Is a cruise trip suitable for a baby? Do children get bored on the boat? If you have done a cruise with children, you already have experience in this subject and you know activities for children on a cruise. But above all, you already have experience with your children and you will know if a trip of this type is suitable for them or not.
My daughters are used to traveling frequently since they were little, they have also boarded several times, and I knew they were going to enjoy the trip in a Mediterranean mini-cruise this Holy Week.
What I did not imagine was that they would enjoy more than us, the daddies, who almost did not get on the ship and nerves because of the accumulation of fatalities that occurred to achieve it almost ends our illusion with the trip.
Luckily, little by little we were acclimatizing to the ship and spreading the desire for novelty and fun that our daughters gave off. The truth is that the children enjoyed inside the boat and at each stopover (this is the Iberocruceros Grand Celebration cruise), of the scheduled activities for children but also of those that were not especially aimed at them, as we will see now.
Who would not hallucinate sailing on a huge ship that is a hotel, with gentlemen in uniform who are the captain and sleeping on a bunk bed almost almost touching the sky to the beat of the sea.
Enjoying the menus
From breakfast to dinner, the children enjoyed the variety of buffet or à la carte meals, choosing (especially the oldest, three years old) their favorite dishes. But what they enjoyed most was the fruits. Ole for a well-stocked fruit buffet! We loved having pineapples, papayas, melons of different kinds, grapes ... and a host of varied fruits, some tropical to which we are not too accustomed. A delight
Of course, some caprichito shared among the delicious sweets from which you could choose was always falling for dessert ... Of course, they did not seem to care but the older ones were a bit heavy the repetition of dishes in the buffets, and in The rush hours were difficult to find a place to have breakfast or lunch (and more if you wanted a highchair for the little one).
The ship's staff, always attentive to the girls (sometimes too attentive, as I said when talking about the small inconveniences of a cruise), he offered to prepare anything special we needed, in restaurants.
The dinner menu included a children's menu (nuggets, hamburgers and sausages along with other less well-known dishes than the kids like in theory), although sometimes we asked for "older" dishes or shared ours.
Juices and milkshakes were another incentive for the kids. I think Mar felt very important when, in the "farewell cocktail" (not as repipi as it sounds) she was given one without alcohol but in a very apparent glass, with her ornaments like those of the elderly.
Enjoying the dance
As you can imagine we were not in the discos, but in different bars there was music (sometimes live performances) and the little ones had a great time moving the skeleton, sometimes with some other little dancers who joined them.
The babies are born programmed for the dance and as they grow they don't forget them and, best of all, they don't have that shame that makes us many older people "repress" our dance in certain situations.
Enjoying the Children's Club
The Popi Club was "the house" of my oldest daughter during the boat trip. Not because he was always there, but because of how comfortable he was there and because he always wanted to be.
But between that the Children's Club has a defined schedule (about two hours in the morning, two in the afternoon and two at night) and we thought that there would not be alone because we preferred to discover the boat all together (the 22-month-old girl could not to remain without the supervision of an adult, something that we would not have done anyway) and that almost every day most of the day was occupied on the mainland, because he probably did not enjoy it as much as he had wished.
The girls who took care of and play with the children, two monitors (Valencian and Brazilian) were very attentive, friendly and fun. I felt like asking them what kind of training they had to be with the children, maybe I didn't because I saw them experienced, attentive and affectionate.
Children delighted with the ball park, coloring pictures, games and some children's video. The pools did not enjoy them, since it is still cool at this time.
Before you can leave or accompany the children to the Popi Club there is an informative talk (which by the way we arrived by chance on the first day of the cruise), you have to sign papers and write down the child's data well (only after three years can be left alone)
I don't know if you've seen Jodie Foster's movie "Flight Plan: Missing," which tells in the most unlikely way how a girl can disappear in a plane and be difficult to find. I felt something similar that could happen on the ship, and I was not able to leave her alone in the Popi Club more than a few minutes to go for water and to pick up the little girl and be with us.
Many times I was a mere spectator, there parents can sit by the windows, and many other parents were like me. But also there were many children alone, some crying and on one occasion I had to warn a monitor that she had not noticed the cry of one of them because her parents did not come.
In those cases, the parents are located (calling the cabin or by public address, I imagine) to come for the child, although as I witnessed some ask the monitor to wait for the remaining half hour to close the Club.
Anyway, these are some of activities for children on a cruise, programmed or not, which they enjoy. Soon we will return with more data about this cruise made with the children, in which I could see many more families with young children.
Photos | 29cm on Flickr and Eva Paris In Babies and more | Traveling with babies: on a cruise, Cruises for the whole family
