Cruising with an 8 month old

We took our 8 month old daughter on her first cruise last year, and just booked her second cruise for this year. She absolutely loved it and it was such a great trip! Her last trip was on Carnival, and our upcoming trip is on Royal Caribbean. I get so excited thinking about the status for each cruise line that she'll have by the time she's sailing off into the sunset for retirement since she's starting so young. The cost to add a baby to our room actually wasn't that much. Most cruises have a discount for the 3rd passenger in a room, and sometimes you can catch a kids-sale-free promotion to offset the cost of your room.

Honestly the hardest part about cruising with a baby is that we've been spoiled by daycare and used to just keeping her all day for the weekends only, so we forgot how exhausting it was to be on parent duty all day. Traveling with a baby wasn't much different than being at home with her, but that's probably because we tried to be as thoughtful as we could with what we brought with us.

Baby passports for cruises

Depending on your itinerary, you might not need a passport for your baby. You can call customer service for your cruise and confirm if a birth certificate is enough for your stops. However, I HIGHLY recommend you get your baby a passport if you have the time before your cruise. Embarkation and disembarkation days go SIGNIFCANTLY faster if everyone has a passport. I'm talking the difference between security being under 30 minutes if you all have a passport, and over 2 hours if someone has a birth certificate. 

Baby age requirements for cruises

For most cruises, the general rule of thumb is that a baby has to be at least 6 months old by the first day of the cruise. In general, cruises that have two back-to-back sea days in a row will require a baby to be one year old for the cruise. Other than that, there's not a lot of restrictions for cruising with your baby, and most cruises are very welcoming to babies. 

Baby activities on ships

One thing to keep in mind is that most cruises won't allow drop-off for children under 3 in their free kids centers. Many have paid baby-sitting hours in the evenings where you can take your baby to the kids center for a baby-free dinner and show, most have paid baby-sitting hours during port days where you can go ashore without your baby, and it's common for the kids center to have organized activities for parents to bring their babies to and stay and play with them in the kids center. I recommend you go to the kids center first thing when you get on the ship to see what is and isn't offered, the times, and the prices so you can plan your trip around that. Personally, we took our daughter with us at each stop because we wanted her to get the full travel experience. We didn't do any "excursions" other than reserving clamshells ahead of time when available, and spent each stop on the beach or walking around the port.

Diaper changes on ships

When we went on our trip, she was sitting up and just starting to crawl here and there. She had also just begun baby-led weaning, but mostly still preferred bottles. They had high chairs in the dining area, and the wait staff were always so sweet to try to think of different foods my daughter might like and bring out samples for her to try out. On the Carnival Conquest, there weren't changing tables in any bathrooms that I went in to on the ship, so plan on going back to your stateroom to change any dirty diapers. The gift shop on the Carnival Conquest had like 3 packs of Size 2 diapers, wipes, and no formula, so I would plan to have more packed then you need. Most likely, if you need to you can find items at the port, but it might not be the brand your baby is used to and it will definitely be overpriced. 

Sleeping

You're going to want to bring your own crib sheets. I recommend you bring 2 sets so that you can swap them out if your baby gets one set dirty. Royal Caribbean provides you with a pack-n-play, and at least on the Carnival Conquest we were offered a metal rollaway crib, but neither provide sheets. Bring crib sheets that are colorful or have a pattern and avoid plain white sheets so that your sheets don't get mistaken for the cruise's bedding and get taken away by housekeeping. Having your own sheets is actually nice because you can wash it with your own detergent and know that 1) it's free from any harsh chemicals or perfumes that your baby's sensitive skin might not be used to and 2) it will smell like home and can be comforting to your baby being in a strange place. I knew ahead of time that I didn't want to use Carnival's metal crib, so we actually brought our own travel play yard that my daughter is used to sleeping in and had mesh sides so she wouldn't hurt herself rolling around into the sides. This travel crib is absolutely amazing! It is SO lightweight and SO easy to put together. One of the reasons why I didn't want the rollaway crib in our room is because I wanted the flexibility to easily tear down my daughter's bed to give us more floor room for her to crawl around while we were getting ready. We also got a mesh blackout cover to fit over her bed so that we could keep the lights on while she slept. At night, my favorite travel sound machine has a built-in night light so we could see if we had to get up to feed her.

Bottle feeds while traveling

Bottle feeding my daughter on the cruise was actually simple. We only brought a travel bottle bag filled with her usual bottles (labeled with her name, in case we lost one), an insulated water bottle to hold just her water (we ordered filtered water through the ship for I think $2 a gallon?), and we brought the big tubs of formula in our suitcase and then just measured out the formula into a travel formula dispenser. This was all we needed and we were able to make her bottles when we were up on deck or out on shore at the port, easy peasy. 

Strollers on cruises

Leaving our stateroom actually didn't require that much effort. We had the GB pockit travel stroller which was perfect because we could fold it up and store it under our bed when we didn't need it, and it was lightweight enough that my husband could carry the stroller with our daughter in it when the elevators were taking too long. Out at port this stroller worked great because it has a good-sized canopy to keep the sun off her, and the seat reclined so she could easily take stroller naps while we walked around. We brought a stroller fan for our daughter to keep her cool.

Although we could have brought our normal stroller, the Uppababy Vista, from home, and we did see a few families having big strollers like this, I would avoid them if you can. There's a good chance that the normal-sized stroller will be wider than the cabin door, making it really difficult to get your stroller in and out of your room, and you can't leave your stroller in the hallway. Even if you can get it in your room, you likely won't have anywhere to put a stroller that doesn't fold up. Remember, cruise rooms are much smaller than hotel rooms to begin with, and what little free space you'll have in your room will likely be taken up by the baby's bed. A cheaper alternative to the GB pockit is the Summer Infant 3D lite stroller, which is like an upgraded umbrella stroller because it can recline and has storage. If you want to go the cheapest route, make sure you at least get an umbrella stroller with a canopy to keep you kid shaded.

Travel items for cruises

The bottle bag could hold bottles and formula and could fit with the water bottle in the basket under the seat. I didn't even bring a diaper bag, just a diaper fanny pack loaded with wipes, diapers, a paci (on a paci strap with her name on it in case it got lost), and a burp cloth that can convert into a bib. Yes, even at port, I didn't take her diaper bag off with us! I actually never used her diaper bag once we got on the ship. When we got off the ship at port, I just added a little stroller caddy on the handles so that we could have a place to store our drinks and things within reach. I also kept a little hand-held fan in our stroller caddy to fan off our daughter (or us!) on hot days, I just made sure to choose a fan that had the blades covered so she couldn't hurt herself on it. 

Beach items

For the beach, I was a little less minimalist and a little more overboard mom. I packed this travel beach bag that folds up so tiny, yet is HUGE when you unfold it, and is completely mesh so you're not brining a ton of sand and water back with you. In it, I packed a simple baby float for the water and this little portable pool with shade and also a travel beach toys set with a collapsible beach bucket. What was nice with the baby pool is that found chairs away from the crowds and so we were able to dig her a little hole in the sand so that she could play in the water while shaded and away from drunk people and kids getting in her way and splashing her because there's nothing worse than saltwater in a baby's eyes (after trial and error, my husband recommends to pack a folding travel shovel to easily dig the hole and to ask a bartender for an empty beer bucket to fill up the pool with ocean water). I chose to put our daughter in a full-body swimsuit because it's easier to keep her covered than to constantly reapply sunscreen. And I know that people say you can air dry a disposable swim diaper and re-use them (swim diapers only hold poop, not pee), but I've found that re-usable swim diapers are easier to take on and off, dry faster, and hold up better throughout the day. What worked for our daughter is getting off the boat and going into the water to play first thing, then changing her into a dry diaper for lunch and nap while her swimsuit and swim diaper dried in the sun, and then either changing her back into her swim outfit for more playtime, before going back into a dry diaper and dry clothes to get on the boat. One thing we found out the hard way is that because swim diapers don't hold pee, if you put your baby in a swim diaper while you're getting dressed on the ship and then your baby pees in the time it takes you to get off the ship, your baby will pee through their swim diaper, just FYI. 

Room entertainment

To keep our baby entertained back on the ship, we brought suction cup spinner toys to stick to doors for her to sit on the floor and play with while we got dressed. For meals, we had a suction cup toy holder loaded with her favorite toys that we could stick to her high chair to keep her busy while we ate. Your cruise won't let your baby into the ship pool if they're still in a swim diaper, but some have splash pads that will allow all ages to play on. For us, we brought a mini baby pool for her to play with. You can either set this up in the shower, or if you have a balcony then you can set it up out there. I took an empty trashcan and filled it with warm water to fill up her pool. We had this tiny travel air pump which made inflating and deflating the pool take about a minute, so I didn't mind setting this up every day for her and then taking it down at night. I brought some cheap foam bath letters for her to play with in the pool, and she loved it!

Baby medicine at sea

Adding a baby to your cruise doesn't necessarily wreck havoc on your room. We had disposable diaper pails that we would fill up throughout the day and then the room keepers would toss it each day. We set up a shoe organizer filled with diapers, wipes, pacifiers, medicine, and baby clothes. My biggest fear was that my daughter would teeth or get sick on this trip and wake up our neighbors screaming, so I packed travel acetaminophen and teething drops just in case. I did pack travel laundry detergent and I'm glad I did because we ran out of clean burp cloths quicker than I anticipated so I did a quick load of laundry in the bathroom sink.

Baby cruise outfits

For packing, I would recommend one burp cloth per day of the trip plus a spare. We just brought one swimsuit per day, 2 reusable swim diapers, one pack of disposable swim diapers, pj's and socks for each night, a romper for each day, and one dress for the formal night. We calculated how many diapers she wore each day, and packed that amount plus 2 extra days' worth, and did 1 package of wipes plus a travel set of wipes for the fanny pack. We did the same thing to calculate how much formula we needed. 

How can getting 

a passport for my baby enhance the cruise embarkation process?  What age restrictions should I be aware of when cruising with a baby? Why is it important to bring my own crib sheets on a cruise? What are practical tips for bottle feeding my baby during the cruise? How can I make leaving the stateroom with a baby effortless? What are creative ways to keep my baby entertained on a cruise ship? How can I manage baby essentials in the stateroom without disrupting neighbors? What beach essentials should I pack for a cruise with my baby? How do I calculate diaper and formula needs for my baby during the cruise? What's the best way to handle potential diaper emergencies on a cruise?

Cruise Packing Favorites for 2023

I just booked my next cruise, so obviously all I can think about is the planning and packing for it! One thing that has made cruising easier is that we have a "cruise bag," which is essentially a packing cube with all of our cruise-specific items that stays packed year-round in storage. This makes packing for a cruise great because all I have to do is toss in the packing cube and all of our cruise essentials are coming with us without me having to remember what to pack so nothing is left behind. Add in clothes and toiletries, and we're all packed! Here's what's in my bag...

Luggage accessories

First of all, I highly recommend compression packing cubes! I've been a fan of packing cubes ever since I once had a zipper break on my bag and my clothes went everywhere. Packing cubes keeps everything nice and tidy. And a bonus is that if you have to do the dreaded weight re-distribution at baggage drop because one suitcase is overweight, this makes it very easy to quickly grab a cube or two and move it between bags. But not all packing cubes are the same. Your basic packing cubes just keep everything organized, which is nice, but I always say to make sure your cubes can compress. You know how a lot of suitcases have an extra zipper so you can expand them if you need to? Compression packing cubes are the exact same, but in reverse. You put your clothes in them and seal it with the first zipper in one direction, then the second zipper goes in the other direction to compress out any air and make the cube much smaller. You can get so much more items in your suitcase this way! 

But head my warning from before. Just because it fits doesn't mean it's under 50 pounds, so always weigh your bags with a luggage scale if you can. 

Not necessary, but something new cruisers aren't often aware of are cruise luggage tag holders. Make sure you get the size for your specific cruise line, because some print out short and fat, while others print out long and skinny, and you'll want to make sure your luggage tag will fit. About a month before your cruise, you'll be able to go online to your cruise line's website and print out your luggage tags. Your luggage tag will indicate which side of the ship you're on and your room number. Even if you aren't flying to your cruise, you'll need luggage tags. When you check in for your cruise, they will take all of your luggage from you and board them onto the ship for you and deliver them to your room for you. If you don't get a holder for them, you can just staple them, but then you run the risk of the tag getting ripped off, which will delay your luggage being delivered to your room. 

Travel hamper

One thing that is easily overlooked, but a major game changer is a pop-up hamper for dirty clothes. There is little floor space in a cruise stateroom to kick dirty clothes into a pile, and after a few days it's easy for your room to be overwhelmed with clothes everywhere. A pop-up hamper is small enough to take up little room in your suitcase, and little room in your stateroom, but will keep your room so much more manageable. 

Reusable straws

You're going to want to bring your own straws for your cruise. Many cruises now only use paper or candy straws, which won't last long in your sweating drink. I personally love retractable metal straws that come on a keychain. They are so tiny since they are retractable, and the keychain makes it easy to clip them onto your beach bag or lanyard so you always have one nearby. 

Lightweight travel towels

This is a hot take: but I actually suggest you do bring your own towel for a cruise! Yes, you don't need to bring your own bath towels because your stateroom will have towels in the bathroom; and, yes, you don't need to bring your own beach towels because the pools on the cruise will have towels. And technically, yes, you can take these towels off the ship to have on shore to dry off when you get out of the ocean. But, a camping towel is so much better at port! Even the largest camping towel is only about a third of the weight and size of a cruise-issued towel. This is important to me because we usually end up having to haul two beach bags down- one for beach essentials and one just for towels! And don't even get me started on how heavy it is to haul back a sopping wet cruise-issued towel on your way back to the ship. Camping towels are microfiber so they dry much faster. An extra perk is that since literally everyone from your ship has the same cruise-issued towels, you can find your chairs on the beach so much easier with the colorful camping towels. 

Packable backpack

While you're at the port, there's always so many shopping options right where you get off the ship. Because of this, I love to pack an extra foldable backpack into my beach bag. This doesn't take up a lot of room in my beach bag when we don't need it, but can hold so many items on the way back (hi, oversized souvenir cups!). This one is mesh so that if anything is wet, it can air dry on the walk back to the ship and avoid a musty smell following you back to your stateroom.

Cruise phone case

If you're planning on doing any excursions or even being in the water all day at port, then I would recommend you get a waterproof phone case. Its' great to have your phone in an accessible place so you can take all the photos you want, especially if you're only wearing a swimsuit and don't have pockets. It also will keep your phone with you at all times so that you don't have to worry about it being stolen if you leave it behind on your beach chair. 

For my phone, I switch out my normal phone case for a phone case with a strap and card storage. This makes it easy to hold on to my phone if I'm only wearing a swimsuit and coverup and have no pockets. It also keeps my keycard with me so that I don't walk all the way back to my room just to realize that I forgot my keycard at my lounge chair. 

Waterproof wallet

It's a rite of passage for first-time cruisers (men particularly) to go into the ocean with their wallet in their pocket and then completely ruin the leather wallet and have all of their money soaked and the cards sticky from salt water. How you can avoid that is with a waterproof travel wallet. These zip up to keep money/cards from falling out and to keep it waterproof. It's perfect because all you need at port is your ID, your ship card, a credit card, and some cash for tipping/bartering/buying things from merchants on the beach, so you can leave everything else in a regular wallet in your stateroom safe that way if your wallet gets lost/stolen, you didn't just lose all the cash you brought for the trip and all of your credit cards. 

Extra plugs

I love this little cruise-approved power strip (note, they won't let you take the big surge-protector strips onboard). This one has a small extension cord, 2 regular plugs, and 2 USB-A plugs and 1 USB-C plug. It is designed for travel so the cord wraps up really small and the prongs of the plug don't extend. 

Foldable hangers

There's not a lot of hangers in a cruise closet, and the ones that they have are a pain to take on and off the rack. That's why I always bring my own foldable travel hangers for a cruise. They can easily double the amount of clothes that I can fit in the stateroom closet, which is great because there's usually not a whole lot of drawers so you need to hang as many shirts/dresses/jackets as you can so that you can save the drawers for underwear and swim.

Toothbrush holder

A small and maybe unnecessary, but helpful item is a silicone wall-mount toothbrush holder. The silicone sticks to the mirror in the bathroom as a place to hold your toothbrushes, so that you can save the cups in the bathroom for rinsing after you brush your teeth. Yes, the cups can hold your toothbrushes just fine, but the first time we used these while traveling my husband said he liked this so much better. 

Door décor

We always pack stateroom door decorations for our rooms. Cruise ships can be big so after passing hundreds of rooms that look the same, it's actually very easy to walk right past your room without even realizing it (especially if you've been drinking, or it's just been a long day under the sun). You'll see a lot of other cruisers decorating their doors too, because the whole point of a cruise is just to have fun. 

Magnetic accessories 

The walls on cruises are metal, so I put a Bagnet on all of my bags. It is a really strong magnet keychain that is strong enough to hold your bag up to 8 pounds. This works both on the walls in your room and around the ship such as the bathrooms and metal tables.

Of course, there's the classic hanging shoe organizer. Although these are designed to go over-the-door, I've found that the seal on the bathroom and closet doors are such that you can't easily hang this on the door. Instead, it's much easier to get metal hooks to stick to the magnetic walls and hang this on the wall. There's so much empty space on the walls in your room anyways, that there's lots of places to stick magnets to get some storage in.

Insulated drink tumbler

Lastly, just because I use this often enough that it doesn't even make it into my cruise bag, is a drink tumbler. A travel tumbler can be filled up with water before you leave the ship on shore days to save you from paying for overpriced water bottles at the port, and then can be filled with your favorite drink and will stay cold even when you're out in the sun all day. You definitely want a drink with a lid and straw that won't spill so that you can just toss it in your bag while you're walking around, but then will keep sand and water out of your drink. Back on the ship, since these hold so much more than your standard 8-ounce glass, you can save yourself from having to make multiple trips just to get a refill. 

Travel Guide | Carnival Vista to Western Caribbean

Ryan and I enjoyed our babymoon so much, that less than a month after we got home from it we went ahead and booked our next cruise! We knew we'd have an 8 month old at the time of sailing, and kept that in mind with our booking. We live in Houston, so we purposefully booked a cruise out of Galveston to make traveling with a baby as easy as possible. We were a little adventurous when we booked a 7 night cruise with a baby, but it worked out just fine!

Related post: All about cruising with an 8 month old

We really enjoyed our cruise, and I'm so glad my daughter was able to come with us! She had the time of her life and is already a VIFP member. Cruising as a parent is definitely a lot more hands-on then cruising as a kid who is just going with the flow. Ryan and I were grateful that we both had cruising experience so that we weren't having to learn all the cruise things for the first time with a kid, because traveling with a baby is a little more stressful than normal. Eventually, our daughter (and future kid) will be old enough to go play at the kids club all day and we will be able to hang out in the adults-only section in peace. 

Carnival Vista Review

The Vista was one of the smaller ships I've been on in a while, it holds about 4,000 passengers. A smaller ship was nice in our circumstance because it didn't feel overcrowded and we didn't feel like we were getting turned around all the time. It was a little weird seeing the main bar and shopping in the middle of the ship be so much less than what I'm used to, but what they had was still nice. The Red Frog Pub actually had a mini brewery on board which was cool to see, and the live music that they had was great. 

The rooms on Carnival Vista

 

We got a balcony room again, and it was perfect with a baby. We brought a non-wifi baby monitor and could sit outside with our drinks and watch downloaded Netflix shows on our iPad without waking her. The balcony was actually really big! I brought a baby pool and set it up on the balcony, and there was room for the pool and the chairs and patio table to all fit pretty well. Carnival lets you bring one bottle of wine per person, so I just made sure to bring wine bottles that had screw-top lids instead of cork to easily open without a corkscrew, and I brought silicone wine glasses for us. It was nice just to relax and sip my sangria to the sound of the ocean in the evenings. 

Having a baby on board did make the room feel a lot smaller than normal, so I was glad that we went with a balcony room because those tend to be bigger than Oceanview rooms and definitely bigger than inside cabins. I tried to stay on top of organization for this trip and I think it helped our room not seem like a tornado had just came through. We stashed a pop-up hamper in one of the closets and I found that really helped with not having the floors covered with dirty clothes, and we didn't have to sacrifice what few drawer space we had as a dirty clothes drawer. I also did the cruise hack where you put a shoe organizer on the wall with metal hooks (since the walls are magnetic). Unfortunately, the magnetic hooks I bought weren't big enough to fit the loop of the shoe organizer, so it wasn't set up right and couldn't hold much weight. Once we got home, I immediately got longer hooks for next time.

I did the water package and wi-fi package again, and recommend both. The bottled water is really cheap on Carnival, and it tastes so much better than sink water. There is a "cooler" in your fridge that will keep the water (and my wine) cool, but it's not quite as cold as a fridge. The wi-fi is decently priced, we just pre-downloaded Spotify playlists, Netflix shows, and Ms. Rachel on YouTube (if you know, you know) and did just fine. It wasn't the greatest at downloading longer videos on Instagram or TikTok, but it worked for us.

Eating on Carnival Vista

We did the Your Time dining on this trip after loving it on our last cruise. Our thought was that this would be perfect with a baby because we could eat when she was hungry. That didn't work out so well this time. While on the Sunrise in 2022 we could check in to dining on the app as we were leaving our room and a table would be ready for us by the time we got to the dining room, on the Vista in 2023 it was a disappointing experience. 

 

On formal night, we checked in a little after 7, and didn't get seated until 8:30 and didn't get our entrees until 9. We wanted our daughter to experience the "formal" dinner and got great family photos of us all dressed up, but she was miserable and we skipped the 2nd formal night (because it was a longer cruise, there were 2 formal nights) and did the buffet instead. It seemed that every time we tried to have dinner (or even breakfast on our last sea day) in the dining room, the service was incredibly slow. I'm used to servers taking your order pretty quickly and getting your food out not long after that, but that definitely didn't happen this trip.

 

The buffet on the Vista was great. They had little tables with umbrellas set up inside to make it feel like you were at a beachfront restaurant inside, which was a cute touch. We also ate at Guy's Pig & Anchor BBQ and that was really good food. We had planned on trying out the JiJi Asian kitchen on a sea day, but we never had time for it. Overall, the food was good, but the dining experience just wasn't up to cruise standards.

What to do on Carnival Vista

For a smaller ship, there seemed to be a lot we could do, even with a baby! We took her to Deal or No Deal and she did just fine for one round of that before she got bored. There was a putt-putt course that we did with her, and Ryan just wore her in the Tushbaby and golfed with one hand. On the last day at sea, we took turns holding her while the other went down the water slides, which were great even for adults. Outside of the RedFrog pub were some picnic benches that were attached to the table as one big gliding swing. It was a really unique place to hang out during the day. 

There was also a kids club onboard. We went to a Dr. Seuss reading, which honestly was just okay because it was so quick. But it was cute that they gave each kid the same book so you could follow along with the story. There was actually a whole Dr. Seuss library for the kids right outside of the kids club that I thought was cute. It was a big room with a toy box of baby toys, so although our daughter was too young for the kids club, it was still a safe place for her to practice crawling. There were activities planned on sea days where babies could come, but the parents needed to stay with them. We forgot about this on the first sea day, and were disappointed that we were the only ones who showed up on the second sea day. The staff was still great and let my daughter have the kids club all to herself, and they gave her a whole bag of ball-pit balls to play with. 

Exotic Western Caribbean cruise

Roatan, Honduras

I've been to Roatan on a prior cruise, and it was my favorite cruise destination. Happy to report back, that it still is! My last trip to Roatan was through Royal Caribbean, and Carnival stopped at a differ part of the port. I think I like the Carnival stop even better! The water in Roatan is beautifully clear, there's lots of small fish that will swim with you even in shallow parts of the water, I've never seen a seaweed/seagrass infestation, and the water is the perfect temp.

The "excursion" we booked for this stop was just a clamshell, which essentially just guarantees you 2 beach chairs that are fully shaded. The staff at this port was AMAZING! We had to navigate finding where to give our tickets once we were off the ship, and the staff not only helped us get to the right person, they helped us find a clamshell that was near a tree for extra shade for our baby, and was near the sidewalk so we didn't have to carry our stroller far. Later, when our daughter fell asleep in Ryan's arms, the staff came over and propped a table under the clamshell to angle it down more to better shade us since the sun had moved. 

There was a huge bar/restaurant right behind the beach so you could easily get food and top off your drinks. They offered souvenir drinks that had a lid with a straw and a foam koozie to keep your drink cold, and refills were at a discounted price. We saved our cups and fully intend to bring them back the next time we stop here.

As for the stop itself, what I love about it is that you don't have to do an excursion (more on that later in Belize), so you can walk right off the ship and onto a beautiful beach in a couple minutes, and spend $0 the entire stop if you bring snacks and water with you and don't drink any alcohol. There is a chair lift like at an amusement park that can take you to the beach faster and save you the walk while giving you a unique view, but I don't think there were many other options that I'd consider. 

Belize City, Belize

Maybe Roatan set my expectations up too high, because Belize City was my least favorite stop I've ever made on a cruise. If you like adventure and everyone in your party is at least teenage level or older, then you might like this stop. None of the excursions offered were suitable for a baby, because they were all snorkeling, or river tubing through a cave, or taking an hour-long tour around the city. Since I couldn't book an excursion, I figured we'd just get off the boat and park it on a beach like Roatan. That was a mistake. There are no beaches near the port where you can play in the water, as they all are rocky shores. 

The port itself is still getting built out. There was 1-2 restaurants that I remember seeing and then basically like a flea market where you can buy bad knock-off designer bags or crappy souvenirs and that's about it. We walked around for a while trying to figure out what to do when my husband finally found someone who told us they could take us to an "adventure park" where the price would be $20 per adult and the baby free. We agreed to try that and then he walked us up to a random cash register to check out and suddenly the price jumped to $80 a person real fast and Ryan and I recognized a bait-and-switch scam when we saw one and left. Not going to lie, this was a little stressful and I started to tell Ryan that I just wanted to get back on the ship at this point where I knew we were safe and could find something to do. But, Ryan has a sense of adventure so he walked out through the port to a whole bunch of taxis and haggled with a group of them to see who could take us to the adventure park on the cheap. Our driver was great and he took us to Kukumba Beach and figured out what time our ship left and planned to pick us up exactly an hour before it left so we wouldn't be rushing to make it to the ship on time, but he gave us his phone number so we could call him if we wanted to go back earlier. 

Kukumba Beach actually worked out really well! You could get a bucket of beer for like $12 and there were several food options which were pretty cheap. The place itself is sandy, but it's not on a beach. It has a man made salt-water and sand pool that has a huge slide and floating trampolines to play on. Our daughter really liked playing in the sand and in the water. And it had free wi-fi! The one con was that the beach chairs were wooden, so they weren't exactly comfortable. I had packed a sandproof beach blanket with us, so I just laid that down and then a camping towel on top of it on the sand for our daughter to have a softer place to nap. 

We were talking to a family that showed up about an hour after us, and turns out that they were on one of those city tour excursions and that this was a stop on their tour. They were really jealous that we got to go straight here and back, because they felt that the tour was just meh and would rather spend more time at the adventure park than taking the tour to get there and then more of a tour to get back to the ship. We also paid significantly less than they did to get there. If we were to go back to Belize again with small children, we'd probably just take a taxi back to Kukumba Beach again, because there's really not much else to do if you're not dong a more physically-demanding excursion. Hopefully the port is a little more updated the next time we go, because it definitely felt sketchy. 

 

Cozumel, Mexico 

Our last stop was in Cozumel, which my husband and I have both been to several times before on past cruises. It has a huge shopping center with nice stores, and that's basically what we did. There's several bars right when you get into the port, so Ryan grabbed us some drinks and we just walked around and shopped. Ryan was begging to get our daughter a sombrero because he has an obnoxiously giant one from a prior cruise, so I told him if he could find a baby-sized one then he could get it. Really, I thought it was a fool's errand, but of course the very next store had one! We also stopped into Cariloha and ordered some sheets. What's nice is that they ship your purchases to your home for free, so you don't have to worry about packing what you bought when you go home. This is exactly why I always throw a foldable backpack into my beach bag on port days, so that we have a way to carry all our port purchases back onto the ship.

Our daughter fell asleep in her stroller while we were shopping, so we stopped and had a long lunch at Fat Tuesdays while she had her nap. We ended up deciding that this was enough for one day, so we didn't go to the beach on this stop. I think part of it was knowing that we were going to be back in Mexico on the beach for a week in Puerto Vallarta in just a few months, so we didn't feel like we were missing out. But, if we come here again we'll probably just take a taxi to Paradise Beach on our own. 

Overall thoughts of this cruise

We had a good cruise, and our 8-month-old really enjoyed her first cruise, but this was the cruise that made us consider going over to Royal Caribbean. Overall, I'd rate the cruise as a 7/10. It wasn't a bad cruise, but there was nothing really that stood out to make it a great cruise (other than Roatan). 

Our next trip

Mexico just once a year isn't enough for our little world North America-traveling baby, so we're going back! Every year we take a big family vacation with my in-laws and after how outrageously expensive Hawaii was, this year we've decided to save some money and go to an all-inclusive in Puerto Vallarta!

Travel Guide | Carnival Sunrise to the Bahamas

Ryan and I both grew up cruising. I've been on half a dozen cruises, mostly through Royal Caribbean with one Disney cruise. Ryan has been on about a dozen cruises, mostly through Carnival with one Royal Caribbean cruise. In June 2020, we were talking about how neither one of us had been on cruise in at least 5 years. So, I looked up prices on both Royal Caribbean (where I have a loyalty status) and Carnival (where Ry has loyalty status) and found a Carnival cruise at a great price for the week before our honeymoon. We were able to find a 5-night, e-stop cruise to the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos for April 2021, with a center-ship, high-level balcony room with the ability to pay $300 that day, and $150 a month up until our cruise. Being able to spread out our payments made this an easy impulse buy! I signed up for the Carnival loyalty program and pulled the trigger. 

What's great about Carnival's loyalty program is that for all cruises after your 1st cruise, you get a free liter of water bottle! This is per person! They don't exactly remind you of this, but you can just go to any bar and tell them your status (at least Red) and ask for your one free liter. After 25 days accumulated at sea (at least Gold status), you also get a free drink up to $10 at any bar after 5pm on the last day (yes, it's very specific but we just set a calendar reminder for my husband to go get his free drink).

I actually was 21 weeks pregnant for this cruise, so I had a unique experience. Technically, you're not supposed to sail past 24 weeks but I have no idea how the cruise confirms this because they just took my word and I also saw 2 other pregnant women who looked further along than me (I know everyone shows differently, but I don't know if they actually were under 24 weeks or if Carnival just didn't bother verifying this). Actually the only reason I think the cruise knew I was pregnant was because their website says you have to have a doctor fill out a form before you can cruise, but I couldn't find the actual form. I called their customer service and was told as long as I'm under 24 weeks there was no form needed (I'm assuming this is when my account got flagged as pregnant), but when we went to get on the boat they kept asking me for the form from my doctor and had to get a manager involved to let me on without the form that I was previously told I didn't need. I had previously been diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum (uncontrollable vomiting) and even hospitalized for it, on 2 different nausea prescriptions, and still throwing up almost daily up until our cruise so I was very nervous to go on the cruise, but it had been booked before we even tried for a baby. I took my nausea prescriptions along with Dramamine and didn't really feel I needed it. I don't normally get motion sickness so the rocking of the boat didn't do me in like I thought it would. I even took 2 smaller ship to shore boats and felt totally fine! I also thought it was VERY helpful to have essentially an unlimited variety of food non-stop so I could always eat right when I got hungry.

Carnival Sunrise Review

The Sunrise used to be the Triumph, but it got remodeled and renamed in 2019. The ship does look and feel updated, which I liked. It's a smaller ship, with only about 3,000 people. We really liked how the layout took advantage of the small size so it never felt like you had to walk far to get where you were going. Like any cruise, there were lots of small details that we loved. The Alchemy lounge at the back of the 5th floor was a great quiet place for us to play our favorite card game that we brought, but you can also borrow a deck of cards from guest services for free. The Red Frog Rum at the middle of the 9th floor (not to be confused with the Red Frog Pub at the front of the 5th floor) was a great place for a chill drink that had shuffle board and foosball hidden in the back corner. And the Skybox room in the back left corner of the Casino in the middle of the 5th floor was great for watching games on. We also  liked seeing the comedian, playing Deal or No Deal (the audience member won the grand prize on our ship!) playing trivia, and playing Bingo.

Now for my gripes... First off, the names are confusing as hell! As I just mentioned there's a Red Frog Rum and a Red Frog Pub. Why??? There's so many other colors and animals (like how they have Blue Iguana room) it just makes NO sense as to why the names are so similar and confusing. But wait, there's more! There's also a Liquid Lounge which is their main show lounge where Bingo/Deal or No Deal were played and excursions met (but to me sounds like a bar name) and a Limelight Lounge which is where there's karaoke and comedy shows. Again, too similar sounding so you can get confused. And oddly, the Limelight turns into the Punchliner when there's a comedy show, so it's confusing to call the exact same room 2 different names, depending on the activity in said room. This all makes it more difficult than it needs to be to meet up with someone in one of these rooms. 

My other complaint was that they didn't consistently enforce the "adults-only" rule in the designated area. We went to the adults only pool two days in a row and got splashed by kids playing Marco Polo while the lifeguards said nothing. After like 15 minutes, all the adults abandoned the pool because of the yelling and splashing. This is totally fine in the main pool, but we went there for a quiet area to sip pina coladas and read or relax in the pool. I'm not surprised that kids ended up in the adults-only pool, because the main pool felt tiny for a cruise. It looked about the size of a backyard pool.

The rooms on Carnival Sunrise

We got a balcony room on the 8th floor, room 8391, and absolutely loved it. Our room had 3 closets, a long desk, in-wall storage shelves, a couch with small coffee table, king bed (that splits into 2 twin beds), one nightstand (they could've fit 2 and I think it's weird there was only one), and a small patio furniture set. Not only did we have all of the space and light from the balcony and balcony door, but our window right by the balcony was HUGE so we basically had a full wall of windows. We played around and if you were outside on the balcony you couldn't hear someone on the inside talk or even raise their voice, but if you were on the inside you could hear someone on the balcony. 

One thing I was surprised at coming from Royal Caribbean was that there were no drawers in our room, only closets and cabinets. There was still plenty of room to store clothes, it was just weird to put underwear in a cabinet instead of a drawer. One thing I'm really glad I did was have 2 dozen water bottles delivered to our room on day 1. It was like $10 to do so and absolutely worth it. Sure you can also get free water from the several drink stations around the boat, but that tastes basically like tap water and cold filtered water straight from your fridge is much better on a hot, humid day. 

We also got the social wi-fi package ahead of time and I do recommend that (it's more expensive to purchase starting the night before the cruise and on-board). The next tier up is the value package which is essentially just the wi-fi package but with email and is about double the price per day so I think it's pointless. We could iMessage each other and people back home, Google, and post to Instagram. The only thing we couldn't do was stream music/videos, but we just downloaded those ahead of time. If you don't want to get the wi-fi package, you can also just pay $5 for messaging other cruisers in the Carnival Hub app so you can stay connected with everyone you're cruising with.

Eating on Carnival Sunrise

We thought we had early dining, but we accidentally booked the Your Time dining and that was a first for us. We LOVED it and honestly probably have permanently converted to this from normal dining. With formal dining, you eat at either 6 or 8 at a designated table every single night. The downside to this is that literally hundreds of people are lined up to eat at the exact same time so it can be a long wait to finally get to your seat and get fed. You also have to plan all of your activities around your dinner time. In comparison, with Your Time you just get on the app and reserve a table and usually by the time you get from your stateroom to the restaurant your table is ready so you just walk right in, give them your table number, and you're instantly seated. You're also at a new table every night so if you don't like your table location you're not stuck. We looked into it and the menus, restaurant decor, and entertainment were all the exact same as the normal dining (with the exception that you might just miss the entertainment). With Your Time, if you're not hungry or not ready to eat until later, your dinner can fit your schedule rather than the other way around. You also can eat any time from 5:30 - 9 so you have a huge window of when to eat. I definitely think this is the best option for families because of the flexibility.

For the Your Time dinner, the restaurant you eat at is on the back of the ship on the 3rd and 4th floors. Because of its location, we could definitely feel the boat rocking way more than we did in our room. We both realized after night 1 that we would need to take Dramamine while we were getting ready so we could make it to dinner. But, it did have beautiful views on 3 sides of the restaurant. The normal dinner was in a restaurant in the middle of the ship on the same floors, and I bet it rocked a lot less. The other main eating area was basically the entire 9th deck. The buffet was at the back of the boat, with a lobster station and pizza station behind it, and a taco station and burger station in front of it. So, you essentially had the taco/burgers between the main pool and buffet, and then the lobster/pizzas between the buffet and the adults pool. 

As always on a cruise, the food was great. A pro tip is that breakfast room service is free, so don't forget to put out the door sign and order breakfast in bed! There were other specialty restaurants on board that were for a fee like sushi and steak, but we didn't try those out because we felt there were more than enough free options. 

What to do on Carnival Sunrise

We did your typical cruise ship activities on board. My husband did a ropes course (make sure to bring closed-toe shoes if you plan to do this), we did Bingo, and we actually won a "stick on a ship" at trivia!

We also spent some time near the central bar on ship and just hung out at a table playing card games we had brought from home. You can rent a deck of cards from guest services, but we prefer to bring Monopoly Deal when it's just the two of us. We also wen to the SkyBox Sports Bar to watch some basketball together, and it was a really nice and comfortable bar. One of the nights we went to Deal or No Deal and the first girl actually won it! I had never seen someone win that before! After Deal or No Deal, they actually started up The Newlywed Game and Ryan really wanted to go (we were celebrating our 1 year anniversary [and babymoon] after all! Unfortunately for him, by now it was 9pm and as a pregnant girl, I was was too tired and had already been nodding off at that point.

We also went to the late-night comedian on board in the Limelight Lounge, and although most of his stuff was funny, some of it was raunchy just for the point of being raunchy so it was just meh. Another let down was the pool situation. We went to the adults-only pool at the back of the ship, and it consistently would have 4-5 kids playing marco-polo taking up the whole pool (which isn't that big to begin with), and there seemed to be no one enforcing the "adults only" part. I think part of the problem was poor planning, because they put this pool right near the pizza and ice cream stations. 

Exotic Eastern Caribbean cruise itinerary

 

Bahamas

We had 2 stops in the Bahamas, one in Nassau and one at their private island Princess Cay. For Nassau, I strongly recommend you stick to the group on the public beach or with an excursion. I do not believe it is safe to leave the port on your own, because apparently 2 people were robbed at gunpoint during our stop. Personally, we went for the Blue Lagoon VIP Adults Only excursion and I give it 4 stars. The Blue Lagoon is its own island so you take a smaller boat from the ship to the island. The island has an inflatables park in the ocean, a dolphin encounter, a shark encounter, and the adults only part. Everyone all rides the little boat together (snacks and alcohol are available but cost extra, even if you have the unlimited drinks excursion) and then split up into different groups based on your wrist bands. The VIP adults only had unlimited drinks, but it was only Bahama Mamas or non-alcoholic fruit punch, lemonade, or water. Lunch was included and we thought the food was great. There's also several staff members always walking around to bring you a drink or food, so I do think the VIP lives up to the name. And because the staff was always out serving, they were really good about keeping out anyone who wasn't in the group from crashing our private area. This is because the inflatable park and VIP area are connected by a bar (I think if you want to drink anything other than the Bahama Mamas you have to pay for drinks here). The lack of star is because the beach and fenced-in ocean part are TINY. As in like 2 minutes to walk from edge to edge. We brought our snorkel gear but there was definitely not enough room to snorkel in the water, even with over half of the group not being in the water. My biggest tip is to make it back to the boat about 20 minutes before they tell you to, because if you're on the last boat out like we were, you have to wait until they round up every last straggler onto your boat.

For Princess Cay, the ship anchors down in the middle of the ocean and then smaller boats take you from ship to shore. We didn't do any excursions and just booked a clamshell shade for the day. This turned out to be a GREAT use of our money! The clamshell was about $30 ahead of time and it was great to have a great spot reserved and to have shade. We will forever do this if it's an option on future cruises. You could also rent the normal snorkeling, water bikes, kayaks right there on the beach for pretty cheap, or use whatever you brought. The beach is a little on the rocky side, not bad, but I did think water shoes were helpful. The lunch had really good burgers, but for some reason the buffet was set up where you get your toppings, then burger, then condiments, so it's weird to have to construct your burger later. 

Turks & Caicos

We didn't have an excursion planned for Grand Turk, and it worked out for us. It's a pretty established port that has shopping and restaurants with a big pool surrounded by free lounge chairs or you can rent like a mini house. We grabbed lunch at Margaritaville and then headed to a chair by the pool. We were only there for about an hour before it just started downpouring on us with no end in sight, so we went back to the ship early. There was also a beach that looked really well-kept, but we didn't make it in time to see it. 

Overall thoughts of this cruise

This was my first Carnival cruise, and it was better than I expected. Carnival's own island, Princess Cay, definitely was much simpler than Royal Caribbean's Coco Cay that I'm used to. And while Carnival's ship had waterslides, mini golf, and a ropes course, it didn't seem to have much else. That's not to say that Carnival cruises are bad, it's just going from an over-the-top Royal Caribbean cruise to a "fine" Carnival cruise was an adjustment. I think I might like a Carnival cruise if I went on a bigger ship with more bells and whistles. But, Carnival is significantly cheaper than Royal Caribbean, so as an affordable getaway, it did the job just fine. I'd give this cruise an 8/10.