Tiny Humans are Portable: Part 2

Before we decided on Aruba, we established some vacation guidelines.

1. Beach/pool
2. Family friendly
3. Passport required
4. Warm weather

Since we had no idea what it would be like to travel with B, these seemed reasonable to us, and it turns out, we were right. In addition, to meeting our vacation criteria, Aruba has a couple of bonuses that we thought would be great for our first family vacation. Aruba's beaches are incredibly calm because of the direction of the wind and the island has a state-of-the-art desalination plant, which means that we wouldn't have to worry about the safety of the drinking/eating water.

Now that we had the destination, the planning process began. Before we I booked the flights, we I researched the hell out of the different hotels and resorts. When we take a trip, I typically begin with TripAdvisor, just to scope out the options that are available. I love that site for many reasons:

• It lets you choose all sorts of amenities, based on what your vacation preferences and needs are
• You can view photos from fellow travelers! This is a very cool feature because fellow travelers will tell it like it is. When I was making our final selection, photos from travelers were the deciding factor between two different resorts.
• Traveler reviews, with dates. This gives you some context around the comments, gripes and compliments. 

When I began searching, I didn't have a particular place in mind. I knew that we wanted to stay ON the beach, which eliminated a few properties right away. Once I found a few candidates, I looked on the hotel/resort's website for additional information, along with room tours and rates. I also used Google Maps to narrow down my selections. That really helps to figure out how "close" to the beach a resort REALLY is. Thanks to Google Maps, I was able to eliminate a few places that were across the street.

Once I had a few possible resorts, I started shopping for rates. I used the usual sites; Expedia, Travelocity, etc. to compare prices and deals for the week. When I found the lowest price, I actually ended up calling the resort itself to see if they could do better, and they did! Details on where we stayed and what we got, coming soon :)