20 Days before your cruise! Are you dreaming of walking the promenade and meeting the Captain? Today is all about getting everything in place for you to leave your children, house and pets. This can be one of the most stressful parts of traveling and we hope to give you a way to look at this differently. The answer is to plan everything and to have back up plans! Back up babysitters, back up animal sitters, back up house sitters. We want to believe everyone is as responsible as we are. And we want to think our vacation is as important to others as it is to ourselves. But sadly, not true.
Animal and house sitters for your cruise
EXAMPLE – We had a animal and house sitter all set for our last Europe trip. We booked them 5 months in advance. Two weeks before we left we were told she got a job and was moving. As it turns out WE were HER back up plan. We had to scramble to get three weeks of 4 animals and a house covered!
It’s 21 days before your cruise. I am sure you have already put into place your sitters. But today we want you to see if you can find backups in case of emergency. Or even to just give your sitters a break for an afternoon.
Baby sitters for your cruise
EXAMPLE – When our daughter was planning her last cruise, of course, we jumped in to babysit our grandkids! But our daughter was smart enough to know we would lose our minds if we had a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old for 7 days straight.
So, she planned people to relieve us and take the kids on playdates 4 times during the week. It was great for the kids and us. But mostly for our daughter. She didn’t worry that it was too much for us, or that we would get burned out. So HER stress was lower on her amazing and fabulous cruise!
We have dedicated more days closer to your cruise to continue with everything you need to do for your kids, pets, and home. However, we want you to start with some of the below to give you time to collect all of the information you need.
HINT! Kid’s things to check or arrange for the days you are gone.
- Is your child’s doctor in town while you are gone? If not, who is on call?
- Double check school half days and days off for holidays, etc.
- Will your children’s prescriptions last through your trip?
- Leave a notarized emergency form or consent to treat form giving your sitters permission to take your child to a doctor.
YOUR SITTER STRESS-FREE LIST:
- Check with your cruise line to have emergency contact numbers that you can leave for all house sitters, baby sitters, animal sitters, and family.
- Leave your sitters with a complete travel itinerary.
- Consider a home camera that can be connected to your phone or smart device to check in on your kids, pets, and home.
- Arrange how you will be in contact with sitters while gone; emails, calls, texts, video calls on facetime, Apps like What’s App, Google, Skype, etc.
- Leave one credit card behind with a limit on it that your sitters can use in an emergency. Or leave cash or a prepaid debit card.
- Doctors’ telephone numbers and addresses
- Your preferred First Care type facilities in case they cannot get into the Doctor of your choice.
- Arrange house cleaners, gardeners, water deliveries, etc
YOUR SITTER STRESS-FREE ANIMALS LIST: All of the above and…
- Pet Collars with a tracking device is really a great thing to have in case they get out or lost.
- Check that their tags can still be read and info is correct.
- Your Veterinarians’ numbers for both day and emergency hours
- Arrange dog pooper scooper companies
- Decide if gardeners should enter your yard when you are not there to keep animals safe.
EXAMPLE – Often we cancel our gardener or house cleaners for the days we are gone. We do not want our sitters stressed with gardeners outside the windows, or house cleaners walking in when they least expect it. And we get our water delivered before we leave so that our sitter does not have to lift the heavy bottles.
There is a whole lot more on kids, house, and pets. As we said, we will delve more into each on days closer to your fabulous cruise vacation. So much fun stuff. Letters to leave for your sitters. Instructions on the household quirks, kid’s quirks or animal quirks! Gifts for your sitters and so much more!