Tips for Traveling with Kiddos
But with four kids in tow, we had to be smart about our travel preparations. I think we did a few things right and learned a few things too. I thought I'd share our travel tips and what worked for us as far as flying, lodging and dining. (I'll also share about our trip and our Disney tips too in another post!) Keep in mind I was flying with my spouse, with four kids plus my 13 year old brother, and we were gone for six days total. Every trip has different factors and strategies required, but these all worked well for this trip for our family.
Flying:
I have flown with kids many times, but I have never flown with four kids and only once have I flown with three. It's a rare sight to see a family of six flying together and its no wonder! It's a lot of people and luggage to keep track of! But we managed and despite all of the stares we got as our little flock moved through the airport, I think we were successful. No one cried or got lost or had a tantrum. I daresay everyone was well behaved! Below I've listed many of the things we considered and did to make flying with four kids under seven a little easier.
- Have the kids wear slip on shoes if you can. Wear slip-on's yourself as well. I wore Birkenstocks both ways because of the ease of getting through security.
- Have everyone carry their own backpack/carry on items.
- Pack each child's bag full of a few new surprises and snacks. Ideas include a new coloring book, headphones, new markers, stickers, notepad, candy, new-to-them snacks. The Target dollar section really helped with this.
- Take your stroller through the airport and check it at the gate. Use that stroller to carry kids and bags as far as you can take it. We always gate check our stroller and we never regret it.
- Check all of the bags that you can. With so many kids with tickets we were allowed quite a few checked bags and I think we ended up using all of them. Don't carry more weight through the airport than you have too.
- Check all of your car seats. We actually put all of our car seats in a giant, thick trash bag and checked them all together. It was enormous, but it worked!
- Download movies onto your iPads before you leave your wifi signal. Get a splicer for the ipad connector so that two headphones can plug into one iPad at a time.
- Pack yourself the diaper bag of all diapers bags- preferably in a backpack style bag. Put extra snacks, paperwork, tickets, diapers, wipes, medicine, extra binkies and all that in your own bag.
- Pack an extra portable phone charger for you. You'll want the extra battery power if if comes down to it!
- Do family boarding if you fly Southwest or check in as early as possible to make sure you get seats together.
- Bring empty water bottles through security so that you can fill them up once you get to your gate.
Lodging:
We ended up booking a reservation at the same resort as our friends and it turned out to be a rental house. No one was excited about it when we pulled up at 11 pm at night to a rental house, but it turned out to be the best thing ever. The house was big enough for everyone to spread out and have their own room. We wished we were closer to the Disney parks (we were about a 15 minute drive), but it was worth it to have the luxuries of a rental house. I only have a few tips for lodging and you can find them below.
-Stay somewhere with multiple rooms. This is huge for everyone being able to get sleep at night after such long and busy days. Look for a hotel with multiple rooms or consider a condo or a house.
-Rent a house or condo with a washer and dryer. Being able to wash clothes was a huge deal for us. It meant less clothes we needed to pack and less dirty laundry to bring home.
- Pick lodging with a kitchenette or kitchen of some kind. Having a fridge for food and a way to eat some meals in your room rather than dining out was a great way to save money.
Meals are something that can cost a ton of money on vacation and the cost really adds up when you have four kids. We tried to be careful about how we spent money on food during our trip, but also to have fun and enjoy the good food we found while on vacation. Our tips for meals while traveling with kids are below.
- Like I said, find lodging with a kitchen of some kind. Our lodging allowed us to eat cereal, fruit or eggs every morning for breakfast. We also made a Target run for peanut butter and bread and jelly and other snacks so that we could pack lunches everyday. Having a fridge allowed us to keep all of that good for the whole week we were there.
- Pack food to take with you on your daily outings. Lunch and snacks came with us in backpacks everyday and then we bought other treats and dinner while we were out. We tried to make it a point to try foods at Disney and to get some treats, but bringing some of our own food meant we weren't constantly starving and spending way too much on the extra food.
- Look for kids eat free options for dinner. On Monday night we ate at Joe's Crab Shack which had kids eat free and then on Tuesday we found a Japanese steakhouse that offered free kids meals. We saved money and were also able to try restaurants that were out of our norm. It turns out our kids loved the Japanese steakhouse- the food and the little show. It was a great memory for us all!
I'm sure I'm leaving out all kinds of great tips and tricks, but you'll just have to remind me of more of them in the comments. I'd love to hear your best advice for traveling with young kids. It's hard, but its so worth it! Stay tuned for more posts about our trip and more advice on Orlando and Disney World with little kids!
