SRUAlmn
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2004
Hi all! We are long time and frequent WDW visitors but are scheduled for our first DCL vacation on the Dream in January. Yay!! Taking our little one to WDW never felt daunting (he’s been 3 times already at 21 months old,) but I think that’s because we’d been to WDW so many times before kids and knew the lay of the land and what to expect. He will be almost 2.5 for our cruise and I’m feeling a little anxious as to what to expect since we’ve never cruised DCL before, and especially because kids can change and mature so quickly it’s hard to know how he’ll be 8 months from now!
I asked on another thread about strollers because he’s currently in the “run run as fast as you can” phase and it makes me nervous to be on a ship if he has the potential to take off. I was also thinking about port stops and how much walking there will be? But on the other thread most people said you rarely see strollers on board? We do have a super compact one we use for travel.
I also wondered about how much we’ll really get to experience. We have to do early dinner seating as he goes to bed by 7:30 at the latest so it sounds like we won’t be able to see any of the shows since our show time is 8:30? What exactly is there to do that a 2 year old will enjoy during the day on “at sea” days? He’s OBSESSED with the characters so we will for sure prioritize that! Nemo’s Reef looks fun, too! Looks like he’ll be too short for the Aqua Duck.
I am a huge coffee lover and the Cove Cafe specialty coffees look amazing but I will have him with me the majority of the time and I’m assuming he can’t be with me just to go in and grab a coffee since it’s in an adults only area? If not, is there anywhere in the non adult only areas that has great specialty coffees?
He’s currently in a food throwing phase (ugh!) and my husband is terrified that we’ll be in a nice restaurant and seated with another family and he’ll just go ham throwing his food. I’m hoping in 8 months we’ll be past this phase but is it common to see kiddos making messes as dinner?
Are high chairs readily available at Cabanas?
Does the captain come over the speakers often? I’ve watched multiple vlogs and it seems like it happens often but maybe it’s just the ones I’ve been watching? Our little guy NEEDS HIS SLEEP, haha, so I wasn’t sure about naps or bedtime being disrupted? Prob a silly question to frequent cruisers but something I was wondering
Thanks for any tips or advice you can provide!!
I asked on another thread about strollers because he’s currently in the “run run as fast as you can” phase and it makes me nervous to be on a ship if he has the potential to take off. I was also thinking about port stops and how much walking there will be? But on the other thread most people said you rarely see strollers on board? We do have a super compact one we use for travel.
I also wondered about how much we’ll really get to experience. We have to do early dinner seating as he goes to bed by 7:30 at the latest so it sounds like we won’t be able to see any of the shows since our show time is 8:30? What exactly is there to do that a 2 year old will enjoy during the day on “at sea” days? He’s OBSESSED with the characters so we will for sure prioritize that! Nemo’s Reef looks fun, too! Looks like he’ll be too short for the Aqua Duck.
I am a huge coffee lover and the Cove Cafe specialty coffees look amazing but I will have him with me the majority of the time and I’m assuming he can’t be with me just to go in and grab a coffee since it’s in an adults only area? If not, is there anywhere in the non adult only areas that has great specialty coffees?
He’s currently in a food throwing phase (ugh!) and my husband is terrified that we’ll be in a nice restaurant and seated with another family and he’ll just go ham throwing his food. I’m hoping in 8 months we’ll be past this phase but is it common to see kiddos making messes as dinner?
Are high chairs readily available at Cabanas?
Does the captain come over the speakers often? I’ve watched multiple vlogs and it seems like it happens often but maybe it’s just the ones I’ve been watching? Our little guy NEEDS HIS SLEEP, haha, so I wasn’t sure about naps or bedtime being disrupted? Prob a silly question to frequent cruisers but something I was wondering
Thanks for any tips or advice you can provide!!