Anonymous wrote:We took our toddler on a Disney cruise and had the time of our lives. My favorite part was us all dancing in one of the lounges.

You went on the wrong line with a toddler

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cruising sucks unless it's one of those ritz carlton yacht low density or maybe Disney cruise. It must be expensive and have fewer people

How many times have you cruised?

Which ships?

Fwiw I can report that you need not spend a fortune to have a nice cruise—and it need not be a Ritz Carlton or Disney cruise.

If you want to avoid crowds, try a smaller, older ship.

Anonymous wrote:Cruising sucks unless it's one of those ritz carlton yacht low density or maybe Disney cruise. It must be expensive and have fewer people

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My hot take — since vacations with toddlers are hellish, just minimize them. I was trying to remember what we did when my kids were that little and the answer is … not much. We went to grandparents house. We went to Hilton head once. We went to Pittsburgh once. We visited some college friends. In short we saved a bunch of money and we are now tearing through it with young teens. My 15 year old would travel the world and has a huge list of what she wants to do. And it’s fun to travel with her. So if you feel bad about not taking trips when they are little, imagine the money in an account growing and then you can blow it on a much nicer trip when you can all enjoy it.

Disagree.

One of our favorite vacations was a week on Grand Cayman with our two year old. And it was relaxing. We napped when he napped.

OP has three children. No napping while the baby naps.

And I have 4 kids and we’ve always vacationed with them. Think of all the trips we would have missed if we waited for them to grow up?

We took our first cruise when our youngest was 2 and everyone had fun (all 6 of us). And we found it relaxing. We took a family nap break. The older kids watched tv if they didn’t want to nap (2 cabins).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should try doing a cruise in first class. They all offer some form of it. On Royal it is called star class and on big ships it worth it.

We never ate in the dining hall for anything. You get unlimited access to specialty dining and they deliver anything from any restaurant to your room.

You also never wait in a line, they escort you on and off the ship personally. We were off ship in literally 10 Minutes with our luggage last day.

They won’t watch your kids for you, but will save seats at shows and stuff like that.

Op here - we did this on celebrity. I just couldn’t enjoy it because of the toddler

Though in general I really don’t love cruises, or at least not this experience on celebrity’s ever growing ships. The suite and speciality restaurant were nice but even in the retreat dining room it felt packed and so many people were sick. Two mornings ago at breakfast in the exclusive dining room there was a woman at the next table hacking up a lung talking about how sick she’d been the first few days of the cruise. And sure enough, my oldest woke up with a cold this morning as we prepared to return home. Constant close proximity to so many people was just too gross for me. Everyone is packed in like sardines, even in “first class.” We got on and off the ship first as part of this class and even that is just irritating to me. I think if you’re older, childless or your kids are older it’s easier. But it doesn’t change a lot of the factors I did not enjoy.

I enjoyed celebrity in the past - but obviously it was impacted by being with a toddler in, and I also think the ships are getting bigger and more jammed. Lastly, like I previously said, too much access to food.

I’m happy to be home!

That sounds terrible. On Royal we had our own deck only accessible with star class cards. There were 7 restaurants plus one for suite guests. Sun deck for suite guests only where it was 20 chairs to 1 guest.

We had reservations at a different restaurant every night and breakfast/lunch delivered to suite.
Room ranges from 30k a week to 90k, but there were only 9 of them on the ship.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My hot take — since vacations with toddlers are hellish, just minimize them. I was trying to remember what we did when my kids were that little and the answer is … not much. We went to grandparents house. We went to Hilton head once. We went to Pittsburgh once. We visited some college friends. In short we saved a bunch of money and we are now tearing through it with young teens. My 15 year old would travel the world and has a huge list of what she wants to do. And it’s fun to travel with her. So if you feel bad about not taking trips when they are little, imagine the money in an account growing and then you can blow it on a much nicer trip when you can all enjoy it.

Disagree.

One of our favorite vacations was a week on Grand Cayman with our two year old. And it was relaxing. We napped when he napped.

OP has three children. No napping while the baby naps.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should try doing a cruise in first class. They all offer some form of it. On Royal it is called star class and on big ships it worth it.

We never ate in the dining hall for anything. You get unlimited access to specialty dining and they deliver anything from any restaurant to your room.

You also never wait in a line, they escort you on and off the ship personally. We were off ship in literally 10 Minutes with our luggage last day.

They won’t watch your kids for you, but will save seats at shows and stuff like that.

Op here - we did this on celebrity. I just couldn’t enjoy it because of the toddler

Though in general I really don’t love cruises, or at least not this experience on celebrity’s ever growing ships. The suite and speciality restaurant were nice but even in the retreat dining room it felt packed and so many people were sick. Two mornings ago at breakfast in the exclusive dining room there was a woman at the next table hacking up a lung talking about how sick she’d been the first few days of the cruise. And sure enough, my oldest woke up with a cold this morning as we prepared to return home. Constant close proximity to so many people was just too gross for me. Everyone is packed in like sardines, even in “first class.” We got on and off the ship first as part of this class and even that is just irritating to me. I think if you’re older, childless or your kids are older it’s easier. But it doesn’t change a lot of the factors I did not enjoy.

I enjoyed celebrity in the past - but obviously it was impacted by being with a toddler in, and I also think the ships are getting bigger and more jammed. Lastly, like I previously said, too much access to food.

I’m happy to be home!

That sounds terrible. On Royal we had our own deck only accessible with star class cards. There were 7 restaurants plus one for suite guests. Sun deck for suite guests only where it was 20 chairs to 1 guest.

We had reservations at a different restaurant every night and breakfast/lunch delivered to suite.
Room ranges from 30k a week to 90k, but there were only 9 of them on the ship.

Wowza! Sounds like a colossal waste of money.

We’ve cruised a dozen times on Disney, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, etc.

We book two cabins with balconies for our family.

I’ve never had trouble finding a quiet spot where I’m usually the only person. I usually wander over to more lively areas when there’s live music (I enjoy a good steel drum band or guitar soloist).

I never eat in the buffet. We do early dining in the main dining room where we have the same table each night with the same servers at the same time. No waiting for a table. Excellent service.

On sea days we do a proper sit down breakfast and lunch or have room service for breakfast (or my husband brings me coffee, etc. from the coffee bar).

My balcony is the only private area I need.

We paid less than $2k for our recent cruise over spring break (for 4 ppl).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My hot take — since vacations with toddlers are hellish, just minimize them. I was trying to remember what we did when my kids were that little and the answer is … not much. We went to grandparents house. We went to Hilton head once. We went to Pittsburgh once. We visited some college friends. In short we saved a bunch of money and we are now tearing through it with young teens. My 15 year old would travel the world and has a huge list of what she wants to do. And it’s fun to travel with her. So if you feel bad about not taking trips when they are little, imagine the money in an account growing and then you can blow it on a much nicer trip when you can all enjoy it.

Disagree.

One of our favorite vacations was a week on Grand Cayman with our two year old. And it was relaxing. We napped when he napped.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should try doing a cruise in first class. They all offer some form of it. On Royal it is called star class and on big ships it worth it.

We never ate in the dining hall for anything. You get unlimited access to specialty dining and they deliver anything from any restaurant to your room.

You also never wait in a line, they escort you on and off the ship personally. We were off ship in literally 10 Minutes with our luggage last day.

They won’t watch your kids for you, but will save seats at shows and stuff like that.

Op here - we did this on celebrity. I just couldn’t enjoy it because of the toddler

Though in general I really don’t love cruises, or at least not this experience on celebrity’s ever growing ships. The suite and speciality restaurant were nice but even in the retreat dining room it felt packed and so many people were sick. Two mornings ago at breakfast in the exclusive dining room there was a woman at the next table hacking up a lung talking about how sick she’d been the first few days of the cruise. And sure enough, my oldest woke up with a cold this morning as we prepared to return home. Constant close proximity to so many people was just too gross for me. Everyone is packed in like sardines, even in “first class.” We got on and off the ship first as part of this class and even that is just irritating to me. I think if you’re older, childless or your kids are older it’s easier. But it doesn’t change a lot of the factors I did not enjoy.

I enjoyed celebrity in the past - but obviously it was impacted by being with a toddler, and I also think the ships are getting bigger and more jammed. Lastly, like I previously said, too much access to food.

I’m happy to be home!

Anonymous wrote:You get what you pay for. We did a week-long Galapagos cruise, 30k for the four of us. The ship only had 32 passengers so we spent no time waiting in line and lots of time seeing the islands. Food was fresh and delicious, service was outstanding.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should try doing a cruise in first class. They all offer some form of it. On Royal it is called star class and on big ships it worth it.

We never ate in the dining hall for anything. You get unlimited access to specialty dining and they deliver anything from any restaurant to your room.

You also never wait in a line, they escort you on and off the ship personally. We were off ship in literally 10 Minutes with our luggage last day.

They won’t watch your kids for you, but will save seats at shows and stuff like that.

Op here - we did this on celebrity. I just couldn’t enjoy it because of the toddler

Though in general I really don’t love cruises, or at least not this experience on celebrity’s ever growing ships. The suite and speciality restaurant were nice but even in the retreat dining room it felt packed and so many people were sick. Two mornings ago at breakfast in the exclusive dining room there was a woman at the next table hacking up a lung talking about how sick she’d been the first few days of the cruise. And sure enough, my oldest woke up with a cold this morning as we prepared to return home. Constant close proximity to so many people was just too gross for me. Everyone is packed in like sardines, even in “first class.” We got on and off the ship first as part of this class and even that is just irritating to me. I think if you’re older, childless or your kids are older it’s easier. But it doesn’t change a lot of the factors I did not enjoy.

I enjoyed celebrity in the past - but obviously it was impacted by being with a toddler in, and I also think the ships are getting bigger and more jammed. Lastly, like I previously said, too much access to food.

I’m happy to be home!

That sounds terrible. On Royal we had our own deck only accessible with star class cards. There were 7 restaurants plus one for suite guests. Sun deck for suite guests only where it was 20 chairs to 1 guest.

We had reservations at a different restaurant every night and breakfast/lunch delivered to suite.
Room ranges from 30k a week to 90k, but there were only 9 of them on the ship.

Wowza! Sounds like a colossal waste of money.

We’ve cruised a dozen times on Disney, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, etc.

We book two cabins with balconies for our family.

I’ve never had trouble finding a quiet spot where I’m usually the only person. I usually wander over to more lively areas when there’s live music (I enjoy a good steel drum band or guitar soloist).

I never eat in the buffet. We do early dining in the main dining room where we have the same table each night with the same servers at the same time. No waiting for a table. Excellent service.

On sea days we do a proper sit down breakfast and lunch or have room service for breakfast (or my husband brings me coffee, etc. from the coffee bar).

My balcony is the only private area I need.

We paid less than $2k for our recent cruise over spring break (for 4 ppl).