Best Family Vacation You've Ever Been On? Best Long Weekend Vacations?

Ooh, this was an easy one!! Aside from Disney World, the best vacation we have ever taken was last summer to the Beaches Resort in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Awesome place, totally family oriented with something for every age group (they have kid camps and other activities for your age group), and we were treated like royalty the entire time we were there. We are already saving our money to go back. Book the entire trip through their website (beaches.com). Very easy, it's all inclusive.

Disney is a good one. Again, we booked through their website and found some great deals on accomodations. We ended up at the Contemporary Inn and it was fun.

For a long weekend, you may want to look into St. Louis. (I'm assuming Barrington is outside of Chicago??) There is a TON of stuff for kids to do and alot of it is free. They have a fabulous zoo, Science Center, Grants Farm has the clydesdale horses and there is always some sort of festival going on. It's a fun city.

I hope you get alot of good ideas - I'll be checking back on your request for other posts to see if I can get some ideas for our next vacation!!

Yes, a cruise if you can afford it. You can get one room. There will be two bunks for the kids and you can probably get a small crib, too. Weekends we have been going to Wisconsin Dells. We've been getting great deals on timeshare rentals so we don't have to eat out all the time. Mt Olympus is designed for families of all aged kids. It is a water park and amusement park.

I took a vacation last summer with my 18 month old, my mother and my MIL and my SIL and my husband. We drove about 3 hours and stayed a KOA. they have kabins you can rent for not a bad price so you get the camping without the tents and more security for your children. We just relaxed for a long weekend did some shopping and went to the zoo. nothing fancy just not worrying about the "real" world and laughing and having fun. was one of the top vacations of my life so far. Earlier int he year we met up with my sister and her children at a different KOA for much of the same a long weekend and fun :) If you have never been to a KOA they are very nice. most have rv spots tent spots and kabins. the kabins have ac and heat. you bring all your own camping stuff bedding and what not. Some of the nicer kabins have tvs which are handy for rainy days. and the campground has a store that you can buy firewood and food at. I love these kind of vacations because you can find out what is the area and go out and do things all day or you can just be away from home and have fun around camp!

http://www.koa.com/where/

I HIGHLY recomend taking a CUISE! We've done 2. Our daughter was 9 months old on the first one and for the second one, she was 2 3/4 and our son was 6 months. They are RELAXING. Food is included. You can just walk around and sight see at the stops. There is a ton of things to do on the ships. We just had a really great time. We are planning on doing another cruise in 2 years. We took our first cruise in December (to the Bahamas) and our seecond cruise in Jan. (to Mexico). I highly reecomend leaving from Florida. The weather was quite a bit warmer. Almost hot even. Vacations2Go.com was great to work with in booking. And cruises are VERY AFFORDABLE! They have great food in the dining room too. We traveled on both Royal Carribean and Carnival. If you don't want to end up on a "party" ship, go for an older model ship.

We just got back from DisneyWorld (FL.) 3 weeks ago (So, Jan.). It was fun. BUT, a LOT of work. Our two kids are now almost 5 and 2 1/2. They had a blast. The nice part was that we truely only had to wait 15 minutes max for almost every single ride we went on! We went to the parks on a Tues, Wed, and Thurs. By Thursday, there were a ton more people though. So, go EARLY in the week. And make sure to go OFF SEASON if you chose Disney. I could NOT imagine waiting a hour or more for any of the rides we went on. (And we went on a ton.) And spring for one of the character meals. We ate at Cinderella's Royal Table with the princesses. Our daughters' smile could not have gotten any bigger! And the food was great. Definitely check out the UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO WALT DISNEY WORLD 2009 from your local library. We got a ton of great tips.