Let’s face it – vacationing with family can be hectic. Between planning, packing, traveling and keeping everyone happy along the way, vacation can sometimes seem more like work than rest. If you’re traveling with kids, there are countless considerations you need to take when planning your vacation.
Destinations
The destination of your vacation is often affected by the number and age of children that you’re traveling with. For example, you’re probably not as likely to take your five and six year old to Las Vegas as you would be to take them to Orlando. Likewise, you may rethink that trip overseas when you consider how your child will respond to a 10-hour flight. Wherever you choose, it’s important to find a destination where your kids have as much to do as you, or more.
Resorts
More and more, vacation hotels and resorts are taking notice of the traveling family market and gearing services towards traveling families. Gone are the days where putting an arcade in the lobby made a hotel ‘family-friendly’. The new goal; to offer a complete experience that gives mom, dad and the kids a chance to get the most out of their vacation, without the hassle.
In a destination like Orlando, you expect these types of services at most resorts because the clientele has long been families with young children. In the Caribbean, an increased number of resorts also offer vacation packages for families. From water slides and cartoon characters to mini-buffets and handcrafts, many resorts have gone above and beyond to attract families with services guaranteed to keep the little ones happy which, in turn, keeps mom and dad happy.
Enjoying a Caribbean all-inclusive family vacation now means that for each activity available for adults, there’s another activity for the kids. A true family-friendly resort will have a comprehensive program in place that keeps kids entertained from the morning until the evening. Besides, mom and dad won’t get any time to kick back and enjoy the vacation if they have to entertain all day.
The next time you plan a family vacation, take the time to look into the children’s’ activities offered at any resort you’re considering. All ‘family-friendly’ resorts are not the same and do not cater to children in the same way. A little extra time planning may mean a lot more rest and relaxation for you.
By: Enid Glasgow
Posts Tagged ‘Family Vacation’
The California Travel and Tourism Commission is a Great Touristic Resource
January 27th, 2010
It has been said that those who are considering vacation travel to the great, golden state of California really have an underlying desire to “be Californians,” even if it’s only for the brief time that they are vacationing there. As a result, more and more potential California vacationers are looking to the state’s completely redesigned travel and tourism website to help them learn all about becoming a “temporary Californian.”
The state of California has an official department, or commission, that is structured to help promote and encourage people to travel throughout the vast state to take in all of the sights and wonders of the many tourist attraction destinations. It is the California Travel and Tourism Commission, or CTTC, which began promoting the idea of calling vacation travel visitors “Honorary Californians.”
The essential idea of this nomenclature is to encourage tourists to do much more than just visit the various tourist destinations. Instead, the California Travel and Tourism Commission wants vacationers to embrace the full experience of California’s easygoing, laid-back lifestyle and soak up the culture just like a local.
The CTTC has put together an extensive website. The impressive online presence is an attempt to compete aggressively for the attention of those planning to travel and who are looking for vacation ideas, for the ideal family vacation and great tourist destinations. They have provided an online tourism and travel guide that is intended to help potential visitors to the state to fall in love with the destination even before they arrive.
The CTTC website has gone a long way in accomplishing this goal by giving the website visitor a great deal of information about the “must see” tourist attraction options, as well as highlighting the many world renowned landmarks around the state. And, if that were not enough, there is also extensive revelations about “inside scoops” that further give people insights about where to go and what to see to make the vacation travel visitor feel even more connected and like a Californian, honorary or not.
And, true to the very image of style, fun and uniqueness, the state’s website provides all of this information, and much more, in a way that is visually appealing, engaging, and fun. This approach certainly helps to set the stage for the California experience and helps to draw people in and retain their attention. In the highly competitive world of travel tourism, this is very important and the consensus is that the CTTC has done a very good job at providing a compelling tourist guide.
From where to gingerly sip a trendy drink at a casual Los Angeles hideaway, to catching the rays on a sun-baked San Diego beach, to soaking up the high life at a posh Napa Valley spa, the California Travel and Tourism Commission’s website, at “Visit California”, has captured and cataloged the local California hotspots and revealed hidden state treasures. For travelers who like to pre-plan their itinerary, the site even offers an extensive menu of trip ideas, complete with Google maps.
By: Mike Selvon
