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Jan
9
Stop! Don’t Go On a Cruise With a Baby Until You Read This
January 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Going on a family cruise with a young baby can be a wonderful trip. We know because we just came back from a Caribbean cruise with our 10 month old daughter.
There is some planning to be done beforehand, but the planning is well worth the effort. There are many things that you will need for your baby on the cruise vacation. Here is our list of the top 10 must things to have on a cruise vacation with a young baby.
1. Number one on our list is a comfortable stroller. Comfort for your baby is important – but it also important that the stroller can be folded so that it can be taken on an airplane and so that it won’t take up too much room in your cruise ship cabin. Our stroller was in constant use from morning to night. We walked our daughter on the promenade deck every morning; we took our daughter to all of our meals in her stroller; we didn’t want to miss out on the night-life on the ship – so every evening after dinner we bathed our daughter, dressed her in pyjamas, and then placed her back into her stroller. We then walked the ship with her, went to some clubs on the ship with her and before long she would fall fast asleep.
2. Make sure that you have enough diapers for your baby during the vacation – but don’t bring them from home. First figure out before you leave how many diapers your child go through in a normal day – and then multiply that number by the number of days on your vacation. If your vacation involves air travel (like ours did) you won’t want to have to bring the diapers from home – if you do that means that they will have to be checked as checked baggage. Instead, do what we did. Our ship cruised out of Fort Lauderdale in Florida. We had time from when our flight arrived in Florida to when we had to be on the ship. So from the airport we took a cab to a nearby Target store and purchased the diapers that we needed for the cruise and some other baby supplies before getting another taxi to the ship.
3. Even when travelling with a young baby you will want to swim during your vacation (if your cruise is a warm-weather location). All ships have kiddie/toddler pool and in order for you baby to enjoy the pool they have to wear swim diapers or be potty-trained.
4. Formula – consider packing enough powder formula for the duration of the trip. We purchased the required formula in Fort Lauderdale rather than bring it from home. Keep in mind that any formula entering the ship must be sealed & in the original container.
5. We wanted to make it easy and safe to make our baby’s bottles so we took a kettle (with a thermostat controlled shut-off) with us so that we could boil water and know that the water was safe to mix with the powdered formula.
6. Baby’s food is obviously very important. We brought a formula dispenser with us. We did this so that we could fill several bottles with clean water and when it was time for a bottle for our daughter we just had to pour the pre-measured formula into the water and give the bottle a shake.
7. When you check into your room on the ship let your room steward know that you will have some smelly diapers – he will come to your room more often to remove them. You can also help to control odours in your cabin by bringing with you scented bags for putting the dirty diapers (they can be purchased at a dollar store or Babies r Us). The bags were also useful on our air flight.
8. Bring baby soap for your child’s bath. Our cabin did not have a bathtub and most cruise cabins won’t have one. What you can do is plug the drain on the shower and put enough water in the shower in order to give your baby their bath.
9. Make sure that you bring something to protect your baby from the heat and sun, especially if you plan on spending much time in the sun with your child during the cruise. Before we left home we purchased a lightweight sun cabana. We used the cabana on two beaches and on the pool deck near the kiddies pool. It kept us and our baby comfortable and protected from the sun. To rent a cabana on the private island that our ship stopped would have cost us about $90. The cabana that we brought with us cost less than $50 and we use it all the time.
10. Zip lock bags – these are great for everything – snack holders, put really dirty/soiled clothes away until you get home. Use for things that leak – (ex. medicine). Use the bags on the ship to pack bibs, spoons to go for dinner so when they are dirty you can throw in the bag & clean when you get back to your room.
These are the essentials that can’t leave home without. There are more items to consider, but start your list with these items.
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