10/19/2013 Disney Fantasy Cruise with a 5 month old

[wendyoconnor]

We are so excited to be taking our LO on her first Disney Cruise. As a couple we have been on three, two on the Magic and one on the Fantasy. We booked this cruise in April 2012 when we were on the Fantasy, at the time we were hoping to have a LO to take on this cruise so we booked one of the corner 9D staterooms to have lots of space for the pack n play.

Fast forward a year and I have been planning my LO's wardrobe since before she was born. She was bigger then we anticipated so everything I had purchased for the cruise will be too small by the time we sail so more shopping was done. Thanks to clearance racks we have a pirate costume, two Minnie Mouse outfits, one Cinderella outfit and personalized mouse ears (thanks to FIL's co-worker)

I'm nervous about flying and naptime but she is a pretty laid back baby. We haven't booked any excursions and plan to enjoy the ship while it's quiet and walk around St. Maarten and St. Thomas. We are flying in the day before to spend the night at Port Orleans Riverside and do some shopping at DTD. I would like to go to MNSSHP but haven't convinced DH yet.

We have nursery time booked and she goes to daycare so I'm not worried about her reaction to it. We will drop by on embarkation day to meet the staff and let her see the room.

I plan to do a final trip report to let other parents know what it's like to travel and cruise with a baby, what works, what doesn't and to answer the question, are there baby changing stations in the public restrooms and which ones have them andon what decks.

 

[wendyoconnor]

My recent dillema has been over the stroller situation. We are flying down the day before, spending the night at PORR and taking the DCL bus to the port. We plan to go over to DTD for some shopping and dinner Friday night. I plan to use a stroller for: DTD, downtime in the airport and going ashore for some shopping while in port. I plan to carry DD in our ERGO when we go through security in the airport and while walking around on board the ship.

The dilemma - we have a brand new Baby Jogger City Mini GT which I love and it's easy to fold up and handle. Airlines can be really rough on strollers and I don't want my stroller destroyed by Delta.

Scenario one was to leave the stroller at home and rent one once we were onboard but we wouldn't have a stroller for the layovers in the airport.

Scenario two: purchase an umbrella stroller. The cheap ones didn't have the features I was looking for and the umbrella strollers with a storage basket, decent sun shade and a reclining seat were over $100. Again I didn't want to spend lots of money for something that might get broken by the airline.

The solution: I saw an ad for a huge consignment sale at a church. My mom and I went on Saturday and I found a light weight Peg Perrigo Aria stroller. It was obvious that it had been used but was in pretty good shape and was only $40. It has the features of our big stroller and is the size of an umbrella stroller. My mom really liked how light weight it is.