Is a Caribbean cruise aboard MSC Seascape the perfect single parent vacation? Katie Bowman takes her daughter on a first time cruise and, happily, everything turns out ship-shape, and then some!
First things first, before my mother calls in a panic, I am not a single parent. I’ve been with my husband for a couple of decades and together we have one firecracker of a daughter, Elisa, who’s now 10 years old. However, on this trip I was travelling as a single parent. My husband couldn’t get away from work, so Elisa and I decided to go it alone. Together.
Caribbean cruises are a good fit for short breaks
This was no small matter for me since my other half is the one forever whizzing down water slides, jumping into unheated swimming pools, racing to the rollercoaster queue, and all of those of other cool-dad pursuits I baulk at.
Don’t get me wrong, I do more than my fair share of vacation parenting. Who else is going to remember to pack the anti-tangle goggles? Plus, I’ve also clocked up a decent number of log-flume miles myself. But it was a daunting prospect, nonetheless, to play both roles for a full week’s vacation: parent and playmate.
And, single parents, before you roll your eyes at me (“You’re doing this for one week?! Try 365 days of the year!” I hear you snort), I am doing more than enough eye-rolling at myself already. What single parents achieve on a daily basis has always blown my mind. Even before I gave birth, I considered these grown-ups to be walking-talking super-heroes: minus cape and mask.
Need a vacation where the destination provides constant entertainment?
But, as they say, it is what it is. I was a single parent for this trip, and when searching for the perfect family vacation I had many of the same concerns that a single parent has. I needed all hands on deck on the type of vacation where the destination provides constant entertainment; stepping in to fill those gaps when we had played enough Battleships or comprehensively covered the subject of Harry Styles versus Miley Cyrus.
So it was, we booked two places on our first ever cruise: a seven-day Caribbean circuit from Miami, via the Bahamas, Cozumel Mexico, Grand Cayman and Jamaica.
MSC Seascape picks up the playtime slack for parents
Italian-owned, we had heard that MSC was a cruise company that puts families first, so we opted for its newest ship MSC Seascape; on board there was a Pirates Cove Aquapark and four water slides, dedicated LEGO activity days, as well as a Robotron rollercoaster and Hall of Games arcades. That’s before we even touch on the countless swimming pools and kids’ clubs across four different age brackets. And, from the moment we boarded, we could see the family focus was genuine.
It wasn’t wall-to-wall face-painting and climbing frames, but it was diverse, and young. There were grandmas from Chile on mobility scooters, French parents with teens, German blended families bringing together multiple generations, and same-sex parents with newborns, who didn’t leave the ship for seven days in a row. “We’re all sleeping so well,” they beamed, “we don’t want to jinx it!”