This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kim Budlong, a 40-year-old resident of Lancaster, South Carolina, who went on a world cruise while 10 weeks pregnant. She was on the cruise with her family for about six weeks.
Last year, around the end of March, my husband and I began to make plans to go on the Royal Caribbean Ultimate World Cruise, which has a segment that journeys to the Americas and Antarctica.
We spent months planning the trip for my family of four, including my husband, my 5-year-old son, and my 1-year-old daughter. The cruise would sail out of Miami on December 10.
Little did we know that we’d be planning for a family of five.
Around Thanksgiving, I found out I was pregnant. It was an “oopsy” pregnancy but a nice little surprise. Despite the news, I still wanted to go on the cruise.
My husband and I have traveled extensively, and the last continent I needed to visit was Antarctica. Plus, the cruise would happen around our anniversary. It was going to be our trip of a lifetime.
The Americas segment of the Ultimate World Cruise is 64 nights, but cruises generally have a policy that bars passengers about 23 weeks pregnant or approaching the third trimester.
By the time the cruise started, I’d be 10 weeks pregnant. So we decided to stay on the cruise for six weeks.
I was a little bit worried about going on the trip, having to bring two kids, being pregnant, and packing everything I needed.
I checked in with my midwife to make sure I was OK to go and agreed to regularly check in with her during the trip. I also brought a Doppler that can track the baby’s heart rate.
Sea sickness was another concern.
I knew the cruise would be going through the Drake Passage, which is famous for its rough seas. I was worried that the seasickness would be made worse by the morning sickness from the pregnancy.
But, in the end, I would say that going on a cruise while pregnant has my stamp of approval.
I found the bands that attach to your wrist to aid with motion sickness helpful. The sickness did get to me once, but the staff was very good about coming in, cleaning up, and sanitizing everything again. There’s also a small clinic to get medicine and stay hydrated.
As a mama, and especially if you’re pregnant, you need to be catered to — and the staff did exactly that. They were friendly and made everything easy, knowing that I was pregnant.
If we let the staff know beforehand, they could cater to our dietary restrictions and provide, for example, gluten-free meals. If my kids made a mess during a meal, the staff would insist that they could clean it up for me. You can even pay to have the staff do the laundry for you.
So, essentially, you don’t have to cook, clean, make your own bed, or anything like that. That allowed me to participate in activities on the cruise.
My husband and I are sporty, so we participated in things like archery and mini-basketball games, even during rough seas. There was bean bag tossing for the kids.
Of course, there’s also the traveling itself. We made our way through the Caribbean, then Antarctica, Buenos Aires, and, for New Year’s, Rio de Janeiro.
You also make friends while on the cruise because you spend a lot of time with them doing activities and going on excursions. The friends that I made were all waiting to hear about the baby’s gender after the cruise. My son still chats with some of the friends he made on the cruise, who are from England.
It really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Coming back to reality was a bit tough. I thought, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to do laundry again, clean, and cook when you’ve been catered to for so long and get back into the swing of life.”
If I could, I would’ve kept going for a little longer.
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