Cruises

"My husband and I took our two kids on a cruise last December - our kids were 15 mo. and 4 at the time. It was fun but a LOT of work -- and most cruise ships, including the one we were on, do not have kids club programs for kids under 3. I believe some ships have in-room babysitting but we didn't look into that. All in all, we had a fun trip, but it's really hard to have a small room on a ship as your "home base" - hard to bring many toys with you, and sometimes hard to keep the kids occupied. We had fun in the port stops but there were a couple of at sea days that were really long for us. I will say that the waiters in the dining rooms were great to us -- they had great kids' meals, brought their stuff out fast, and were very nice - that was definitely a good experience. We will wait until our daughter is old enough for the kids camp, and then I think we'll probably go on a Disney cruise -- more for the kids to do. We were on Princess and weren't too impressed with what we saw of the kids club (we were able to go up there to play w/our kids - couldn't leave them there, but could play with the toys, etc. - and the facility wasn't so great). I think Disney would be much more fun for them, and certainly more kid-oriented.

Oh- also, at least on Princess, kids who aren't toilet trained aren't allowed in any of the pools, even w/swim diapers.

Hope that helps - it's definitely still a great vacation, you just might need a vacation afterwards!"