mintcilantro

All,

I plan to take a two-week vacation next July/August with my sister's family. Kids will be 1 to 8 years of age.

I am looking for recommendations on destinations or resorts that will meet the following criteria

• not too humid or rainy in July/August
• a 4 to 5* beachfront property where room rates are < $400 per night
• baby sitter services available for toddler to 7-year-old
• water needs to be warm (that rules out California)
• no location constraint but it needs to be worth the trip from California (e.g. beaches in Spain are not worth the trip from California)

Desirable but not required

• should not suffer from over-tourism (such as Phuket)
• turquoise water
• snorkeling access without a boat

Based on this I had to rule out several destinations:

• USA East Coast/Mexico/Caribbean/Malaysia/Thailand/Vietnam: too humid and rainy in August
• UAE - too hot in July/August
• Hawaii - good weather in July/August but too expensive as well as over tourism
• California - water is too cold
• Bali - overtourism

Several ones that are potential candidates include:

• Lesser known islands of Indonesia
• Fiji
• Lesser known Mediterranean destinations
• South Africa
• Southern South America

I'm looking for more ideas to explore. I'm not tied to any points hotels but not opposed to them either.

merice107107

This summer I took my family (5 year old and 2 year old) to Antigua. We stayed at Carlisle Bay. It was not that hot or humid as I was expecting. Weather was beautiful. The hotel is in a protected bay that has sea turtles swimming all around. The snorkeling was great. They have kids club activities every day. Might be worth checking out...

Good luck on your search.

erik123

That's a very wide spread. My view is that Spain is still one of the best with kids. Parts of Italy the same. However, it seems more like you would want an all-in beach vacation that take under 2's and those are not very easy to find. Not my cup of tea but a cruise might work?

dbuckho

We were in Singapore just before the pandemic and took the ferry over to Bintan Island and went to the Club Med there. My first experience with Club Med - my kids 9 and 3 at the time had a blast. On our list to try out another one soon - perhaps Ixtapa.

mintcilantro

I have never been on a cruise. I need to explore this option especially if they have a bunch of activities.

Astrophsx

We are looking at the same type of setup for June/July. We did Bora Bora when our twins were eight months and that worked out pretty well with a beachside villa. Downside was that their kids club was 4 years and above and the babysitting service was expensive due to staff needing to take a boat in from the main island. We did Mexico just prior to Chirstmas at the Andaz Maykoba in the Riviera Maya. Their kids club for under 4 was around $10 an hour per child (free above 4 years) and you could do two blocks of three hours. Their baby sitting service that came to your room was about $20/hr for one child and $30/hr for two, which seemed more affordable than other resorts.

I don't know how bad Bali is right now with tourism after opening up after the holidays. We likely would want to wait until the kids are older as we've gone a few times and not exactly a place we'd want to travel to if we were going to spend a lot of time at the hotel. South Africa is going to have colder water than California, it's also winter there in July. The same with Southern South America. We did take our twins to Lima after Mexico and the water there was just starting to get warmer, but no warmer than California in the summer. It was a great destination for going out to eat with the kids. We may take a look at Fiji as well, but we're looking to burn some Bonvoy/Hyatt points and not the best selection of hotels. Though, it would be easy to tack on New Zealand. Japan would be great, but the availability with ANA has not been as good since the country opened back up. We are a bit hesitant to take extremely long haul flights to Asia with lap infants.

Since you are traveling in a larger group I'd likely not go way too far maybe these would be of interest:

• Moorea or some of the other islands in French Polynesia. Nicer resorts will have a kids club. Smaller islands may have babysitting.
• Costa Rica, Andaz looks decent but lacks the clear water. Corn Islands in Nicaragua has everything you are looking for, but likely too difficult to get to with a 1 year old.
• Multiple Caribbean islands will have the beach you are looking for. Not sure which are likely to have the best kids clubs and babysitters, likely Bahamas.