Our Spring break vacation to the Fairmont Kea Lani Resort on Maui just ended last week, and we are starting to plan our summer vacation. When we start to talk about taking a vacation, Red Bear often complains loudly, things like, “Why? I don’t want to go! Why force me to go to places?” Well, we know, that’s because all the Xbox games have him hooked, and if he could play 24/7, he would! The job of the parents, of course, is to lure their children away from such temptations, and get them out the door to enjoy the beautiful world outside, and make sure the vacation is as stress-free for everyone as possible!
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Trust me, I know how stressful it can be traveling with kids! So, I have figured out some tips that I think can help — at least, they work for me. But, you know, they are kids, and they can get very emotional, too. We can’t make them happy all the time, but at least, with some planning and smart parental tactics, we can reduce all the “drama” and make our family trips more enjoyable and full of good memories.
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Before summer vacations kick off in just over a month, I want to share some hard-learned tips about making your family travel (relatively) stress-free. Let’s be real — traveling with kids is not always easy! As much as I love to keep calm and collected in every situation, I’ve been forced to learn that it’s really impossible to be over-prepared when it comes to traveling with kids! As with anything, it gets easier the more you do it, and I’m excited to share the lessons I’ve learned from traveling with my bundles of love (and trouble).
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1. Plan your trip including some things your child is seriously interested in, as well as things you enjoy — everyone needs to have some fun to look forward to, so the vacation is a “win-win” situation. For my family, Red Bear and my husband are like sea creatures, they LOVE playing in and on the ocean. I’m not so much a swimmer, but I love beaches and boats. That’s why we all agree that we love Hawaii. This time We just had four days to get away to some fun place for Red Bear’s Easter Break from school, and by unanimous family vote, we decided to go to the island of Maui, in Hawaii. It’s an easy direct flight from Los Angeles, it’s tropical (when it comes down to it, we all like warm weather best in my family), and it has great beach activities, from sunbathing to surfing, snorkeling, boating, and diving.
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2. Find a good hotel or resort that comes with beach front and/or a variety of swimming pool fun, with many activities available. With vacation time being precious, we decided to go to Fairmont Kea Lani this time — a well-known resort in the Wailea area of Maui. Fairmont Kea Lani hit all of my family’s vacation desires: it has its own beach (“Polo Beach,” they call it), as well as one adult swimming pool, and two family pools that are connected by a 140-water slide tunnel. The resort also has available outrigger canoeing, scuba diving and snorkeling, surfing, a Kid’s Club, golf, and tennis, a fitness center, and spa. I hope I’m not leaving anything out, but there were so many fun things to do, we were busy and happy from morning to night!
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3. Let your child choose what he or she wants to wear — with some subtle parental guidance, if necessary!. Red Bear can be a weird dude with his own definite likes and dislikes when it comes to clothes. He normally doesn’t like cargo pants, and he doesn’t like shirts he has to button. Just like his father, he is happiest in a polo shirt or even t-shirt. Sometimes Red Bear will get in a bad mood when I ask him to wear something out of his “comfort zone,” but Hawaii is casual and tropical, so his shirt choices were just right.
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4. To keep a child happy, keep his tummy full. On vacation regular meal schedules can get lost in the excitement, and when blood sugar drops from lack of food, storm clouds can form in little heads! But when Red Bear has what he wants to eat — pizza and root beer, for example — he is a happy kid. So we check out all the food shops and restaurants in the resort to see what is available that he likes, and go to those places. At the Fairmont Kea Lani’s Makana Market + Cafe, the staff was very attentive and the kitchen even made some of his favorite “off menu” vegan food. I like to keep some snacks in our room as well as in my bag, just to be safe.
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5. Download all the apps and games you need. I downloaded the airline’s free app to Red Bear’s iPad, and he got to watch several of his favorite movies on the 5+ hours flights to and from Maui. It was brilliant — no complaints from Red Bear at all, and he wouldn’t have cared if the flights were even longer! We also bought ($10) an app that was a GPS-linked driving tour to the famous and beautiful Hana Road on Maui, and it was very helpful when we took that drive — it was another story though, The driving from Maui to Hana actually is a tough drive, it has over 600 curves /turns, and it’s famous for making people car sick, especially for kids. We didn’t finish our drive but decided to turn back this time because Red Bear got very car sick, and we were not prepared for it. You might want to prepare some motion sickness pills for your children or yourself, too! If you decide to make the trip. We have heard all the views during the trip are wonderful and all worth the drive!
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P.S We ended up having a great time after we ended our road trip to Hana and turned back to the resort. We had a private cabana tent around the pool, enjoying some pineapple drinks and lunch delivered from Fairmont’s Ama restaurant, so yummy! Red Bear had a lot of fun swimming, taking the “secret” tunnel slide from one pool to another MANY times. He ended the day by taking a scuba diving lesson!
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So our finally words: traveling with your child(ren) doesn’t have to be so heard, if you are prepared for whatever happens with a flexible spirit of discovering fun, ,new things. The key words are not “must-visit” or “must-see” or “can’t miss” , but “just have fun” doing whatever things together with your family.
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That is how we approached our getaway to Fairmont Kea Lani Resort, and we all loved it!
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I’ll have to keep these in mind for my future! Hopefully I’ll be able to travel successfully and stress-free with kids!
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