The Rebel Housewife

See Also: Road Trip Re-Cap - Five After-Thoughts.

It is so good to be home, although it will take a full week to recover from our FIVE-DAY FAMILY ROAD TRIP! We had a fantastic time, one of our best family vacations ever, from Atlanta to Cocoa Beach, Florida for now-8yo ADHD Phenom's birthday and fireworks on the beach on the 4th of July; three of us stayed and played all day at the Pirate Ship kid's pool at the Holiday Inn/Cocoa Beach -- it was awesome! -- while hubby and 13yo Puberty Angst Boy 'snuck off' to Daytona International Speedway (about an hour away) for pre-race activities and all-day NASCAR fun on the 4th. Everybody was perfectly happy with the arrangement, and our NASCAR boys ended up on TV, behind the media stages during Trading Paint and Trackside at...Daytona -- while Jimmie Johnson and Elliott Sadler were on-stage (two top NASCAR drivers)--ohmigod!!

After two nights at the beach, we drove to Orlando and spent two days at SeaWorld and Aquatica, SeaWorld's fabulous -- and, as it turns out, very, very popular -- new water park. After thoroughly exhausting and "crisping" (sunburn) ourselves at the theme parks, we got up Monday morning to make the long drive home to Atlanta, but ended up calling Mocha-the-dog's dog-holiday resort in Atlanta and ditching her for one more night, so we could 'stop by' Daytona (yes, the racetrack -- an hour outside of Orlando) 'on the way' home. We ended up staying and playing at Daytona International Speedway and the Daytona 500 Experience -- OFFICIAL ATTRACTION OF NASCAR -- (track tour, IMAX, racing simulators, museum, NASCAR gift shop, etc.) until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, which got us home at midnight...just twelve short hours ago.

I picked up a happy dog up this morning, after taking hubby to work -- we are now all laying around, not moving for the rest of the day...let the catching-up/vacation recovery -- LAUNDRY -- begin...

See Also: FIVE-DAY FAMILY ROAD TRIP!

Two adults/three children, five days/four nights, 1500 miles (roughly), from Atlanta to Cocoa Beach, Florida (to Daytona & back to Cocoa Beach) to Orlando to Daytona (again) and home to Atlanta...

Family Road Trip Re-Cap - Five After-Thoughts:

1. Long car trips CAN BE FUN -- really! That's not even a set-up to anything, no whining or complaining, we really had a great time. Trip prep helped a lot --
   See Top 10 - Family Vacation Travel Tips - Road Trip!
   
   
2. Sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen -- I am 40 years old, with freckles and fair skin I have passed down to my children, and I still can't figure it out: We all came back with uncomfortably painful sunburned faces.
   I am the Worst.Mother.Ever.
   
   Thank goodness the kids and hubby love their swim shirts, which is the best sun protection for those vulnerable shoulders and backs. Normally, we all wear hats and huddle under beach/pool umbrellas, but that was impossible all day at the water park. We sprayed liberally, with the new aerosol high-SPF sunscreen spray -- not only our body parts, but everything and everybody else within a 20 square foot radius -- I have decided I hate that stuff and we're going back to the squirt-on lotion (non-aerosol) that you have to rub in.
   
   It's the face protection I can't get the hang of, especially those ultra-sensitive under-eye regions and foreheads you can't put anything on because it will drip down into their eyes -- we have tried everything, so I am totally up for suggestions on this one -- and then what to do after, when everybody is crisped and complaining. I drove out to a CVS Pharmacy in Orlando, searching for Noxzema Cold Cream -- do they even make that anymore? I came back with NIVEA "Refreshingly Soft" Moisturizing Creme w/Jojoba Oil & Vitamin E and two different kinds of Aloe Vera Gel (COOLING and MOISTURIZING); as well as our old stand-by, Hawaiian Tropic ALOE After Sun Moisturizer, but nothing provided cool, instant relief without burning around the eyes or drying sticky and uncomfortable.
   
   Next time, we'll all wear the hats, waterslides and lazy river floats notwithstanding.
   
   
3. Theme parks are best visited and most-enjoyed AFTER DARK -- We found this to be true last year, too, at Universal Studios -- easy entrance, thinning crowds, no lines, cooler and exciting, with lights, music, special attractions and, usually, FIREWORKS. The hours from 4pm to 11pm (or closing) are THE BEST!
   
   On a related note, even though we couldn't stay until After Dark because we had to get in early, before the park reached capacity (by approximately 10:30am), and we stayed and played hard all day long in the cool water and hot, hot sun, until we were all so exhausted and sunburned we had to crawl back to the hotel and order room service for dinner, after a quick trip out to CVS for sunburn relief products...AQUATICA ROCKS!!
   
   
4. NASCAR is a quickly-obsessive, fatal attraction -- Once we started track-touring, on NON-race days/weeks, in Talladega, Alabama, we were hooked. If you have NASCAR fans in the family, the tracks and attractions -- again, on NON-race days/weeks -- are (relatively) inexpensive, fun family entertainment. I fear any future Road Trip Family Vacations will have to be on the NASCAR track circuit -- fortunately, we have THE BOOK.
   
   
5. It will take a full week to recover from our Five-Day Family Road Trip.

Top 10 - Family Vacation Travel Tips - Road Trip!

by Sherri Caldwell - The Rebel Housewife®
http://www.rebelhousewife.com

1. Advance Planning & Reservations: When it comes time to make the plan, I spend a full day or two on the computer, tracking down great travel deals on hotels and theme park tickets. The best sources of information I have found were www.TripAdvisor.com for general information and reviews; www.hotels.com for more specific hotel info; and www.hotwire.com, if you can handle the risk, excitement & adventure of booking on price, general location and star-rating, without knowing where you will end up -- you're also locked in to the deal once you commit to the game: no refunds, no cancellations. We ended up with the perfect hotel at a great price in the exact location we needed (across the street from SeaWorld in Orlando), so it worked out really well.
   
   I also always check the AAA website and rates for accommodations, attractions and road trip planning -- the membership always pays for itself every year in vacation savings alone.
   
   Another great source of comprehensive info & resources for beach vacations:
   Best Family Beach Vacations: Ultimate Beach Vacation Travel Guide
   
   Final note: Always check the direct website of the hotel or theme park you are heading toward, as sometimes the best rates and discounts are to be found right there, as was the case with SeaWorld/Aquatica and Holiday Inn/Cocoa Beach.
   
   
2. Feeding the Family: Stay at hotels that offer Kids Eat Free! programs, like Holiday Inn. Even when Kids Eat Free, arrange for a room with a mini-fridge and microwave so you can keep drinks and snacks and cover a meal or two a day with simple meals/backpack picnics. I try to emphasize a late-afternoon LUNCH as the big meal of the day on vacation. It's easy to scramble up a good breakfast, even if it is fruit & cereal, and snacks throughout the day. If we eat lunch after the main feeding frenzy between 12 - 2pm, we can get a good meal at lunch prices, take a break during the heat of the day, and go all night on snacks and/or a light dinner. When we wait to eat a late dinner, it's always a disaster: by then, everyone is usually too tired and hungry to agree on anything, much less settle down for a pleasant meal. Lunch is definitely the best meal of the day.
   
   
3. Getting There: If you are driving, be sure to take along your Cooler/Backpack Picnic Essentials for the car and throughout your vacation.
   
   
4. 1-2-3 MAGIC IN THE CAR: I learned this amazing technique from Dr. Thomas Phelan, listening to his parenting series, 1-2-3 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12. We used it all the way to Florida last year with three kids, ages 7, 10 and 12, and it was amazing. Basically, you pay the kids to be good, by explaining the game to them up-front:
   
   "For every 15-minute segment of our trip that you guys can get along and behave, with no one fighting, whining, bickering, teasing, hitting, touching, looking at, being mean or provoking anyone else (including Mom or Dad), you will each earn 50 cents -- $2 per hour for each of you, which can end up being as much as $20 to spend on souvenirs and stuff while we're on vacation. That is the only money you will have from us to spend on the arcades and all that stuff you always want us to buy. The thing is, with earning this money, you all get the bonus, or no one gets it, and every 15 minutes is a new segment."
   
   It might sound more complicated than it needs to be -- I just kept track of the 15 minute segments on a notepad and X'ed one out as necessary (that was early in the trip, and then they quickly realized this was a serious money-making or money-losing game). While they were being good, I didn't even have to pay attention to it -- after two good hours, I'd look down and happily announce, "You guys just made $4 each -- nice job!"
   
   It turned out, they didn't miss more than one or two segments the whole drive down, and it was the best $60 we ever spent, so quiet and pleasant. We would easily have spent more than $60 on all the stuff, over 5 days in the hotels, arcades and theme parks.
   
   Tip Within Tip: That $60 usually works out to be what I've collected in our Vacation Jar over the course of the year, depositing loose change, quarters, dimes and nickels I clean out of my bag or pockets or come across in the laundry or around the house. (It doesn't have to be 50 cents for 15 minutes -- it can be whatever works out for your family and budget. The cool thing is, it really works!!)
   
   
5. Car Games/Activities: It used to be, when my kids were much younger, I would fill up the car with coloring books and thousand-piece art sets and travel-sized, magnetic or plastic games and creative little kits just for road trips! About five miles down the road, we would have 3,000 broken crayons, open markers, window clings (consistency of boogers, when they are all ripped apart and rolled up into little, tiny balls), stickers, misc bits of plastic and trashy little pieces of paper EVERYWHERE.
   
   All hail the age of technology: the DVD player, GameBoys/Nintendo and the iPod. With older kids, we let them each bring a smallish backpack with their own essentials (with extra batteries and/or power chargers).
   
   I still can't resist putting together Mom's Bag of Tricks, but I keep it much simpler:
   -- One book we can read aloud for family reading (this year: The Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 3) by Rick Riordan);
   -- A deck of cards and our favorite card book;
   -- One set of dry erase markers, the kind with their own, individual eraser cap;
   -- Printable games we can play together: Road Trip Bingo (Auto & Roadside editions), License Plate Game and Road Trip Scavenger Hunt; all printed out for each passenger and put into clear plastic sheet protectors, so they can use the dry erase markers to play the games, over and over and over...
   
   The BEST SOURCE for car travel games and printables, and a whole bunch of other really great info and resources is: www.MomsMinivan.com.
   Phenomenal, fabulous website, so go check it out!
   
   Printables and travel games also available at:
   www.best-family-beach-vacations.com
   
   
6. About Souvenirs: It can be a really smart thing to plan ahead a little bit, and/or visit the local Wal-Mart in the vicinity of wherever you are going and let the kids shop, while you are picking up milk for the hotel fridge or other essentials. The reason being, the local Wal-Mart will have all kinds of local-themed souvenirs and stuff, even for Disneyworld and other theme parks and attractions, and it is SO MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE! The kids' dollars (and yours) will go much farther if you wear your Wal-Mart Mickey Mouse t-shirt into the park, and you don't have to buy the keychains, the big pencils, the snow globes, jewelry or any of that other stuff in the park and carry it around all day. Just a thought--
   
   
7. And Other Stuff to Buy: While you are at Wal-Mart or Target or wherever, before or after you are actually on the trip, pick up GLOW STICKS, or whirly-battery-operated neon thing-a-ma-jigs. Anything that glows is a good thing, and I'll tell you why: After dark at the parks, the vendors come out, with every blinky, glowy, whirry little piece of crap you could ever hope to find, and it costs THREE TIMES AS MUCH as if you buy it at your local discount store (or order in bulk from Oriental Trading) and bring it out when the screaming-spending-frenzies hit. We favor the neon glow stick bracelets you can buy for less than $5 a dozen -- not only does it satisfy the need for something, ANYTHING, that GLOWS IN THE DARK...it makes it easier to keep track of your own family members after dark...
   
   
8. The Family that Dresses Alike Wins: It might be geeky or silly, but after a dozen years at this, I know the unarguable common sense of MATCHING T-SHIRTS, at least all the same color. It makes everyone easy to spot, recognize and keep track of members of your own herd.
   
   It is also invaluable, should you become separated, in explaining to a helpful park employee or security team member: "Well, he's 7 years old, blonde hair, and he's wearing a shirt just like this one."
   
   Our all-time favorite family t-shirt, we discovered last year: SpongeBob SquarePants, in bright yellow (with glow-in-the-dark eyes!). We got a lot of attention, with cries of "Hey, it's SpongeBobs!" Highly, highly effective. Neon green, neon orange and RED also work well (except in the case of RED on 4th of July, which really kind of defeats the whole point, as everybody else wears red, white and/or blue, so go with SpongeBob on 4th of July and wear red the next day).
   
   
9. ??? - a gas-saving tip, perhaps? -
   
   
10. ??? - hmmm.... -

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You will notice, in our Top 10 - Family Vacation Travel Tips - Road Trip!, we've only got eight (8) tips to this point. That's not just because it's late, and I'm tired and I've got to get started on the whole laundry-organizing-packing mess -- I am leaving it at eight (8), for now, because I want to hear from YOU:

What are your most-favorite, tried & true, best Family Vacation Travel Tips - Road Trip!? Please share in Comments below or email to: sherri@rebelhousewife.com.

Please note: I am working on the next bestselling Rebel Housewife book, which will be blog-to-book about CAMP MOMMY. It is very possible that comments and published responses on RebelHousewife.com will be included in the book. Please be aware of this disclaimer and implied release when you comment or respond on RebelHousewife.com. Where possible, we are happy to include your name (first name, last initial), city and link or business reference, as appropriate, so please include as much information as you would like to be attributed or "anonymously," if you prefer. Thanks!

This is a terrific article on Family Vacation - Saving Money on the Road by Laurel Smith (a.k.a. Road Trip Mom) -- don't miss it!

www.MomsMinivan.com:
Stretch Your Dollar on the Road

You might also want to see Laurel's Hurricane Katrina Evacuation Experience, which was horrifying, but an incredible piece of writing that she began and continued day-by-agonizing-day on a separate blog during her family's evacuation, devastation and recovery after Hurricane Katrina rolled over Slidell, Louisiana in 2005. Wow. I wish I could read the book! (I don't think there is one...yet???)

Week 5/Day 24 out of 55

So far, so good. Tomorrow is the [gasp!] last day of summer camps. Even 13yo Puberty Angst Boy (who has been home this week) made note today:
"Tomorrow's my last day of peace and quiet!"

I know the feeling.

However, next week is not only a Holiday Week, it's a birthday week, too, for 7yo ADHD Phenom, who turns 8 on July 4th -- party boy.

I spent the entire day yesterday on the computer, researching our Big Family Vacation/Birthday/Holiday Plan for 4th of July -- next week. Nothing like waiting until the last minute to increase the stress, but sometimes the best deals are to be found last-minute.

With expenses of The Move and summer camp programs and all, we're still on the Economy Plan -- I was (am) determined to find the most bang for our buck, literally, starting (not good) with $4 per gallon gas and a 12mpg Jeep SUV. To Florida, around and back, 1200 miles, is going to cost us at least $400, just in gas. Still cheaper and way, way, way easier than trying to fly a family of five anywhere, especially over a holiday weekend.

Long story short:
Atlanta to Cocoa Beach hotel on the beach for fireworks, 2 nights = $300
Cocoa Beach to Orlando for 2-day theme park extravaganza, tickets = $400
Orlando 3-star hotel, 2 nights (Hotwire.com - awesome!!) = $160
Mocha to Atlanta doggie hotel, 4 nights w/bath = $150
Gas = $400

Total, family of five (six, counting the dog), four nights
Economy Plan (so far) = $1410 - not including food or misc.

I probably should not have itemized it all out like that.
It was easier not knowing.