Holidays with Childcare
Care – we all want the best when it comes to our babies. When selecting a good daycare or a playgroup or looking for a nanny, we try to find the most suitable or most highly recommended for the few hours that our kids spend away from us.
On holiday, too, we want our children to be well cared for. Holidays with childcare are a trend in recent years. Many hotels around the world have built their services along the lines of quality childcare and programs for all ages of children, so that you and your partner can enjoy a movie, a date, or a spa, or simply spend some time together.
We (Clare and Keerthana) have put together a description of various holiday resorts or hotels with childcare in Switzerland and Europe.
Reka group of hotels: This is my (Keerthana’s) personal favorite. Before we had kids, Hubby and I travelled a lot more. We would do planned trips, impromptu trips, and backpacking trips. But after our girls were born, we did more day trips, until my Swiss neighbour, who had just returned from Reka’s Wildhaus resort, shared all the details with me and said that I should go there with the kids and try out a family resort.
Since then, the Reka group of hotels has been our first choice. Largely based in Switzerland, Reka resorts are also in Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. In their list of holidays, families with children can choose a place from a great selection of categories: Baby Holidays, Bike Holidays, Camping Holidays, Center Parcs, and Cruises. Holidays are also categorized according to the age of the kids – Holidays with Children, Holidays with Toddlers, or just the Reka Holiday Villages, which is a package full of fun for the entire family. A family can choose anywhere between three days to four weeks for a holiday with the Reka group. Most Reka rooms come with a kitchen (so you can make your own baby food, too, and cook for the family when you are on a longer holiday). There is also baby equipment like a potty chair, a feeding chair, and also the Ikea kids’ cups, spoons, and plates included in all the kid-friendly colours. There are also some games and books already in the room for the kids and the family to read. Most holiday villages also have a family recreation room and play areas for the kids – both indoor and outdoor. A swimming pool for the entire family, heated pools and saunas along with a splash pool for the kids make the stay at Reka villages a lot of fun.
Reka Villages are also theme based. For instance, if you are looking for a relaxed holiday for the entire family, then there’s more to do at Morschach, including spas and massage nights for couples. The resort at Mont Faucon caters to family wellness needs, while Lenk claims to be a paradise for toddlers. All Reka holidays come with baby care from Monday to Friday for three hours daily, to help the parents enjoy some time together. For older children there are also teen clubs organized a few times a week.
We have tried Morschach and Lenk Holiday villages since then. These were wonderful experiences, and I can’t think of a better way to spend a week with really young kids in Switzerland. We went to Morschach in April and to Lenk around Christmas time last year. At Morschach, there is a big playroom open all day, where the kids can play while their parents relax with a book or coffee. There’s also a wonderfully organized childcare system. This care is similar in all the Reka holiday villages. The caregivers have a plan set out for the whole week, including the activities and meals for the children. My daughters enjoyed a kids’ disco evening and some colouring and free play and also walking trips with the caregivers around the resort. While at Lenk, they were looking forward to exploring the kids’ club even more, because the building was named Rapunzel! Most Reka holidays theme their childcare activities around the season or the month. When we went to Lenk, it was Christmas, so kids at the childcare enjoyed sessions of baking gingerbread men, making lanterns, and painting t-shirts, with story sessions in the evenings. With such engaging care for our daughters, Hubby and I definitely enjoyed our holiday.
“Kinderhotels”: www.kinderhotels.co.uk, www.kinderhotels.at
For those of you looking for a luxurious holiday with childcare, many people recommend Kinderhotels, which are a group of independently owned hotels largely based in Austria, but there are also hotels in Northern Italy and Croatia. For hotels to become a member of the Kinderhotels group they have to meet certain criteria – mainly that they give families with children preferential treatment. They are rated by a smiley rating system – from three to five smileys. All hotels offer family rooms and rooms with childproof equipment and sockets. Hotels with four or five smileys include a range of extra benefits, e.g., baby alarms in every room, an indoor swimming pool or splash pool, and more. The hotels state that their childcare programmes cater for children as young as seven days old up to teenagers looking for adventure. Spa facilities and sumptuous gourmet evening meals are tempting for vacations during any season of the year. Winter sports and picturesque hiking trails can often be found right on the doorstep to a Kinderhotel. And there is usually a host of varying outdoor activities nearby.
Take, for example, the Alpenrose Hotel (5 smileys) in Lermoos – a three-hour car journey from Zurich. This hotel offers a Baby Club, Mini Club, and Teenie Club. It has its own Baby Ski School, Kinder Ski School, zoological garden, cinema, school of magic, and Freddie’s Swimming Academy. Excitingly, it also has a Pirate Land, which was very popular with my children when they were small. While the room prices may seem quite steep, they do include the children’s clubs and meals. Another great resort to visit is Serfaus-Fiss-Ladis, where there are four different Kinderhotels. This resort is again roughly three hours away from Zurich. Having visited there in the winter, we appreciated that this alpine resort is equipped with modern cable cars and chairlifts with the latest child-safety and comfort features – some even including heated seats. The Laderhof Hotel (4 smileys) is in Ladis and boasts an indoor swimming pool, fitness room, 120-square metre playground, and many other facilities. Whether you want to use these hotels because of the childcare or children’s activities, the all-round quality of the facilities, activities, and locations on offer was worth every penny.
By Keerthana Nagarajan and Clare Ferrari
Keerthana is a freelance journalist. She lives with her husband and two little girls in Zurich. Keerthana worked previously in the Netherlands at Radio Netherlands Worldwide, covering South Asia news, and CNN’s sister concern in India, CNN-IBN, a 24-hour news channel. Here’s the link to all her published content: http://keerthananagarajan.blogspot.in
Clare is an English teacher and a playgroup teacher. She has lived with her husband and two teens in Zurich for 11 years.
Illustration by Bvisual.
Beth works as special educational needs teacher. She graduated from university after studying visual communication, specialising in illustration, and then went on to do post graduate studies in education. Beth’s been working as a freelance creative alongside her teaching, and has undertaken projects involving portraits and editorial illustrations under her artist’s name BVisual.
Photo by Clare Ferrari
