to keep ourselves busy during the day if we have DS 1.5 with us all the time?

 

Also... what kind of a port is San Juan with young children?

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!:)

[goofygrin]

Just got off the Conquest with a 10 month old -- we won't cruise again with a kid that young unless we brought a family member to watch them.

 

Really, there was a total of 6 hours in the entire week that were catered to the really young ones. (2 hours each of the days as sea where we could take him to to camp carnival to play with us and their toys).

 

They had high chairs in both the lido areas (ask someone to get one) and in the dining rooms.

 

Our son was quite sick of playing in our room by the end of the week (and we were sick of being in there with him) as most of the public areas were too dirty to have him crawling around (and there were lots of people!).

 

We didn't get to do many of the shows or anything since he woke up at 6:30-7am every morning and was going to bed at 8-9 pm. By that time, we were tired of wrangling him all day and just wanted to go to sleep too!

[mruhaak]

Thanks for the reply! Actually, after much consideration, we decided to go with Disney. It will cost $450-700 more (depending on what room we would have booked on Carnival), but it is catered towards the kids.

 

I do know that's it's tough with a younger child (ours will be 18 months when we go) as we've cruised with our other son, but we will be doing a family vacation with the kids no matter what we do. I know our oldest who will be 4.5 will enjoy the Disney clubs and if our youngest cooperates and goes to Flouders nursery part of the time that will be great, but I'm not going to count on it.