Planning a Mommy-Daughter Cruise

Cruising with Kayla: Mommy-Daughter Cruise

After my honeymoon it was official: I LOVED cruising!  Upon my return, I immediately began scanning cruise deal websites for my next cruise.  Hubby was less enthusiastic since the first 3 months of the year he volunteers for the local high school robotics club and he didn’t want to take any time away from that. The solution?  Instead of a romantic getaway, this time, I am having a mommy-daughter cruise adventure.  My mom has only been on a handful of vacations, never a cruise, and never just the two of us. It’s the perfect opportunity to throw her overboard spend some quality time together.

Procrastination: The Cruiser’s Nemesis

My last cruise procrastination really messed with my vacation. I found out the hard way that you can’t do ANYTHING 72 hours out from your cruise let alone the 24 hours I left myself to pack, check-in and book my excursions. This time, I wisened up; it’s a week out and I am all checked in, my sign and sail is set up and I have printed my luggage tags for both my mom and myself. If you’re the daughter in this duo, and the planning the vacation, I recommend letting your mom check into this mommy-daughter cruise herself. Especially if she has cruised before, she will want to use her own Crown and Anchor number.

A couple things to know about Royal Caribbean online check-in

1. You have to do it at least 72 hours before you cruise.
2. You need your passport number and information.
3. If you plan to use a credit card for your sign and sail, you need to have that handy.
4. You need to be able to print your documents (bring these to the port on embarkation day).
5. If you are checking in for other members of your party, repeat steps 1-4 for each member.

Multi-Generation Friendly Excursions

Choosing an excursion that would be fun for me, a late 20 something, and my mom, in her 50s, was a challenge. Thankfully neither of us is the “get drunk by the pool” type, we both want to get off the ship and explore. I like a fun adventure of the physically demanding type but my mom likes low-key exploration. We went back and forth over all the different options, from Atlantis to the walking tours around the Bahama’s Rum Festival, and we concluded that we wanted to spend as much time in the ocean as possible. We are both from Ontario Canada and have only been in the ocean a handful of times.

Royal Caribbean offers lots of ocean related excursions. It was a toss up between the BBQ beach day on a private island or a snorkeling tour. I had an amazing time snorkeling in Coco Cay and, after reading the reviews of the beach day, we decided to go with the snorkeling. The private beach took over an hour to get to, you spent only 2 hours actually on the beach, and it was reviewed as small and crowded. We have also decided to bring our own snorkeling gear and plan to snorkel the second day at Coco Cay on our own. There are all kinds of reefs close to shore as well as sunken ships and planes.

Our Room

We booked a guaranteed oceanview room. What this means is that we didn’t get to specifically choose our room. We booked a lower rate and let Royal Caribbean assign us a room a few weeks before the cruise. I was a little apprehensive since I know getting a room on the wrong part of the ship was a good way to ruin a vacation. Last cruise I had an interior room in a great spot but I felt like I really missed out on the view of the sunrise and sunset that cruises are famous for. It’s my mom’s first and my travel agent recommended doing it, so I threw caution to the wind and booked it.

I can say it was the best decision I have made so far! We ended up at the top of the category with a Large Ocean View room on the 4th floor. I am stoked!