When I had my daughter in the winter of 2017—an entire decade after having twin sons—I pretty much assumed my traveling days would be put on hold for a long, long while.
When we’d had our boys, my husband and I declared we wouldn’t take them on any trips until they were a.) out of diapers and b.) able to retain long-term memories. “Why bring kids someplace when they won’t even remember having been there?” we rationalized. We know that there are people out there who bring their 3-year-olds to Italy and take amazing Instagram pics with little Sloane cavorting in a piazza. We are not those people.
But with two 12-year-old boys excited about summer vacation, and a two-year-old who was at least approaching the “no diapers” requirement, the husband and I realized we couldn’t fairly deprive our older kids of a trip simply because our youngest wouldn’t even realize we’d left the state.
Courtesy The Breakers
And so the search for a hotel that would have something for everyone—and I do mean everyone, since in addition to the pre-teen boys, toddler, husband and me, we’d also be bringing Grandma and Grandpa along—began in earnest.
I had a few criteria: it had to be easily reached from the East Coast via direct flights, it had to have real cribs—not creaky old collapsible play-yards, and it had to be near the ocean.
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Even with an ocean and a stunning stretch of Atlantic as The Breaker’s backyard, the resort is realistic about what little kids really want to do. And so we found our nightly ritual involved not a long romantic walk on the beach, but rather a stroll to the state-of-the-art playground, with sensory games, countless swings and monkey bars galore. The playground is heavily cushioned and not too daunting for even the youngest walkers, so hubs and I were at least able to have a moment sitting on a bench, reminiscing about our day while our daughter shrieked her way down the slides.
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Lest you think this trip was solely about my little girl, one of the main reasons we’d embarked on this journey was so that my boys could finally “go somewhere” since the arrival of their little sister. And for every perk that awaited my toddler, there was one for my 12 year olds—the biggest one being a video game room and arcade that allowed us to preload a game card with cash and turn the boys loose. Between playing on the X-boxes and then challenging each other to racing games, the boys would vanish for whole hours before we’d drag them back into the sunlight. Once we did, they were thrilled to be able to splash in one pool, all on their own, while the grandparents and toddler were in another (and while the husband hit the gym and I snuck off to the spa.)
source: people.com
