This blog post is a follow-on blog post from my pros and cons of holidaying on a cruise ship. Last year we did a cruise to the South Pacific with Royal Caribbean. It was a lovely holiday but there were a few mistakes that we made with our trip.
These are my key learnings from our cruise with children:
- Departing from the same city we live in was far simpler than flying to a different departure location.
- Parking at the cruise terminal sells out fast! Book early so I don’t have to park far away and get a transfer (which adds extra time to our trip).
- The early bird gets the worm – I should have booked everything as early as possible to avoid missing out.
- Check-in as early as possible. The boarding times are selected on check-in. We didn’t check in until a week before the cruise and got one of the last boarding slot times. We missed out on hours onboard the ship (and the welcome lunch). I’ll know for next time!
- Sit-down breakfast is more relaxing with young children than the buffet. They bring us the food!
- Cruises look like they would be fun with groups. We only went with our family, but in the future, I would love to cruise with family friends.
- The cruise app is helpful for the cruise schedule and dining times.
- Cruising is great but challenging with a baby/toddler (actually, most holidays seem difficult to me with a baby/toddler). I will wait until my children are 3+ to go on another cruise, but ideally, 5+ is best for kid activities.
- Shore excursions – I wish I had planned better. My lesson learned is that it takes a while to get off the ship (crowds!), so having a relaxed attitude will probably help me next time.
- The sit-down dinner took us about 1.5 hours, which was a long time for kids to sit. We took some books, toys, and had pre-downloaded some kids’ shows onto our phones so that our kids were entertained during dinner. That worked well.
- For a family of five, interconnecting rooms can be great, but I found booking online difficult for interconnecting rooms, so I ended up calling the cruise company to book instead of through the website, which took longer, but we got a good interconnecting room in the end.
- Personally, I enjoy staying up on the higher decks – purely a personal choice.
The joyful moments for me on the cruise were:
- Watching the sunset over the ocean on the top deck.
- Talking with my family over a long three-course dinner.
- Relaxing in the sun by the pool.
- Dancing with my family on the dance floor.
- Listening to beautiful live music.
- Watching a pod of dolphins out at sea while eating lunch.
- Being in nature / fresh air when at the cruise destinations
NOTE: How you travel is a very personal choice. These lessons learned are only my thoughts. Make your own decisions based on what works for you and your personal circumstances! Also, if you are considering a cruise, do make sure to check what that specific cruise is offering, as it may be different from my above comments.