Traveling with children changes a lot of things. Especially when you’re a first-time mother and still trying to figure out how to pull off a vacation with a little person who needs to nap, eat on a schedule that matches their own culinary preferences, and for whom any plan can instantly be eclipsed by a meltdown.
It also changes what you look for in a hotel. Where before views, breakfast or a good pool mattered, you now start noticing things you would never have imagined: Will there be high chairs? Can they eat something from the menu? Is there enough space in the room for them to run and for a crib to fit? Will it bother others if they loudly express their disagreement when leaving the pool?
With all these questions —some conscious and others that I discovered along the way— I arrived at The Ritz-Carlton Tenerife, Abama, on the southwest coast of Tenerife. The purpose of the trip was to see the renovation of its Ritz Kids, which at 780 square meters bills itself as the largest in Europe, and its newly opened Splash Park, a 176-square-meter water area designed for children up to 12 years old.
A hotel where children are welcome
There is something I understood quite quickly during our stay and which, probably, ended up being more important to me than any child-friendly facility: they are very used to welcoming children here.
It may seem obvious, but at a moment when opinions about children in restaurants, planes and hotels are constantly voiced and when a certain child-phobia seems to have settled into the conversation, travelling with one can make you overly concerned about whether they bother, whether they’re loud or whether they’re occupying a space that apparently doesn’t belong to them.
Every time we sat down to eat, the staff appeared with a high chair, child-sized dinnerware, paints and, on occasion, even toys to keep him entertained. There was no need to request it or justify that there was a child at the table. Simply part of the experience.
The same happened in the room. Ours, located in The Retreat, was enormous, something that perhaps I would have valued differently before becoming a mother but which now translates into space for a child to move around without suitcases, a stroller, a crib and toys turning the stay into an obstacle course. They provided us with a crib, although it was ultimately the bed, as large as it was comfortable, that recharged the three of us each night.
