Traveling with Kids - Ideas on where to Stay  

    When traveling with children, one of the most important things to think about is where to stay.  When we travel with our three small children, I always try to find accommodations with at least a kitchenette.  With that, we have a refrigerator to store milk and juice, and a microwave to cook  ramens or easy mac.  I agree that room service or eating out is great, but having  the ability to heat a bottle or give a child milk in the middle or the night is priceless.    A lot of hotels also offer 1 bedroom suites, with a separate bedroom and a pull out couch in the living room, and a kitchenette.    It may sound expensive, but most are not that much more than a regular room, and having a separate room for kids to sleep in can be so much easier than trying to all fall asleep in the same room.  My 4 and 6 year old trouble falling asleep in the same room, so an extra room give us options.  
    There also is extended stay hotels or hotels that cater to the business class, these hotels can be great for families, they provide you with the ease of a hotel, like maid service and clean towels with lots of living space like a rental home or condo.  They rent to anyone, and if available you can reserve a room for just one night.  
    I like the Holiday Inn, a lot of their hotels do offer 1 bedroom suites, and some offer kids suites.  We stayed in a kids suite room in Cocoa Beach Florida, its a room inside your room built just for kids.  They often have bunk bed, ours had bunk beds and a twin bed,  it was brightly colored and had a television  just for the kids, it does have a curtain instead of a door.  It also had a kitchenette, although it had no silverware, dishes or cups, something to keep in mind when traveling.  This room cost us less than $120.00 per night total, and that was in February, and directly on the beach. 
    There are many family friendly hotels out there, spend time and look around at what is available in the area you have decided to stay in.    When we decide on a vacation area, I will spend hours investigating different accommodations.  I will look into family friendly hotels,  time share rentals,  houses or condos for rent, many will rent out for just the weekend, especially in the off season.  I was really surprised at how much I could find that suited us, and in our price range.   Remember, look around and think outside the box, and don't assume that its too expensive, check it out.  

Traveling with Kids - Timeshare Rentals


    We traveled last June to Aruba, with the three kids and the grandparents and it was fantastic.  I know there has been a lot of talk about Aruba lately, whether it's a safe place to travel to,  I don't want to take sides in the debate, but I'll just say that my family members have been vacationing there yearly for the last 15 years with no problems.   My parents have a timeshare there and we decided that if we went the same week as them it would be a great opportunity for the kids to spend quality time with Grandma and Grandpa, while they are still healthy enough to travel.  
    I wanted to share some of the things I discovered while planning our trip.  Not only was I able to get a room in the same resort as my parents, but it was one door down, and the rental cost me less than a week at a hotel on Cape Cod.  I also got a fantastic deal on the 5 airline tickets I needed.   
      Since I already knew where we wanted to stay, I concentrated my efforts in finding the most cost effective way to book a room.  The room I wanted costs about $350.00 per night, so booking it directly was out of our price range.  I tried all the different travel sites, and  tried combining airfare with hotel to bring down the price, but with needing five tickets it was still way too expensive.  I decided to try renting it as a time share and found it was much more reasonable, running about $1400.00 for the week.  I was not ready to give up yet, and spent a lot of time checking every timeshare rental place I could find and got the price down to $1200.00 for the week.  I was ready to book it and decided to look a little further, I would recommend when you use a search engine to look past the first two pages of your search results,  I have found some great things on page 10 or even 12.  The last search I did, I found on page 9 of my search results, a real estate office in Aruba that rented the place I wanted, the week I wanted for a fantastic price of $900.00 for the week.  I booked it immediately and moved onto airfare.  I definitely wanted a direct flight, since we were traveling with 3 small kids, but at first glance the prices seemed very high.  I started with charters, which head out of Boston's Logan airport to Aruba on Saturday, but the prices were crazy.  Since the time share rental goes from Friday to Friday,  I stated to look for flights on Friday, but I could not find anything, so I went to plan B.  I found an American Airlines flight, direct from Boston to Aruba for $350.00 with fees and taxes, but it left on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.  I decided to book it for Thursday and rent a room for that night in the hotel since our time share rental did not start till Friday, something that is done quite often .  They gave us the members price for that first night so it was only $250.00 for the night.  It ended up costing for our trip less that $550.00 per person, for direct airfare and to stay in one of the best hotels in Aruba, The Marriott's Aruba Renaissance.   This hotel is really family friendly, they do have two hotels, make sure you book in the Ocean Suites, not the Marina Resort, which is geared towards singles or people traveling without children.   Each suite has 1 bedroom with a king or queen size bed,  my 3 and 5 year old shared it,  a TV,  bureau and good size closet.  The living  room has a pull out couch which was large and comfortable, a table with four chairs, another bureau and closet. The kitchen area has a  burner top, sink,  two mini fridge/freezers and all the dishes and utensils we needed.  The rooms were clean and in great shape.   The grounds were just as nice, with two pools, the big one with an island and a swim up bar, the smaller one, which was by no means small, was only 4' deep which was easier for the kids to swim in.  The beach is like a cove which made it very calm, with no under tow, so the kids could swim with no worry about being knocked around by the surf.  It really was wonderful, I would suggest taking a look at their website to get a feel for the place, although I don't think it does it justice.  http://marriott.com/property/propertypage/AUABR
    They also have a private island that you can spend time at, they have shuttles that leave every 15 minutes, it was beautiful but I would suggest to go in the morning or bring lots of bug spray, its the only place in Aruba I've ever seen a mosquito.  There is also a mall next door to the hotel, with a variety store, restaurants, shops and a casino, everything you need a few steps away.   
       I think the best piece of advice I can give you is to look around, read reviews for different hotels to find something that suits your needs.  I always try to find reviews from other parents about the places we're interested in staying at, I want to know what their experience was.  I do not want to get to our vacation destination to find the rooms dirty, or that the hotel is not kid friendly.  Spend some time researching  your destination, get to know the area.  And as far as booking your trip, don't just assume that one of the all in one travel sites on the internet is your best bet, they may be the easiest option, but not necessarily the most cost effective.      
           
 

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