Do any mommas out there have an idea on what would be a great vacation for toddlers? We are planning to go this summer with our 2 year old daughter and my cousins family who has girls that are 2, 4, and 6. We are considering and researching specifically somewhere along the Texas coast for the beach (Padre) or San Antonio, but are open to any ideas. We live in the DFW area, and are willing to drive as well.
Please let me know if you have went to either of these places or anywhere else that would have kid friendly things to do. Also, where did you stay? Eat? Play?
Thanks so much!
All I can say is Great Wolfe Lodge! It is awesome! Sorry forgot to put where it is. It is in Grapevine TX. Go to GreatWolfeLodge.com
i don't remember where it was exactly in Texas cause it was SOOOOOOOOOOO long ago.but there used to be a place called ASTRO WORLD/SIX FLAGS. it was AWESOME.it had all sorts of rides and like a surf/wave pool from what i can remember. i would take my kids there now. and they are 5yrs and almost 2yrs. i went with my parents and grandparents. i want to say it was the ocean some where but i couldn't tell you for sure. if it helps we drove from apple bee/nacogdoches TX and it was a full days drive. we drove about 4-5 hrs roughly each way and played in the park for about 4-5 hrs.
Schlitterbahn in New Braunsfels
Fiesta Texas/Sea World in San Antonio
South Padre Island - lots of beach fun - look for places right on the beach
The Frio River/Garner State Park - Concan and Leakey in the Hill Country
South Padre is always fun. But not much to do in the Valley.
You could go to Corpus Cristi and do the beach there along w/ the Aqiurium.
You could go towards Houston and visit the Children's Museum - that a fun place with both indoor & outdoor activities. Then you could drive an hour and hit Galveston. Although, I think the beach there is not as nice as it is in South Padre.
Also, lots of fun stuff to do in San Antonio, the zoo, childrens museum, little Mexico in San Antonio. Sea World.
Ok, Galveston has the rainforest pyramid, aquarium, & then a water park built specifically with toddlers in mind. Includes sand park & sprinklers. also in town is the rainforest cafe with indoor water ride that parents can go on with kids. My 15 month old loved it. Great place for weekend. Nearby Hilton is nice with indoor & outdoor pools. beach isn't the greatest & shelly & crowded.
San Antonio has seaworld & fiesta texas amusement parks that has areas for toddlers or little ones, but are very pricey. they have a rainforest cafe on the river walk, which is our favorite place to eat. It doesn't have a ride though. Very kid friendly. There is an indoor playground called funtasticland on the northside by the northstall mall& it is awesome! Kids get stamped & can't leave without matching stamped parent, so you can relax a bit. indoor forts to climb, slides, big pirate ship with slides instead of plank, indoor train, basketball, bounce house. fun fun fun & not to expensive. There is also a children's museum downtown by the river walk that is pretty nice. They have a pretty nice zoo downtown & huge park as well.
For beach, I recommend going to Corpus Christi like your going to mustang island, but go further down south & I forget the name, but there is a beach that is a state park that does not allow people to drive on it. There is a parking area & you walk down to the beach. Tough loading & unloading, but during your stay you don't have to worry about cars running anyone over. They don't allow dogs either. But the best part is that there is a huge beach center where there is covered picnic tables with sinks for hand washing, indoor restrooms, diaper changing stations, indoor & outdoor showers, a look out deck, & a store. You can get snacks, drinks, sandwichs, sand pails, towels, chairs, anything you can think of & that is nice! plus if you get too hot, it is air conditioned. When we went, there were four families there & we could really relax. we could build sand castles etc. look for shells & play in the water & not worry about our stuff or loose track of kids. Very nice facilities & we saw beach patrol often. Corpus Also has the Texas State aquarium that kids have enjoyed.
Hope this helps you and have a great time on your vacation.
We have a 3 yr old and an eleven year old daughter and we are going to the Great Wolfe lodge in Grapevine this summer
Sea World in San Antonio is awesome. I would suggest if you can swing it financially stay at the Radisson Hill Country. They have a free shuttle service that runs back and forth to Sea World so you don't have to deal with parking. It's really convenient and if one of you needs to head back to the hotel with the little ones someone can stay at the park with the older kids.
We did a 3 day stay in Galveston last summer that was fun too. My kids could have just gone to beach every day we were there but we also went to Moody Gardens (it was ok, not great). We wished we had gone to Schlitterbahn instead. There's a lot to do there that we didn't get around to. We are planning to go back again this summer.
Good luck,
K.
