Take A Look At Kids Friendly Hotel While Planning A Vacation
Planning a vacation is an extremely strenuous task, especially if there are children involved. And when your family consists of kids in different age groups, your troubles increase manifold.
For other than making sure that the holiday turns out to be a stress relieving experience for the family, you need to make sure that the hotel you land up at has some thing for every kid in the family to enjoy. If not, trust your holiday, and the happiness that comes with it to go down the drain!
So if you are planning a vacation with your kids and are looking for quality child friendly hotels that would help you take care of your children while enjoying the holiday, here are some useful tips to zero in on the correct hotel that would meet your expectations.
Don’t be fooled by the ‘Child Friendly Tag’
In order to stay competitive in today’s world, every other hotel is coming up with the ‘family friendly’ and ‘child friendly’ tags in order to attract customers. Even though this might sound right, it is not! For you need to look beneath these tags and research about the facilities really offered by the establishment before booking it.
Attitude counts and how! Some resorts or hotels claim to be child friendly and even have facilities for children. However what you need to note here is the way your children are treated in the establishment. For while the hotel may be ‘child friendly’, the staff may not!
Narrow your choices with the Age Factor
Most of us tend to just type in ‘family resorts’ or ‘child friendly resorts’ on the internet and then choose from the options that come up. Most of the times, this would not be the best option as various resorts have various facilities with respect to the particular ages of the children.
For example, while some resorts or hotels would only have facilities for toddlers and small kids (aged between 2-7 years), other hotels would offer facilities for only twins and teens without catering to infants. This again implies that you would need to be double sure that the resort you are looking for has some kind of facility that would suit your kids’s age.
Pay More and you get better service
This saying goes true not only for child friendly hotels, but to all other hotels and resorts out there. Frankly speaking, the amount of money you dish out for the hotel is directly proportional to the quality of service that you would get.
If you want to choose a really good child friendly hotel which you know would make sure that your kids remain entertained and happy throughout the day, you need to realise the importance of shelling out money for the same.
Check for All Inclusive Deals
In the earlier days, ‘All Inclusive’ deals were frowned upon by travelers because they narrowed down your choices of experimentation. However, today the board basis is sought after several families merely for the fact that opting for an ‘All Inclusive’ board basis would enable them to get more for their money while enjoying a hassle free vacation with their kids.
Restaurant Policies
Again when it comes to being ‘child friendly’ some hotels merely add the tag to their brochures and lure families, only to stun them with the fact that they would still have some policies in place for children.
For example, some hotels would claim to be child friendly, but would not allow children into the restaurants after a particular time. Again, some hotels would not offer any special meals for children which would become a problem if your kid does not like the food served at the establishment.
Check for hotels that allow kids in all areas of the establishment, including the restaurants. You can also check if the restaurant offers a special menu for children.
Babysitting Vs. Kid Care
Most of the time parents tend to drop off their little ones in the resort’s so called ‘Kids Club’ to get some quality time off for each other. Maybe you want to do the same thing.
We don’t blame you for that! However, before deciding to send your kid to the kid’s club, inquire about the various activities offered at the club for children of different ages. For in some cases, the kid’s club would turn out to be nothing but a babysitting center.
A good child friendly resort would typically have a kid’s club that offers a myriad of activities (like tennis courts, games rooms etc. ) for kids. And these activities would not be limited to a specific age group.
Traveling with toddlers
If you are traveling with a toddler, there are some really essential details you need to take note of before deciding on a hotel!
Accordingly, you would need to check if the hotel offers cribs, high chairs, baby cots etc. to accommodate infants.You would also need to inquire about the availability of a tub in the bathroom which would be feasible for baby baths.
Many hotels offer babysitting services with certain constraints. In some cases, you can leave the premises while in others you need to be inside the hotel. Again, some hotels offer baby listening services wherein you can keep a monitor alongside your baby in the room.
Another monitor would be placed at the reception, and if your little one wakes up and cries, someone at the reception would hasten to your room to take care of him/her. On the other hand, you can carry a portable baby monitor with you when you move out with your spouse and come back to the room if your kid wakes up.
Traveling with older kids
Twins and teens are very hard to please, and can end up sulking throughout the vacation if they are not satisfied with what they get to do at the hotel or resort you choose to stay in.
Before actually booking the accommodation, you can check the hotel’s brochures for details regarding activities for kids. You may also want to look into the different activities available for kids who belong to different age groups.
Also check for family activities that would most probably give you a chance to spend some cherished moments with the entire family. And last but not the least, check to see which facilities offered by the hotel or resort are permanent as some hotels tend to offer facilities only a seasonal basis!
Photo Credit- Family-hotel-italy.com
