Jan
11
Cruising With A Baby? – Don’t Leave Home Without These Items!
January 11, 2009 | Leave a Comment
We just came back from a Caribbean cruise on a Princess ship with our ten month old daughter. We had such a wonderful time that we are now planning our next cruise vacation.
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. Probably the most important thing for the cruise is taking a comfortable stroller that is foldable. Having a stroller makes it easy to get around on the ship and in the airport when travelling to the cruise. We used the stroller for morning walks on the ship, for taking our daughter to meals on the ship, and in the evening we bathed her, put her in pyjamas and then put her in the stroller as we enjoyed the excitement of walking around the ship in the evening. She fell asleep every evening in her stroller.
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. One thing to do on a cruise ship – especially when it is hot is to go to the kiddies pool with your child and cool off in the pool. In order for your child to go into the pool they have to wear swim diapers or they have to be toilet-trained.
4. If your baby is on formula make sure that you bring enough formula with you for the length of the cruise. We brought powdered formula since it is more compact than pre-mixed formula. Rather than bring it from home, we purchased the required formula in Florida before embarking our ship. 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. Not having a spot to put your dirty diapers will cause some problems with odor in your cabin 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. And we took with us scented bags for putting the dirty diapers. They really helped control the odors in our room, and they were also useful on our air flight. They can be purchased at a dollar store or Babies r Us.
8. You’ll need soap for bathing your baby. Eventhough most ship cabins won’t have a tub for bathing your child – you can still do what we did. We plugged the drain on the shower and put enough water in the shower in order to give our baby her bath.
9. If you plan on spending much time in the sun with your child during the cruise you may want to purchase before your trip and bring with you a lightweight sun cabana before your trip. We used ours 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 $80. 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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