Cruising with a Baby (Part 1): Cruise Choice

Well we decided!!! We’re CRUISIN’ After All!!!

I’m on my favorite cruise site CruiseCritic.com trying to scrounge up as much info as I can about the ship, and about Bermuda as I can. I’m slightly nervous about cruising with an extremely active 11 month old, but I know it’ll be great no matter what.

Choosing to cruise:

Ultimately the decision to do a cruise versus a land vacation came down to the fact that we haven’t taken a cruise in what feels like forever. Our past vacations together in recent years have all been to Mexico or Vegas! (our second and third home it feels like)  So a cruise was definitely in order. It just had to be done.

Choosing the departure:

The benefit of cruising was that there are options in the northeast to depart from. New York, New Jersey, Boston and Baltimore all have cruise ports that allow us to avoid flying with the bambino. Avoiding a flight was key because of all the stuff we’ll have to haul. I don’t want to have to deal with overweight baggage fees, additional bag fees, measuring out liquids. Bonus of no flying means less of a general hassle, with packing laptops on top of carryon, wearing slip on shoes, security drama etc. We are driving down to Baltimore and cruising from there.

Choosing the Cruise Line:

I found an amazing deal on a cruise on Carnival, on their new ship the Breeze. A balcony stateroom, plus flights was just 150 more than what we’re paying for hotel/cruise for our trip. John nixed it right away due to that crazy stranded ship issue Carnival had recently. I fought him for a second, but then I remembered just how much we loved all of our past Royal Caribbean cruises. We feel safe and comfortable with that line, and bonus: we can rack up some more loyalty points 🙂

Choosing the Destination:

We decided on Bermuda simply because it’s somewhere we’ve never been before, and for this itinerary, there is no island hopping. We sail to bermuda, dock for three days, and sail back to Baltimore in a lovely week of cruise bliss. This will be a nice “intro to bermuda” without feeling rushed, which can sometimes happen when you’re only on an island from 10am to 6pm.

Picking the room:

The room decision was all about cost. We usually book balcony cabins but we’re going with an interior on this trip. Since the ship we’re on has so few balcony cabins, the price for them are ridiculously high, just $50 less than a suite! (That’s not normal) So we’re going the least expensive route and hopefully we don’t regret it. On the one NCL cruise we booked last minute got an amazingly ridiculous deal on an interior cabin but were never in the room other than to shower, change and pass out after a night of fun. This trip, with the baby, at least one of us will be in there with the little guy for naps, and in early for his bed time. #nervousaboutcabinfever

Picking the ship:

Grandeur of the Seas is an older ship but recently was overhauled and renovated to be all new and sparkley again! We chose this ship for it’s smaller size (and that it goes where we want to from where we want to) and also it’s baby program. Royal Babies offers group sitting, which I think I’ll be less psycho able to handle, as well as private in-cabin babysitting so us parents can get a little break. Also, there is a fun nursery with toys and play structures for the lil one to enjoy being active in (with parental supervision at specific hours grouped by age). A bonus of that is that we’ll get to meet the other parents on the ship with babies around Sharkie’s age to speak with.

Well! There’s more than you ever wanted to know about our decision for the “First H Family Vacation”

More to come as planning continues! Now that I’m writing this all out, I wish I had done these kind of posts and recap posts with all of our past trips.

Have you been to Bermuda before? Any tips for us?! Any beach vacations with a baby before? Gimme the skinny!

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