Hellobee Boards

If you have to travel to the port, arrive a day early so you don't have to stress about making it on time.

Have your swim gear in your carry-on so you can use the pools/splash pad immediately if your bags haven't arrived yet or you can't get into your room yet once you board.

Don't pack beach bags - they'll have those on the boat for you to use.

Search the blog posts as someone posted a awesome list once (or check the blog loveandrenovations.com). I know that they like to cruise and have posted awesome tips previously.

@Adira: Yeah, you're right that Disney does, but I've been on Carnival and Holland America and they didn't. My kids hate showers and if I had realized about the shower situation I could have prepped them more. But hopefully other people's kids aren't as sensitive as mine about those things.

Also idk about Disney but for the other cruise lines, if your younger one needs a booster chair still you might want to consider bringing a portable one because it was hard to find a high chair/booster at the buffet and dining room. Other cruise lines also don’t allow swim diapers in the pool, water slides so if your Lo is still in diapers the inflatable tub will come in handy here too.

Also bring kids OTC medicine in case of sickness. My kids have been susceptible to croup so I always carry a couple croup tablets with me and I bought chewable Tylenol just in case. I bought fun Dollar store lanyards to attach to the cruise cards.

@T.H.O.U.: Are you going on Disney or a different cruise line? We did Disney in February. If it’s disney you can’t bring the over the door organizer, they don’t allow it. Or at least, they don’t allow you to put it over the door. Not all Disney cabins have tubs, but most do have the split bathroom with it. And our cruise did not provide a beach bag, I brought my own. Disney also doesn’t have in room baby sitting they have a nursery which is $9/hour and you can reserve ahead of time.

I highly suggest putting all the kids in the club/nursery for part of the day and go enjoy the adult pool or whatever else you would find relaxing. The cruise was our first vacation that truly felt like a vacation because we got to take some time for ourselves.

On a three day cruises lots of people like to stay on the ships while it’s in port, I’m assuming you’ll be in Nassau. The ships are generally less crowded on port days so the pool and everything else will be quieter.

@T.H.O.U.: People used to use them and they got the doors all scratched up, so they banned them. A lot of things you see listed as suggestions for cruises don’t apply to Disney, lol. You can’t bring power strips on them either.

We spent nearly a year getting my son ready for the kids club doing drop off care at our grocery stor and the Y. He does not do well with new people. DD was 18m when we went and she cried at drop off and then was fine. I can’t recommend enough to just hand your LO over to the nursery and walk away. You can have them call you if they don’t settle down but they probably will. They can play, eat a snack, and the time away is priceless.

@looch: The bags go through a metal detector when you go through security. So I think they tend to find them then. I really wouldn't use it and hide it though. Surge protectors can be dangerous on cruise ships because unlike your house, they don't have any grounding. So if one of your devices had an issue it could overheat and cause a fire or cause electrical issues on the boat. Personally, I don't want to be responsible for that .

@looch: Yeah, I always travel with one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-SurgePlus-Protector-Charger-rotating/dp/B00ATZJ5YS/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1522860015&sr=8-11&keywords=surge+protector+with+usb

I love it because it's so useful but I was scared to bring it on our vacation because I didn't want it to get confiscated. But it was annoying because as part of our trip we spent a few days in Puerto Rico before the cruise and in Orlando afterwards and it would have been nice to have.