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I feel like I've been looking at hotels online for the past four days straight but I still haven't booked anything for the upcoming trip. We'll be staying two nights and now that I'm a pretty frugal gal and haven't really vacationed in several years, about four, (and considering I'm horrid at making decisions about anything) this booking a hotel situation is driving me batty.
So I come to you all for advice:
First off does anyone have a favorite place to stay in or around Nashville, preferably not south of Nashville?
How do you go about picking a hotel? (I've been using hotels.com and I've narrowed my search to hotels with free breakfast, free parking, and a pool (we WILL use the pool))
Are there any attractions in Nashville that we must see? (remember we'll have a three year old along that I would like to keep entertained) And for that matter any favorite restaurants?
Do you have frugal tips for eating on vacation? All the hotels I've looked at so far have a fridge in the room and I plan to bring snacks, take full advantage of the free breakfast (not like crazy advantage but you know), and pack food for the LONG car ride.
Lastly, favorite ways to keep a small child entertained in the car??? We have nothing. When I say low tech frugal I mean, no cell phone, no tablet, no kiddie car DVD player... we have nothing! I need some creative ideas here, please! I am hoping to bum something off friends just for the trip but I'm not sure how successful I'll be in that.
This trip will be the end of this month. I know it will be great regardless of details and money. In truth, one of the reasons my husband and I had spent so much credit card money on trips in the past is that we enjoy each other so much and have the highest quality time when we're traveling (and we've never been luxurious travelers). We just like to get away I guess. We like seeing new things and new places together. We like spending time away from the ordinary with each other... the ordinary tends to distract us from spending time with each other at all (I know, we're normal, right). We like eating at new places and pretending we're highly paid food critics as we discuss our dinners with each other. Oh there will be bickering. There will be moments of intense frustration when we hit Nashville traffic and aren't entirely sure where the exit is for the hotel. There will be snappy comments in the morning when I've not yet had my coffee and quite possibly spent 3 hours the previous day listening to a 3 year old whine and cry and get beyond frustrated in his car seat (oh, I am hoping not though). But we will enjoy each other. We will get away, get to see new things, and we will remember this vacation forever. I've said it before, right, I LOVE TO TRAVEL! Four years is really too long (but the debt payoff is really important).
I'm looking forward to sharing your trip vicariously.
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to sharing it with you! For certain :)
DeleteWe travelled with our older kids pretechno gizmo age. I forget how long your drive will be, but here is a suggestion that worked for us. Teh kids picked activities and car snacks and set a schedule to them. I want to say it was hourly, they got a new snack, and a new activity. It might have been dry erase boards and goldfish after first hour, story/picture books and a PB ad J sandwich the next hour, and so on. This helped mark the time, kept their blood sugar up so we didn't have "the crash" and crankiness, and got them involved in the planning. We almost always left before sun up, so they both usually fell back to sleep so that helped the first hour and sometimes two. It wasn't perfect, but I truly don't remember any bad road trips because of cranky kids (except the pneumonia trip to South Dakota when we ended up in the ER, but not the kids fault!)
ReplyDeleteIt's 8.5 hours of drive without any stops. I really like the idea of hourly changes. Great suggestion! Thank-you! I would not have thought of that.
DeleteMy little guy takes a solid 2 hour nap everyday so we have that almost for certain, which puts us closer to 6 hours that he will probably be awake in the car but I'm going to look into leaving super early so he can sleep in the beginning, thats a good idea; I don't remember if my husband will be working the night before though, then we wouldn't be able to leave early.
Super early start(keep the kid in Pjs and change later). You can play car bingo, I spy, etc. Take a coloring book and crayons? Stop every couple of hours at a fast food with a playland and/or find an ice cream shack along the route(these sometimes have playgrounds)to let the kid burn off some energy.
ReplyDeleteAlso check out Roadside American for oddball things to see and stop at along your route. That helps to break the long drive with kids up too.
We usually book through Choice privileges program a choice hotel as we get points toward rewards there.
Eat the hotel breakfast and then eat a BIG late lunch. The only thing you'll need for dinner is a snack or something....this always worked well with my kids. Also eating lunch out is usually a lot cheaper than eating dinner out.
Here are things to do with kids in Nashville.....
http://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Things+To+Do+With+Kids&find_loc=Nashville%2C+TN
I know they have a water park, a laser tag place and a smallish amusement park there. Also a zoo and the state museum is FREE!
Check out this recreational area in Brentwood south of Nashville.
$4 per carload.......http://brentwood.thefuntimesguide.com/2007/07/nashvillebeachlake.php
I remember from out trips through Nashville that you want to avoid rush hour driving.
All my must do's in N'ville involve drinking and honky tonking in some form or another so I am no help with that. lolz
Thanks Sluggy! Lots of great suggestions and I'll be checking out that link shortly :)
DeleteAnd Roadside America looks VERY promising! I hadn't heard of that site. Sweet!
I'm not going to be a lot of help here - I am a hotel SNOB (we stayed in so many dives during our 32 years of marriage I told Ted never again...) we tend to stay at the bigger chains - Marriott, Sheraton, etc. but I do make sure they have all the freebies.
ReplyDeleteWhen we went on our cross-country trip what we did was have a really nice lunch out and then just do something simple like Subway for dinner in the room because we were so tired (how you can get tired from sitting in a car all day I'll never know.....) I also found snacked with protein (string cheese wrapped in lunchmeat worked well for us) seemed to last longer than a granola bar or pretzels.
As for the kid thing.....I got nothing.....except since he likes action figures like Zack did, maybe go to $ store (or the black ninja machine) and get a bunch of different ones and give them to him each hour or so, like SAM suggested. And while you will HATE, HATE, H-A-T-E it, when Steph was little and we moved to California from Florida, we had a CD with kids songs we played that she loved and would sit there singing them literally for hours...we, on the other hand, can STILL remember the songs.
I am pretty particular about the hotel. I'd way rather pay $20 more and get a MUCH better hotel than save the few extra dollars. When it comes to where we'll be sleeping and such; the hotel is one of the big parts of the adventure, home away from home if you will. One of the reasons I'm taking so long to decide I suppose.
DeleteYou and Sluggy both suggested big/ nice lunches. I think we'll definitely go that route too. I like the string cheese with lunch meat idea for snacks! I don't think my husband will go for the kids songs (just guess) but I will totally run out to the dollar store for surprise toys. Thats a super suggestion too!
When booking a hotel, I usually pick the cheapest hotel that has at least 4.0 in reviews and meets all my requirements. I usually check a couple review sites to make sure.
ReplyDeleteAs for food, I try to pack fun snacks and foods that I don't normally buy. One big thing we like is to make is subs. So I'll pack a cooler with a few different types of meats, cheeses, lettuce, tomato,all the good toppings we like. Plus I pack plenty of drinks and a large variety of snacks: chips, beef jerky, cashews, mini muffins, granola bars, suckers. This works great for snacks along the way and in the hotel so we don't hit up the vending machines. Plus we usually end up eating the sandwiches for a couple meals.
A lot of rest stops along the highway have a nice grassy area a picnic tables. Take a ball with you and you can have a picnic lunch and bounce the ball around.
Activities for the car: coloring book and crayons, pick up a few new surprise $ store toys, action figures... Use sandwich bags to separate the toys in groups and keep them with you. Then whenever he starts to get bored, just pull out a new baggie of toys. Don't give them all to him up front or he'll play with everything in the first hour.
I love the suggestion of snacks we don't normally eat. I hadn't thought to do that and it's a great idea. When you're traveling you often want to stop at a gas station or vending machine and get something extra yummy, "something you don't normally eat" and I love the idea of giving myself permission to pack special treats for the vacation. Thanks for that suggestion! I really want to avoid gas station and vending machine purchases all together.
DeleteA few people have suggested rationing out the toys/ new activities. GREAT advice. I've been brain storming car ideas all day. It's really sad how excited I'm getting about putting together car entertainment for him.
I wrote a big long post and lost it. Aargh! I would do Price line for a hotel and keep the cost to $50 or so a night but I'm cheap.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely go to the Opryland Hotel tobwalk around. It's free but you will probably have to pay about $20 for parking. The atriums are gorgeous GORGEOUS and its fun to walk around and take in the beautiful gardens and indoor river.
Go downtown to 2nd Street and wonder around and take in the river. I would eat at The Spaghetti Factory. Beautiful old building and super affordable, 10 years ago entrees were $6-8, I think and this would be kid friendly.
I have actually stayed in the Opryland Hotel twice (not on my own dollar) and been there three times. I LOVE it! Truly though I didn't do anything in Nashville while there so this is really kind of a first to Nashville. I don't think my husband or son would appreciate the hotel as much as me so I doubt we'll make it there for a visit this trip.
DeleteI'll bookmark 2nd street downtown and the Spaghetti Factory though. Thanks! I tried getting a room through priceline and they didn't accept an offer lower than $90 so I'm just going to pick my own hotel. I suppose if I waited till last minute but I'm not sure I want to wait that long.
Commenting twice now so I don't lose another comment. If you have time and the money, I would go on the General Jackson for a ride on the Cumberland River. So very pretty.
ReplyDeleteThere is a ton to do downtown even with a kid. You can walk around for hours to take in the sights. I wouldn't worry about the traffic. I think you've driven in Chicago and Nashville is way easier.
Regarding the hotel, if you don't do Price line because you want to pick your hotel, check the price on Travelocity or Kayak and then call up the hotel directly to see if you can get a better rate. Those big sites will take as much as 25% cut so if you call them directly so they aren't paying a third party website, they will often give you a better deal.
By the way, I used to live 45 minutes north of Nashville. If you have any questions for me, let me know.
We're relatively close to Chicago and we really like it there so we've driven there (and all around there) more times than I could count. I was guessing traffic would be lighter in Nashville. My husband made fun of me when I suggested we not stay at a hotel near the airport in Nashville for traffic concerns. I said, "if it's anything like O'Hare we don't want to stay in that area." He's like, "um, there's no way it's anything like O'Hare, that's one of the biggest airports in the country." Haha! Right.
DeleteI think I will end up calling the hotel I pick directly though. That is a great suggestion that I hadn't been thinking of. I've done that in years past but I've been looking at hotels for days (there are SOOOO many in and around Nashville) that it had slipped my mind to just call the hotel I pick. Thanks!
I've never been to Nashville however I like staying at Best western hotels, most have free breakfast and are reasonably priced, if there are some in that area. I like reading comments in Tripadvisor and so far I've made judicious choices because of those and you could find interesting restaurants too....Try some real BBQ!
ReplyDeleteI like the Trip adviser reviews. I read one on a hotel I was considering that said, "If you want hookers and drug dealers in your hotel parking lot then this is the hotel for you." Needless to say I immediately ruled that one out. A review like that just tells me that I probably don't want to stay in that area of town. (And we won't be)
DeleteReal BBQ... great suggestion! I'll definitely get back to you all if we stop at an awesome BBQ joint :)