Our daughter is 9 months old, and we just came back from a fabulous week-long cruise on the Crown Princess ship. We will be going again and when we do we will do some things different, but for the most part we did a lot of things very well. Our pre-planning for the trip really helped to make the trip very successful.



People with young babies may wonder like we did what would it be like on a cruise vacation with a young baby - so I thought that parents like us would be interested in reading what our typical day on a cruise ship was like.

First of all it was great that Princess Cruise Line provided us with a very nice playpen for our daughter to sleep in. Our daughter is a good sleeper - so every day she would sleep until about 7 o'clock. We would take her out of her playpen, change her diaper, and bring her into bed with us for some family play and snuggle time.

After the family play time we would wash our daughter up, change her into some dry clothes and then my husband would put our daughter into our stroller (we brought one with us - don't leave home without one) and take her for a walk on one of the outside deck - either one of the top decks or the promenade deck. While they were gone - for 45 minutes or so - I would hop into the shower, get dressed, pack the diaper bag for the day and tidy up the cabin a bit. When they returned my husband would have his shower and get ready for the morning.

The three of us would than meet at the buffet area of the ship for breakfast. One of us would put our girl into a high chair (again provided by the cruise ship) and the other would go to the buffet to get breakfast.

When we finished our breakfast we went back to our cabin and changed into our swim gear. Our daughter wears swim diapers under her bathing suit. Off to the kid's pool where on the Crown Princess children are allowed if they are wearing a swim diaper.

Our daughter needs and I think actually enjoys napping - so after swimming we would go back to the cabin and put her down for her nap. Before we left on our vacation my husband and I talked about how important it was for us to share the child-care duties during the trip. So when our daughter napped we would take turns staying with her. If it was my turn to stay with her while she napped - hubby would head of for some time on his own, and then the next time we would swap - he would stay with her and I would head off. It worked out great.

When our daughter woke up for her nap we would put her into the stroller and the three of us would walk around the ship together. Back to the buffet for lunch together - more exploring - maybe some more swimming - and eventually it was afternoon nap time.

The best part of the day was getting all dressed up for dinner and then having dinner in one of the formal dining rooms. We would leave our cabin and go to one of the bars on the ship (there are lots of them) and have a cocktail before dinner. After our drink we would go to the dining room around 6 pm. Every dinner was spectacular and the service from the dining room staff was excellent. All the staff loved talking to our daughter.

On our way to dinner we would do a quick detour to the buffet area and pick up some melon pieces to take to the dining room for our daughter to snack on during dinner.

Once in the dining room my husband and I would order our dinner (the food on Princess is soooo good) and our little girl would eat some of her fruit. We also gave her some small pieces of bread and some other snacks like Yum Yums (that we brought with us).

Our daughter would eventually be ready for her real food. I fed her a jar of baby food and some cereal mixed with water. We pre-ordered the baby food from Princess about a month before the cruise. After dinner the three of us would sit and relax and enjoy being together as our daughter had her bottle.

After we had our dinner and our daughter finished her bottle we went back to our room. Our daughter has a bath every evening - it is part of her getting ready for bed ritual. Most cabins on cruise ships don't have bathtubs they only have showers and ours was no different. So what we did was plug the drain in the shower and run some water into the shower and it was plenty deep enough for our daughter's bath.

After bath time we put her in her sleepers and we put her back into her stroller and off we would go to a show, to see a comedian, listen to some music, or just walk the ship.

Our daughter would laugh and smile at all the people and the excitement that surrounded her - but it wasn`t long - maybe 30 or 40 minutes before she would fall asleep in her stroller. We adjusted the stroller seat so that she was reclining as she slept.

We would continue doing things until my husband and I were ready to call it a day. We would back to our cabin, tuck our daughter into her playpen for the night, and then tuck ourselves into bed as well.

For us cruising is a wonderful way to have a stress-free vacation, enjoy our daughter and enjoy being a family. The secret to a successful cruise vacation is to do some advanced planning, and don`t try to be too busy on the cruise.