Topic: Cruising with 9 month old baby?

Hi,
My wife and I are seasoned cruisers and now have a baby. We don't want to fly with a baby so are looking into the possibility of cruising out of u.k. in Sept Oct this year. Can anybody help on which cruise line caters for babies etc?
Any advice would b greatly appreciated!
Thanks

P & O certainly do - they have cots and also a night nursery where you can put them down (asleep) and they will page you if they wake, so that you can have an evening meal.

I'll second that - P&O would be top of my list for cruising with a baby. It's a very long time since I cruised myself with a baby and perhaps someone will enlighten me as to whether P&O still offer excellent facilities.
Fourteen years ago they provided all the baby equipment you could want including bottle sterilsers for your cabin. You had to go to the childrens playroom and request these and any other equipment you wanted.

I was also able to preorder a long list of baby food and juices to my babies preference and even milk formula. Back then it was anything that could be purchased from Boots the Chemist. Even though baby went free - I must have ordered about £100 of food. This was all boxed up for me and kept in a cupboard in the Main Dining Room. I could go and take as much as I wanted from my personal store. They did keep a range of readily available for those that didnt know about this service. It would be worth a phone call to Special Services Division of P&O to find out if they still offer this service.

And of course the night nursery facilities. Providing baby is settled you can put baby into the night nursery upto the small hours of the morning completely free of charge. They give you a pager to alert you should they need to call you back. Just make sure you chose one of their family friendly ships.

Whilst you cannot leave baby in the daytime anywhere, you can go into the playroom and play providing you stay.

P&O is brilliant with babies! We were on Ventura in April with our (then) 10 month old and we love it so much we are booked again for August. The provide cots, baby baths, bottle warmers and sterilisers etc. If you do book just drop them an email or call customer services and they will make a note of your requirements. You can get Hipp organic baby food from the buffet but to be honest we found plenty of stuff in the buffet that could be mashed up and she preferred it to the jars. They also have a children's tea at 5pm and there is plenty of baby friendly food and finger food.

The night nursery is fab. They open from 6pm to 2am. You have to drop off baby asleep/or virtually asleep and they give you a pager so they can get hold of you if they wake up and can't be settled. The night nursery is also a baby play room during the day with loads of toys and sometimes specific activities, e.g. jelly play!

I think you can pre-order formula but it is a specific brand. We just took our own formula.

P&O must be hard to beat when it comes to travelling with small kids.

I have booked five cabins on the Oceana for October
My youngest daughter & husband will be taking my six month old grandson.
I have had to book a three berth cabin for them even though the baby will be sleeping in a travel cot thats the rules so I am told
The baby travels free but the cabin costs more
That's life ;)

Thats great, thanks, I'll check out the P&O website. Any other tips anybody has would be appreciated.

I'd also be going with P&O, excellent childrens facilites and staff ~ also baby & toddler paddling pools on most ships (especially for children who aren't toilet trained).

Shelley

I would say P & O too. Our son went on his first cruise when he was 10 months old and that was with P & O. Although we could not leave him in the kids club they let us take him in so he could play with the toys. He could stay in the night nursery while we had dinner. He is 8 now and has been on 13 cruises but for under 2s I would say P & O are the best.

thanks for all of your replies, P&O here we come