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The term FAMILY SUITE when used to describe the accommodations at a particular hotel or family all inclusive resort can have many, MANY different meanings. It makes life even more confusing for both parents and travel agents when it comes to making family vacation resort reservations. Often when travelers read the word "suite", it conjures up a picture of luxurious, posh, upscale surroundings. A hotel description that reads " standard room" just sounds dull and boring. This is why so many hotels and resorts are now refraining from using the word "standard room" to describe their base level category. It's more common to now see the word "suite" used for the basic standard room category. The room descriptions and adjectives get more lavish with each category upgrade. There are some family resorts, we won't mention names, that have 20 or more different room categories and descriptions! This is why hotel room lingo can be confusing for parents looking for the perfect room for their family vacation. One would think the term "family suite" would solve these frustrations for parents but think again. Here are a few more examples of different definitions for the words "family suite"....
Resorts want to entice travelers to stay with them. Obviously they want to show their best image to the public. This is why then spend tons of money on professional photographers to take tons of photos of those perfect people that you see in those glossy brochures. I've stayed at MANY resorts and I have never actually seen those perfect people until recently...it was because the resort where I was staying, just happen to be doing a new photo shoot to update those perfect photos of perfect people in their perfect brochures! It's important to bear in mind that resort photos are done more for image and advertising than they are done for information. Parents shopping for family vacation will sometimes see photo examples of the top category "suites" near descriptions of lower category rooms. Photos are worth a 1000 words and lets face it, no body ever stops to read the fine print in ads. It can cause confusion. This is why when we do our Hotel Reviews on Vacationkids.com, you'll see our staff visits the hotels we review so we see rooms first hand. We do our best to take our own room photographs when ever possible. We're travel agents, not professional photographers. Ours may not be the most perfect photos, but we do what we can to illustrate the differences in room categories with our photos and descriptions. We want our parents to make informed choices when they book with us. We want to help them make the right hotel room choices so that their kids will be happy and comfortable while on family vacation.
Privacy! We hear it all the time from parents. We often chuckle when parents go into long descriptions about young children falling to sleep early or snoring husbands. We're all adults here, we get it. Let's all be honest...sometimes parents would like to have sex together while on vacation without having their kids watching. Often Mom and Dad want a completely separate room from their kids for many reasons but sex is usually one of the biggest reason. Again, the problem lies with resort room descriptions. Nothing is ever standard. Even the same resort chain will have different room definitions from one location to another. SOMETIMES a "family suite" is actually one large room, like a Jr suite. It may or may not have a sitting area but generally there is no privacy to be found here. SOMETIMES a "family suite" will have a partial wall, curtain or room divider between the parents sleeping area and where the kids sleep. With these rooms parents may get a wee bit more privacy but may have to get creative. SOMETIMES a family suite does have a separate bedroom for the parents which may or MAY NOT have a door that will close for complete privacy. We've even seen 2 and 3 bedroom family suites with no doors! Are you confused yet?...but wait, there's more...
The need for privacy on family vacations often leads us to the burning question about adjoining or connecting rooms. Many parents don't mind spending the extra money and booking two rooms to insure their privacy....as long as they have guaranteed connecting rooms with their kids. 99 percent of the time, hotels will NOT guarantee adjoining or connecting rooms. Whether it's a matter of architecture or hotel operational procedures, just because your family books two rooms in a resort, it does not mean these two rooms will be near one another. When it comes to adjoining rooms, hoteliers will tell travel agents "this is a request and NOT a guarantee". We repeat this line SO many times, every day to our clients that one of our agents here at Vacationkids threatened to get these words tattooed on her butt. (Sorry if I offend anyone here but if you could appreciate how many times a day we have to explain this rules to clients, who in turn tell us this is a stupid rule, you would appreciate the humor too...it keeps us sane). So here comes yet another definition of the words "family suite". Some resort chains are now blocking two adjoining rooms and making it a separate room category called a "family suite". This guarantees a king bedded room for mom and dad, connected by a door to a second room with two double beds. They now call two guaranteed adjoining rooms a family suite. This type of room may be perfect for a family with younger kids but parents of teens may not want their kids to have a separate room with a separate exit. So not every family suite is perfect for every family.
Location, location, family suites may simply be a matter of location. Some resorts have specific areas that are for families and other areas of the resort that are strictly adults only. In many cases the jr. suite room may be the EXACT same room as the family suite but these rooms are just found in different buildings, on different floors or in different areas of the resort. Of course they never make it easy and simply EXPLAIN this in the room description lingo.
From a hotelier's mindset, the words "family suite" may be another term for population control. Some resorts have family suites that will allow 3 kids under a certain age to share the room with their parents. We call these family of five suites and resorts. Generally these family of five rooms are the exact same room with the same features and amenities as a regular Jr suite. The hotel sales department blocks a certain number of rooms and allows only these family suites to be used family of five rooms. Why does the hotel do this you ask? Why not just allow 3 kids in all the rooms? It's a matter of population. If you have a 1000 room hotel that allows 4 in a room, that's 4,000 people. If every room allowed 5, the hotel population could top out at 5,000 people, especially on weeks like the December holidays and Spring break. Would you want to stay in a resort that had an extra 1000 kids running around? Instead the resort may designate 50 rooms as family suites allowing three children. This means the hotel population would only increase by 50 kids and not 1000. A good reason why families of five need to make their vacation plans early. These rooms are in high demand and sell out quickly.
Last but not least the reason a room may be designated as a "family suite" may be entirely due to an attached list of services. It may have nothing do to with the layout or architecture, whether you have one room, two rooms and a door. Instead it may mean that you have the same jr suite found in the rest of the resort but your room comes with family services like a family concierge who can arrange family beach picnics or special sightseeing. It may come with childrens' robes, slippers and special bath accessories like a rubber duck. It may mean that your room is outfitted with necessary baby gear like a stroller, baby bath tub and crib. Your family suite may come with cookies, milk and a recorded lullaby as part of your nightly turn down service. It all depends on the particular resort.
So bottom line, how can confused parents sort their way through the many definitions of family suites to find the perfect hotel room at the right resort for their family vacation? Work with a travel agent who has first hand knowledge and family travel experience. Every day at Vacationkids, we receive desperate emails and calls from overwhelmed parents spending hours online trying to find the information and prices they need to make the right decisions. They think they can save money by booking their vacation with some online travel website. 9 times out of 10 we can save you money and, more importantly, we can save you from making the wrong choices that turn into a disappointing trip.email us and we'll be glad to help you with your family vacation reservations while translating what "family suites" mean in real hotel room lingo.
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