Top 5 Family Vacation Styles

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Family vacations are a cherished time for bonding, creating memories, and expanding horizons. With a myriad of options available, finding the perfect style to suit your family’s preferences and interests can be an exciting beginning. Knowing what type of vacation you’re looking for is the first step in planning the perfect family vacation! Here’s our guide to the top five family vacation styles:

1. All-inclusive Resorts: For Families Seeking Relaxation

All-inclusive resorts offer a convenient and stress-free vacation experience, catering to families who prioritize relaxation and pampering. These resorts provide everything you need under one roof, from accommodations and meals to a variety of activities and entertainment.

For large multi-generational groups, this is a great way for everyone to enjoy different activities while having a central home base. Those with little kids will enjoy the chill beaches and easy-access pools. While the hard-to-please tweens and teens can find more adventurous experiences like zip lining, water parks, and snorkeling. Destinations like Punta Cana, The Riviera Maya, Jamaica, Turks & Caicos, and the Bahamas are a perfect place to start.

[Photo Credit: Megan & Jim from Shared Adventures]

Pros:

  • Effortless planning and budgeting
  • Endless options for activities and entertainment
  • Childcare and kids’ clubs for worry-free relaxation
  • Diverse dining options to suit all tastes

Cons:

  • Limited exploration of the surrounding area
  • Potential for feeling confined to the resort
  • Higher cost compared to other options

2. Cruises: For Families combining Adventure and Relaxation

Cruises offer a unique blend of relaxation and adventure, allowing families to explore multiple destinations while enjoying the amenities and activities onboard. They are a great way to see multiple destinations while only unpacking once. Like all-inclusives, cruises are great for multi-generational families where everyone can do their own thing while still having a central home base. But they have an added sense of adventure and multiple unique destinations in one trip.

[Photo Credit: Clare via Shared Adventures]

a large cruise ship wth a colorful design on the side in Alaska

Pros:

  • Variety of destinations and attractions
  • Amenities and entertainment onboard
  • Dining options included in the package
  • Opportunities for sightseeing and excursions

Cons:

  • Limited time at each destination
  • Crowds
  • Confined Spaces

3. Theme Parks: For Families Seeking Excitement and Entertainment

Enter a world of excitement and entertainment, catering to families who love thrilling rides, captivating shows, and immersive experiences. Theme parks always have something new to do since they are always opening new rides and experiences.

the water, ferris wheel and roller coaster of Disneyland's California Adventures Theme Park

With endless entertainment options for all ages from heart-pounding roller coasters to enchanting shows – there’s something for everyone to enjoy.  A theme park vacation is perfect if you don’t want to take a week-long holiday or are looking to include it with other activities in the area.

[Photo Credit: Brandi Alexandra via Unsplash]

Depending on the ages and interests of the family, you can enjoy more character-centered parks like Disney and Universal or amusement parks with lots of great big-kid rides like Bush Gardens. Theme parks provide a setting where families can connect, create lasting bonds, and experience the magic of storytelling and imagination.

Pros:

  • Endless entertainment options for all ages
  • Opportunities for character interactions and themed experiences
  • Variety of dining and shopping options within the park
  • Accessibility and adaptations
  • Convenient accommodations & amenities

Cons:

  • Crowds and long wait times for attractions
  • Lots of walking throughout the day
  • Higher cost of admission and food
  • Potential for overstimulation, especially for younger children

4. Nature Adventures: For Families Seeking Connection

Nature adventures immerse families in the wonders of the natural world, offering opportunities for hiking, wildlife encounters, and outdoor exploration. Perfect for families with tweens and teens, visiting a destination like Costa Rica provides a little bit of everything from family resorts to adventure activities like kayaking, zip-lining, and wildlife encounters.

Nature adventures offer experiences that will captivate and inspire every member of the family. Whether you’re visiting the rainforests of Costa Rica the marine wildlife reserves in Florida or the wonders of an African Safari.

[Photo Credit: Ann via Shared Adventures]

two guys snorkeling in the bright blue water of the Galapagos

Pros:

  • Connection with nature and appreciation for the environment
  • Opportunities for physical activity and outdoor education
  • Memories of shared experiences in nature

Cons:

  • Requires adaptability to weather conditions and potential challenges
  • Limited access to amenities and technology
  • Safety considerations and proper preparation are essential

5. Cultural Adventures: For Families Seeking Immersive Experiences

Cultural adventures expose families to different cultures, traditions, and historical sites, fostering global understanding and appreciation. Many international destinations are family friendly and even geared towards the younger generations, like Portugal, Spain & Italy.

A family at a wine tasting table with views overlooking the sea in Santorini Greece

From ages ten and up– picking a city or two to explore not only creates long-lasting memories but also exposes the family to new cultures, unusual experiences, and diverse foods! It’s also a perfect way to enjoy a family vacation when everybody’s all grown up.

[Photo Credit: Alicia & Jay from Shared Adventures — read about their family trip to Greece here!]

Pros:

  • Broadening of horizons and cultural awareness
  • Opportunities to learn about different languages, customs, and traditions
  • Memories of unique experiences and connections with people from diverse backgrounds

Cons:

  • Requires adaptability and openness to different cultures
  • Potential for language barriers and cultural sensitivities
  • The cost of travel and activities may vary depending on the destination

Which style of vacation fits your family? What kind of vacation sparks your imagination and fits with your family’s needs? Let us know when you’re ready to discover the perfect destination based on your family’s travel style!

A Family Adventure in Greece

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Long-time clients Alicia & Jay came to us for some help with a bucket-list trip to Greece with her mom, dad, sister, and brother-in-law. The whole family wanted a mix of sightseeing, relaxation, luxury hotel amenities, gorgeous beaches, and incredible food! We were thrilled to put it all together for them. Here’s their feedback:

We can’t thank you enough for planning such a perfect family trip to Greece! We had an amazing time! We had beautiful, warm, and sunny weather for most of the trip.

Athens

As you already know, when we arrived in Athens on Saturday morning, there was a mixup with our transportation and we ended up just taking taxis to the hotel. However, after this, the trip was mostly seamless! The Athens Gate Hotel was wonderful and very helpful in confirming our transportation for the following day. When we arrived on Saturday, we had lunch and explored Hadrian’s Arch and Monastiraki Square. We had drinks and dinner at the Athens Gate rooftop, which had beautiful views of the Acropolis.

On Sunday, we had our tour of the Acropolis. When we got to the meeting point, there was no one there to meet us for the tour. We contacted the tour company and they arranged for someone to meet us back at our hotel so we could leave from there. The tour of the Acropolis was amazing and our tour guide was incredible. It was definitely good to do it early in the day because it was 90+ degrees, and it wasn’t too crowded as we were climbing up, but on our way down we noticed that the crowds had increased significantly.

After the tour, we grabbed lunch and headed to the airport.

Crete

We absolutely loved the Minoa Palace Resort in Crete! What a beautiful resort, which certainly earns its 5-star status.

We spent the next four days mostly between the beach and pools and walking to nearby restaurants for dinner. The hotel staff couldn’t have been nicer, arranging taxis and even salon appointments for us. We loved our rooms with the private pools!

The Cretan Cooking Class was an incredible experience and one of the best meals we had the entire trip. It was amazing to see the family’s villa high up in the mountains with incredible views.

We also explored Chania Old Town on Wednesday, which was beautiful. We stopped for lunch along the water at the perfect time because the skies opened up and gave us quite a storm. I think that was the only time it rained the entire trip in Greece!

Santorini

I think Santorini was collectively our favorite place! The Petit Palace Hotel blew us away with its incredible views. Talk about a grand entrance – the hotel’s entrance is literally two doors on the side of a cliff and all you see is the water below when you walk through. Our rooms were again spacious and impressive – from the unique bathrooms to the balconies. We saw the best sunset of our entire trip from our hotel room balconies. The hotel had a shuttle that runs back and forth to Fira, and the staff was very helpful with arranging taxis for us elsewhere.

We spent time exploring both Fira and Oia, which was my favorite place, as well as the black sand beaches – we spent a day at one of the beach clubs called Wet Stories. Marissa, Joe, and Bob did a hike from Fira to Imerovigli, which they said was amazing! We also did a tour and wine tasting at Santo Wines, which was great!

The highlight in Santorini for all of us was the Sunset Boat Tour. The tour ended up being all adults and relatively small (we lucked out with a fun group). The crew was spectacular and the food they prepared was delicious. We all swam in the Aegean Sea and enjoyed drinks, good music, and beautiful views.

Conclusions

We all agreed that it was so nice to have one extra night in Athens at the end of the trip. We loved the Sofitel – the convenience of the two-minute walk from baggage claim was ideal. We had dinner at their rooftop restaurant and it was great to be able to freshen up and get a good night’s sleep before the long flight back to Boston.

Overall, you knocked it out of the park again! This was the most memorable family trip. Thank you from all of us for planning the best escape to Greece!

 

London & Edinburgh Adventure

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Bob and Stacey were looking for a weeklong getaway somewhere different, but not too out of the box and we had the perfect answer – London & Edinburgh! Here are their thoughts and lessons from their trip:

So this is a blow by blow of our observations for the trip. The trip overall was excellent, and we would do it again!

Arriving in London

Landed at the airport and the driver was a little late. Nice enough guy, but we landed a little late and when we first tried to call the company we got no answer. Eventually got someone on the phone once we were ready to go and waited about another 20 minutes. Then a long ride into the hotel- we were so early, there was no rush, but that was early Saturday morning – traffic in London is bad! I might have considered a train into the city if need be (again though, this was no problem as we had nowhere to go).

Rubens at the Palace – This place was amazing. The staff – I felt like there were about 6 key players between the desk and door and restaurant that we saw every day and they were all amazing! They not only changed over the room (which they do too sparingly in the US these days) but sometimes a couple of times a day. Never a need for fresh towels.

London Tours

Food Tour – I was skeptical about this but I will tell you – the guide was great and the Tour is SO well worth it! Some great history, and good food.

Tower of London – Also a good tour. We probably could have stayed and skipped the boat to the changing of the horse guards as there was ot a TON of time to see much outside of the grounds and Crown Jewels. Really good and fun Tour Guide.

Changing of Horse Guards/Whitehall – This was good to see. Stacey thought we were seeing them at Buckingham Palace. Good guide and well done; not our showcase of the trip, but that is us.

Free Time in London

We made use of our downtime pretty well. She loved going to Harrods (it is an experience) and still talks about the chocolate cake we had in the coffee shop (their chocolate prep is amazing and not quite as sugary as ours but sweet just enough!).

We used the Underground (Stacey was a little more intimidated but I love that mode of transportation and it and the city were SO clean.)

London Dining

We went to Rules. Great dinner and experience.

We noticed that there was a pub outside of Kensington Palace that had a name on the unique sign that was similar to the Pub by our hotel. This is where I learned about chain pubs and cask beer (I got the explanation later in our trip). The beer had sort of a plastic or chemical taste…a real bummer since we only get cask over there. Cask is not fully refrigerated so once it is ready it needs to be drunk. If not, the yeast, which continues to be active as it is not refrigerated, starts to “over do it” and creates that flavor. They don’t stand out like chains here, but next time I would make the effort to weed out chain pubs.

Afternoon Tea at the Rubens – was very fun. I don’t like anything with mayo or sour cream and sometimes cream cheese- they accommodated that in my little sandwiches.

Trains Out of London

London – getting to the train – as you know this was awful. We left the hotel late (say 9:15 for a 10 am train) and Google said 20 minutes by car- should be ok? 45 minutes later!!! Not so much. Rebooked on 10:30 am train at added cost which was frustrating. Again the City of London is trying to squeeze cars off of the road and they aren’t thinking it through. I have a college friend who had issues getting to a flight leaving London for business because of the ridiculous traffic.

Train Experience – we LOVED the first-class train. The rail in Europe is so much better than ours (although Acela is not far off from our first-class experience.)

Edinburgh

Kimpton in Edinburgh – good location and a really nice boutiquey hotel. What we know of Kimpton in the US is not cheap; sometimes a beautiful rehab, with good service, and rooms – check check check. Our room was right over Rose Street too which has many pubs – so there was some bar noise for us old folks…

We did the Beer Tour, Old Town Tour, and Edinburgh Castle – They were all fabulously done and while there was some minor history overlap, they were not anywhere near redundant. All three guides were amazing. FYI Little Fish Tours which was 2 of the 3 was outstanding! But the Beer Tour was not Little Fish and was also so great.

We loved them all and couldn’t say who did the best job! I have no problem passing along that I would do these 3 tours all over again. There is some walking but it’s incredibly entertaining and you feel really immersed in the city and history.

EDI Airport

Leaving EDI – The EDI airport is small and not crowded – not like we are used to for sure. Some impact because of strikes in London and Paris, and we were late getting out. The connection in Paris was a little scary, never having done it before. There was a seasoned traveler on our flight to Boston who said she tried to avoid it. We ended up fine and I am glad our flight in Paris was pushed back so we weren’t panicking on the transfer… so just a heads up for folks. And I travel A LOT, lol, (but not internationally)

Conclusion

Ann, once again you do such a great job with these trips. I can’t thank you enough. I don’t know if anyone has taken the bait but I sing your praises every time someone (anywhere in the US) talks to me about traveling. Thank you!

Bob (and Stacey)

UK Anniversary Adventure

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Alicia and Jay wanted to celebrate their anniversary in style with great food and beautiful castles and luxury palaces. We knew a UK trip to Edinburgh and London would be perfect. Here’s their trip report detailing their fabulous adventure:

We had an amazing time in the UK. The trip was absolute perfection – we can’t thank you enough! Our hotels and tours were incredible, and the transfers were seamless. We made use of the Underground a lot in London, and taxis and Ubers were also easy to find.

Edinburgh Hotel

We found the Scottish people to be so incredibly friendly – they were always offering to assist if we looked lost or going out of their way to help any way they could. This made the trip extra special. We loved Edinburgh – the city itself is beautiful and we loved how walkable it is. We also had some great meals!

On Friday, when we arrived at The Glasshouse Hotel, our room wasn’t ready, so we set out for some breakfast, explored the Royal Mile and Edinburgh Castle. We returned to the hotel for check-in time where we were escorted to our room passing through a cozy bar and lounge, which we of course made good use of! The room itself was amazing – spacious, modern, and complete with heated floors and a heated towel rack in the bathroom. We truly loved this hotel and ate breakfast there each morning, which was great.

We set off for our Whisky Tour & Tasting that evening which was so much fun! Then we had dinner at Tollhouse.

Edinburgh Tours

On Saturday, we set out on the hop-on hop-off bus. We got off at the Royal Yacht Britannia and spent the day walking the footsteps of the Royals as we toured the entire Yacht. This was so much fun, and in one of the rooms that had a bar, they had sparkling wine and cookies set up in honor of the coronation. We had a coronation lunch in the Royal Deck Tea Room. And finally, we got back on the bus — unfortunately, Holyrood Palace was closed because of the coronation. We got off near the Royal Mile and went back for some shopping and a drink. Later that evening, we had dinner at Cafe Andaluz.

On Sunday, we set off on our Outlander Tour. This was incredible, and our tour guide was wonderful. We had so much fun exploring the castles and villages where the show is filmed. That night, we had dinner at Ting Thai Caravan which was a recommendation from our tour guide and it was amazing!

London Hotel

On Monday, we took the train from Waverly to London Kings Cross – the train was great. Food and snacks were plentiful!

We found London to be beautifully decorated for the Coronation and still so much celebrating going on but not overwhelmed with crowds. We checked into St. Ermin’s Hotel – what a beautiful hotel! The location being so close to a tube stop was ideal, and we really liked the Westminster area. I upgraded us to a junior suite and our room was spacious and had two huge closets. The hotel houses bees and makes their own honey as well as honey-infused gin. The cocktails at the bar were top-notch! We went to Duke’s Bar for martinis – such a cool experience and presentation. Then we went to Fallow for dinner.

London Tours

On Tuesday, we made our way to the Tower of London for our tour. We got beautiful photos of the tower bridge, observed the daily opening ceremony, and saw the crown jewels. Then we got on a boat towards Buckingham Palace – unfortunately, the boat was all enclosed and we felt like we couldn’t see much on the way – we would’ve loved outside space as it was a nice day!

We saw the changing of the horse guard, which was so great, and then strolled to Buckingham Palace. When the tour ended, we had lunch at Bon Gusto, and then went to Westminster Abbey – it was amazing to see where William and Kate were married, where the Queen’s funeral service was, and where the Coronation had taken place just days before. We walked around Westminster, saw Big Ben, Westminster Palace, Parliament Square, Whitehall and Downing Street. We had drinks at Gordon’s Wine Bar (the oldest wine bar in London!) and then dinner at Dishoom – maybe our favorite meal of the entire trip!

On Wednesday, we did our Warner Brothers Studio Harry Potter Tour. This was so much fun! As huge fans of HP, it was amazing to see all of the REAL sets and actual items/clothes/props used in the movies. I was also honored to be selected to open the door to Hogwarts at the beginning of our tour! When we returned to the city, we went for drinks at The Red Lion Pub and had dinner at The Mayfair Chippy.

London Sightseeing DIY

On Thursday, we explored The British Museum (saw the Rosetta Stone!) and The National Gallery. We then headed to Borough Market and explored and had lunch at Roast. Then, walked by the Shard, Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, and then hopped on the London Eye for great views of the city – we got lucky with a clear day! We had drinks at The Savoy and dinner at Ave Mario (an incredible Italian restaurant).

On Friday, we went to Kensington Palace – unfortunately couldn’t get tickets to go inside because the times that would have worked were sold out, but we were able to see the outside and explore the beautiful gardens dedicated to Princess Diana.

We then walked to the Victoria and Albert Museum and explored the incredible Donatello exhibit. We then met our tour to Windsor Castle. This tour was also incredible and our guide was great. It was lovely to explore Windsor, and so moving to see where the Queen and Prince Philip are buried in St. George’s Chapel. We loved touring the state rooms where so many historical events took place.

Later that night, we had dinner at Nobu Portman Square and then went to Sketch for drinks – this place is incredible with artwork everywhere and so many different bars/lounges/dining rooms to go to. We spent most of our time at the Eastbar, which was such a vibe!

London Shopping

On Saturday, we set out to shop! We hit Regent, New Bond, and Oxford. The highlight was the Burberry flagship store where I bought a coveted trench coat. I always said when I went to London I would buy one!

We had Afternoon Tea at The Goring Hotel, which was absolutely excellent! The hotel itself has so much Royal history – it’s said to be one of the family’s favorite hotels, and Kate Middleton stayed there the night before her wedding to Prince William. We had a special Coronation Afternoon Tea complete with champagne in the beautiful veranda. After that, we got lost in Harrods – so fun! Then we had drinks at The Ritz and dinner at Brasserie Zedel.

Overall

Overall, this trip was incredible! The amount of time we had in each place was perfect. We were constantly on the go, and were able to see so much. London is huge – and while I feel like we saw a lot of it, I can’t wait to go back and see more! Thank you again for planning the perfect anniversary trip for us!

Alicia & Jay

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You provided excellent guidance for us. I appreciated that you really had us think about what was most important to us when we were selecting the right cruise – and not to totally focus on what other people had to say. THANK YOU for helping to make this a memorable trip for our family! It really was a trip of a lifetime!

– Clare and Mark (family cruise to Alaska)

The level of service we experienced was out of this world (and we did NOT make it easy on Ann). We weren’t quite sure where we wanted to go, when we would be able to go, or what “vibe” we were going for. After asking us some key questions (what we liked, didn’t like, why, etc.) Ann helped us narrow down our trip details and planned the honeymoon of our dreams. She helped book some of our excursions, answered some emergency questions while abroad and was always available/willing to help. I think it’s safe to say we won’t be using anyone else for future travel planning – Ann is a rockstar!

– Carli (Italy and Spain)