Tips experienced
Bed, minibus, metro, office, metro, minibus, bed … Children live without parents, parents without children. Traveling is the best opportunity to be with your children without being distracted by anything. And it doesn’t matter if we fly away to Cuba for a month, or go by train to a boarding house near Moscow for a weekend. While we are on the road, we are together.
Preparing to travel with children is a bit more complicated process than preparing for a business trip or a romantic weekend. A few tips of experienced family travelers will help you not only expand your options, but also save money.
With children to the hotel
Dad, mom, me.
From an economic point of view, traveling with one child, it is best not to take it into account when booking a hotel.
Always start your search with a double room for two. Information systems in the hotel industry do not operate well with data on accommodation with children, and hoteliers themselves often neglect the need to enter the necessary information about accommodation with children or extra beds in the systems. Having made a search for two, you will receive the maximum number of hotels available for booking, among which you will choose the ones you like, and then, if it is important for you, you can clarify information on accommodation with children. If the information on the site is not enough, our operators will help you.
Having booked a double room, you can almost always count on free child accommodation without an extra bed. Often this is possible for children under 12 years old, but in some hotels, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, this rule applies to 18 years. It will be necessary to pay extra only for the nutrition of the child, and then not always. Seeing that you are checking in with your child, hotel employees always try to find the most convenient configuration with two beds. Often, at no extra charge you will be provided with a triple room or a larger superior room. Hotels are interested in making guests happy.
If you are asked to pay extra when placing a child, check the size of the extra charge. There are times when an extra charge for a child exceeds the cost of an adult, because hoteliers manage discounts on rooms in the system, and extra payments are most often made with fixed amounts once and for all. Divide the cost of your double room, and reasonably invite the hotelier to pay for a child an amount not exceeding the cost for one adult. This usually works.
If you book a stay for several or more nights, and do not indicate your child in the reservation, avoid non-refundable rates. If everything goes not so well as described above, and the hotel is inadequate in its attitude to children, you can always limit yourself to one night, and book another hotel for the remaining time. We work online and accept orders even day to day. And even if you have problems with the local Internet, you can just call our operators.
Dad, mom, we.
When a second child appears, and if you’re lucky, then a third and more, traveling becomes a little more difficult. You have to be trickier.
Starting with a four-person search in one issue is a bad idea. All the same, it’s worth starting with a search for two.
Still, first select the available hotels you like, and then specify the information for the children by repeating the search in each hotel you like, indicating the children and their age, or by contacting our operators.
Do not stop there. Repeat the search in the city you are interested in, but with the exact wishes for accommodation. It may well turn out that our site will recommend a great option for you in a separate four- or multi-bed room. Family, six-bed rooms, double apartments or suites are available in many hotels. One problem: often they are more than twice as expensive as standard rooms. Often, but not always. Check and compare.
If the second child is still a baby, and the first is not 12 years old, you, as before, are still willingly and often without surcharge, will be accommodated in a double room. If the room has two beds, and at least one of them is wide, and the baby will sleep with mom and dad, then you will be quite comfortable.
Booking two rooms is often the best solution. And the point is not only that, as already mentioned, this is cheaper than two-room or family rooms, and there are more options available, but that you can book one room for life and the second for sleep. In the daytime, if you are in the room, then most often together, so you can take one room at a higher price, more spacious with a balcony and sea view, and use the second room only for sleep. You can book the simplest and cheapest room. Usually, one of the parents leaves for this room to put the youngest child to bed early in the evening, and, given the intense workload during the day, few people return early in the morning.
Ask at check-in if the hotel can provide you with interconnected rooms.
Children love bunk beds, this is their personal territory, a house, a staff, a mink. But at night it is better to put them to sleep down. Or to shift the sleeping, if it was not possible to bargain successfully before going to bed.
Extra beds and cot (Babycot)
If the room does not have a stationary sofa or chair-bed, then with late check-in there is a chance that all extra beds or cots will be dismantled. The earlier you check in, the higher your chances of getting an extra bed. And do not count on the fact that you called the hotel and promised you. In reality, this promise does not mean anything. The beds are given according to the “first come first served” rule and most often they are not reserved.
For more confidence, choose rooms with a couch, sofa, folding chair or two-room rooms. To do this, study photos and room descriptions.
With children on the train
Children travel by train at a discount. Remember that the possibilities of railway information systems are still limited, therefore, when searching for tickets for children, you will only see the full price, but during the booking process the price will change, and even before payment you will be pleasantly surprised to find that the price of a children’s ticket has decreased significantly.
Discounts for children:
– Children under 5 years old can travel without a seat for free, accompanied by an adult. If you wish, you can book a ticket with a seat, but not for free.
– Children under 10 travel in a separate place at a special children’s rate.
– Pupils over 10 years old travel at a special school fare, but when boarding they will need documents confirming the right to a benefit. The document (certificate) must contain the name of the student, details and legal address of the school, date of issue. The certificate must be certified by the seal of the school and the signature of the head of the educational institution, or of the person replacing him on the basis of the order.
– There is also a special scheme of children’s discounts for Sapsan trains
Children cannot travel unaccompanied by an adult. In one order, you can book tickets for only 4 passengers. An important rule follows from all this: if you need 5 or more tickets, make sure that you distribute the passengers in such a way that you will have at least one adult in each order. It happens that dad joyfully book tickets for himself, mom, grandparents, and can’t make a reservation for children. It’s good if everything can be undone and redone without fines. And if not?
Never put children to sleep on the top shelves. Always raise the guard railing. If there is no railing, ask the conductor for a net or a belt guard system. Choose such a lower shelf in the direction of travel, lying on which, with a sharp braking of the train, the child will roll back to the wall, and will not fly away under the table. No matter how old your child seems to you, push the suitcase into the aisle. Finding a child rolled and sleeping on a suitcase in the morning is much nicer than a child sleeping on a rug.
God saves man, who save himself. Do not neglect train insurance. Better to give up a cheeseburger than a policy.
With children on a plane
Oddly enough, most children tolerate flights better than adults. This is an adventure for them, they sleep well on long-haul flights, rejoice at gift entertainment sets that are given to them on board many airlines, enjoy walking around the cabin and meeting other passengers, enjoy their right to watch cartoons with rapture. Do not be afraid to fly to the ends of the world with your children.
As when booking train tickets, remember that you need to distribute the reservation so that each order has at least one adult. Booking a ticket for a child without an adult will not work.
On charter flights or block tickets, most often children fly at full cost, so it may well turn out that regular flights will be much cheaper. Especially if you have two or more children. Compare and choose.
When traveling with a baby without a seat, do not be surprised if self-check-in systems for flights do not allow you to choose places other than in the front row of the cabin. These are the special settings of some airlines that specifically highlight this line for passengers with babies. This is done not only in order to group all children as much as possible and to less disturb passengers in the cabin, but also in order to increase the safety of babies and add comfort to parents: babies in the first row are provided with a cot with special safety belts (one for a group of seats).
You can order special on-board meals for the child. But it’s not always worth it. Not the fact that the children will eat it. It is better to take care of the nutrition of the child in advance. Take what he loves, even if it is “forbidden and unprofitable.” Why do you need problems in the cabin? And it’s better to give dad an extra full meal. A well-fed dad is a good dad.
