How To Plan A Family Staycation

Full disclosure:  The Vancouver Marriott Hotel graciously hosted our staycation for two nights.  They gave me no guidelines to follow in regards to writing this article and how to present it or what to say.  All thoughts and opinions are completely my own 100% honest review.

How to Plan A Family Staycation

Have you ever wanted to plan a family staycation?  The idea of a family vacation without all the long travel time can be so appealing.  Being a tourist in your own city is also super fun, especially when you have kids.

And I can tell you this from first-hand experience.  In a way, you’re cutting out additional costs like flights or gas but still getting the family time you want.  You get to put that money you would have spent on flights/gas for maybe some activities you wouldn’t necessarily have done with your kids, or a hotel room you potentially could splurge a little on…

Here’s step by step what we did to plan a family staycation:

Get a Hotel with a Pool and/or Hot Tub

What kid doesn’t love the excitement of a hotel?  Plus when it comes to a pool and/or hot tub, it makes the perfect combo for kids.  Our kids adore staying in hotels, whether it’s fancy or budget-friendly.  It doesn’t matter to them because there is just SOMETHING about a hotel right?  It’s also such a perk for us as the parents, because we don’t have to clean anything!

If you are in Vancouver or planning on visiting beautiful Vancouver, I highly recommend the Vancouver Marriott Pinnacle Downtown Hotel.   This is where we stayed for our staycation this past weekend and it was beautiful!  We had a fantastic room with panoramic views.

The staff was amazing, kind and listened to every one of our requests (crib please, extra blankets please, dishes please, etc…  The usual when you travel with a couple of kids).  Not only that, but they have a wonderful restaurant in the lobby that does family-friendly meals and happy hour EVERY day of the week (yay)!  We were even welcomed with delicious cookies and homemade chia tea!  The girls just loved every minute of it, as did we!!

Plan a fun activity you wouldn’t normally do

Or heck, plan an activity you WOULD normally do but you know the kids just adore.  For us, we don’t get out to many movies as it adds up quickly with a family of four to maybe have one of the kids not be interested in it or sit through it.  Now that our girls are getting older though (almost 2 and 4 years old), it is getting much easier to have them sit the entire movie.

Because we knew it was supposed to be a rainy/snowy day, we took them to see a brand new family-friendly movie at the theatre and they loved it!  From the popcorn to the big screen to the candy!  It’s something so simple we don’t always do, that they loved.

Enjoy Your Room

The beauty of a hotel is that at any point you get to go back to a clean room and enjoy it!  This is where the pool and hot tub fun comes in!  Our youngest needed her nap, so we brought a bunch of snacks and drinks (special drinks for the kids, special drinks for mom and dad – wink wink) back to the room.  Once we got our youngest settled for her nap, we took turns taking our oldest to the hot tub and pool and just enjoying the amenities.

Plan A Fun Meal

All our breakfast, lunches and dinners with our girls were either at the lobby restaurant as it was so fun and convenient or it was take-out that we brought back to the room.  We danced, we laughed, we had pillow fights, we played and we just enjoyed quality family time.  The girls loved every minute of it.

Bonus Idea – DATE DAY

If you are doing a staycation and have family around that can help out with the kids, get them to have them for the afternoon or night.  My parents live right around the corner from where we stayed so they picked up the girls and my husband and I had an overnight date night.

Turn A Family Staycation Into A Romantic Staycation

If you have that option, use it!  Take a night for just you and your spouse while you already have a fun hotel!  We went for food, fancy cocktails and then to some of our favorite brewery places that we normally wouldn’t go to because of the kids.

The next morning we got to just enjoy each other’s company with coffee and breakfast in our room and hang out.  No rush, no kids, just us.  As parents, it’s important to utilize any downtime you have without the kids to just reconnect.

Why Not Plan A Family Staycation

Look, if you don’t have the extra help around to throw a date night or day in there, don’t worry about it!  Plan a family staycation still with the kids.  Make sure to use that time to bond as a family.  Unplug as much as you can.  Turn the TV off and play games or use the amenities around you to make for the best little family staycation.  These memories will last forever.

These are just a few of my ideas!  A few other ideas you could do that are typically in any major city that we have done before are:

• Check out a local zoo
• Take the kids to an aquarium
• Walk the seawall if your city has one
• Visit beaches if the weather is good
• Go to public pools (indoor or outdoor)
• Go to a waterpark
• See the sights, you know those “famous” sights of each city
• Hop on Hop off Bus tour
• Indoor Playground for kids
• Outdoor Playgrounds
• Waterslides

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Xo, Asia