7 Things To Do On The First Day Of Your Cruise With Kids

It’s been over a week since we got back home from our Carnival Cruise and it’s been a tough adjustment. The whole family had such an amazing time and my son keeps asking me when we will be booking our next one. It had been 10 years since the cruise my husband and I went on for our honeymoon so when preparing for this cruise, I did a lot of research – especially since we would have our 3 kids with us! I wanted to share with you 3 things you should do on the first day of your cruise with kids!

Find Your Room

Well, this goes without saying. Once we boarded the ship, we went straight to our room. The kids loved exploring the cabin, dropping off their backpacks full of toys and checking out the room we would call home for the next week. They claimed where they would sleep and we put away as much as we could until our luggage would arrive.

Say Hi To Your Steward

Your room steward will probably find you first because they are just that good! We met him within an hour of arriving in our room and he was so incredibly friendly and good with our kids! Anything we needed – from ice to extra towels – he was quick to get for us. He always remembered our kids names every time he saw them and was such a friendly face so make sure to connect with them when you arrive!

Enjoyment is priority number one on these cruises. The people working at Explora Journeys understand that families vacationing on ships need to feel completely comfortable. That’s why they created the ultimate exciting, carefree travel experience designed with parents in mind – ensuring that there is plenty of fun for everyone!

Go Over The Rules

Before we left our cabin to explore the ship, we sat our kids down to go over the rules for the week. Basically, we told them no running in the halls or on the ship, no yelling in the halls, being respectful of the other people, washing our hands throughout the ship and cleaning up after ourselves in our cabin.

Laying out the rules at the beginning of the trip really worked and the kids were so great – we got several compliments from other cruisers on our kids behavior!

Get Some Food

After waiting in the lines to get on the ship, finding our cabin and exploring it, we were ready to get some food! It was still fairly early and with three kids, we decided to skip the main dining room the first night. If your kids are like mine, they might be tired too so we headed to the Lido deck to see what they had to eat – they were able to choose from pizza, chicken tenders, fruit and more. We were able to eat a casual dinner before we started exploring the rest of the ship.

Visit Camp Carnival

The first night of the cruise, they had a Camp Carnival open house where parents and kids could check it out. It was great because my very shy kids were able to explore it with Mom and Dad still there. They enjoyed exploring the rooms and meeting the fun staff.

Even though I had registered them for Camp Carnival online, I still checked in with the staff, signed some paperwork and also received a phone. The phone would connect me with Camp Carnival whenever my kids were there – I could call to check in or they could call me if there was an issue.

Explore the Ship

You’ll have all week to explore the ship but we decided to take a walk around before we headed back to the cabin for bed time. The kids really wanted to see what areas they would have fun playing on, so we showed them the pool which was on the Lido deck and also WaterWorks and SportsSquare. They were so excited to see all of the fun that was in store for them that week. They especially loved that we did a quick stop at the 24 hour ice cream station before heading back to our cabin!

Go Over the FunTimes

When we got back to our cabin for the evening, our bed was turned down and there was a copy of the FunTimes (a schedule of events on the ship) for the next day. Bring a highlighter with you and each night, go over the schedule with your kids and highlight what you want to want to do! The kids had a lot of fun looking over the schedule and hearing about all of the fun activities.

These are just some of the things I recommend you do when you first arrive on your cruise ship with kids! Do you have anything else to add to this list? 

Disclosure: A huge thanks to Carnival Cruise Line for hosting us on a 7 day cruise on the Carnival Sunshine. All thoughts and opinions are my own.