Best ABDs with a child 6 or younger?

[Golden Rose]

Ok, I know I've been asking a lot of questions lately... I thought about highjacking my own thread, and decided I'd start a new one. We have two children - a four year old daughter who is social, fearless, active, and adventurous, and a 10 year old son who is cautious, bookish, and a fantastic photographer. Both kids have been traveling their entire lives. He is a great traveler. She is a pretty good traveler, but she's 4. She is much, much happier when there are other children around. She has never met a stranger. She makes friends fast. Quite honestly, our daughter is the reason we are planning to try a group tour, probably ABD, possibly Tauck Bridges or Abercrombie and Kent Family.

There are many ABD tours that look great. Some of them have age requirements she won't meet for a few years, all seem to have age suggestions she won't meet for several years. Honestly, I don't mind putting off some of the more demanding tours a few years, but the problem we face is that my mom and step-father love to join us, and we don't know how many years they will be able to.

So basically, I am looking for tours that would be fantastic with a 5 year old, and possibly a 4 or 6 year old (depending on when we book), as well as a pair of 70+ year olds. I am not sure group tours, even high end luxury family tours are for us. But for my daughter's sake, I want to try them out.

Initially, I was thinking South Africa, but comments I've been getting make me think I really need to seriously consider putting it off until she is a older. We're tentatively planning on Australia for (our, not Australia's) summer 2017, when she'll be 6. We haven't decided yet if we'll do it on our own, with ABD, or one of the other family tour specialists, but I think we're pretty settled on doing it.

The more I've been thinking about it, the more I would sort of like to try an ABD next year, maybe during spring break or the very beginning of the summer. But that would mean I need a good tour for a 5 year old. (Bonus points if I can get there directly from Houston with a flight of less than 6 hours!) If I did something over Christmas break 2016, the age limit could be 6.

Has anyone who is posting been in a group with a 5ish year old who had a fantastic time? I'm currently looking at Costa Rica. I think it looks good, but I worry that she'd get frustrated not being able to do the zipline. This is my child that walks into amusement parks and begs to do the roller coasters.

 

[tufbuf]

We had a 4-year old in our London/Paris ABD and he did great! He was the star of the group, did everything (biking at Versailles!) and we didn't hear him whine or cry. Costa Rica is a fun trip! She probably would be more of a spectator in the water rapids rafting rather than paddling and carrying the boat. She should be able to zipline. One of the guides will take her to make the weight, as long as she is fearless (it's REALLY high up!!) and if you are okay with it. It's a fun ABD and I think it's good for younger kids.

 

[disneyphx]

We did ABD China when our daughter was 5, and South Africa at 6 - she loved them both.
For the 70+ though, I think China would be pretty gruelling, and South Africa just fine.
I think another factor is other travel you have done, especially long flights and dealing with jet lag. At 5, my daughter had done lots of long flights (I am originally from Australia, so she had done that flight about 4 times, plus Europe 4 times), so we had a good sense of how that would impact all of us.
Galapagos and Costa Rica are on our list, but seem a bit more high energy. Galapagos we are waiting til she is about 12-14 - Costa Rica just never makes it to the top of our list!

 

[BonnD]

I'm in the same boat!! Trying to decide what's best for next year with my kids who'll be 10 and 5 at the time. Strongly considering Italy or the England/France.

 

[laceltris3]

I am in a similar boat. Kids are currently 9, 6 and 4 next month and are pretty good travelers. We just got back from DCL Alaska, which included some pretty long travel days and have done Europe etc. before with the older ones. We also are looking for something convenient to Houston. I really want to do Peru, but we won't do that until 2018 probably. We are maybe looking at the Grand Canyon first, but will probably do that with Tauck. For ABD we will probably do Costa Rica first or maybe Italy.

 

[TXTransplant]

I am in a similar boat. Kids are currently 9, 6 and 4 next month and are pretty good travelers. We just got back from DCL Alaska, which included some pretty long travel days and have done Europe etc. before with the older ones. We also are looking for something convenient to Houston. I really want to do Peru, but we won't do that until 2018 probably. We are maybe looking at the Grand Canyon first, but will probably do that with Tauck. For ABD we will probably do Costa Rica first or maybe Italy.

We live in Houston and are on the Germany trip right now. The itinerary is great for young kids! And I thought the trip was very convenient for Houston, since there are direct flights to/from both Frankfurt and Munich. I would love to do the Amalfi coast trip, but the fact that there are no direct flights to/from Italy from IAH is holding me back.

 

[Golden Rose]

Ok, I kind of love that lots of people are looking for direct flights from Houston, too. I love having a major airport hub in my hometown!

We live in Houston and are on the Germany trip right now. The itinerary is great for young kids! And I thought the trip was very convenient for Houston, since there are direct flights to/from both Frankfurt and Munich. I would love to do the Amalfi coast trip, but the fact that there are no direct flights to/from Italy from IAH is holding me back.

You sound so much like me, booking trips based on where you can get with direct flights. I have so many friends who tease me about 1) taking my kids all over the world with us and b) trying to go places we can get with direct flights. When we did a Mediterranean cruise a few years ago, we did 2 weeks on Celebrity because it left from Southampton and we could get to London with a direct flight. We've currently got 4 trips booked for the next year and a half, and we can do all of them with no or direct flights before starting the vacation (Seattle for Alaska cruise, Disney cruise from Galveston, San Jose and Liberia airports for ABD Costa Rica, and Quito for Galapagos.) We're going with Celebrity for Galapagos because ABD won't let us being a 5 year old, and we're afraid to wait any longer because of my mother's age and health. It looks like a very, very active vacation, so we decided we need to do it sooner rather than later.

Please report back on how you end up liking the current Germany trip with young kids! I'm going to have a really hard time convincing anyone in my family to do most of the Europe ABDs, other than the new river barge one. Between us, we speak enough Spanish, Italian, German, and French to get by almost anywhere, and we've all (except the 4 year old) done great trips without a tour group through various parts of Europe in the past. We've mostly been looking at ABD for more exotic destinations.

We've now booked the ABD Costa Rica trip for next spring break as our try out ABD trip. It's a pair of easy flights from Houston. I did Costa Rica on my own about 15 years ago, and loved it. However, many of the roads were a little scary to drive on (half washed out cliff roads), and I really don't want to deal with stressful driving conditions with the family group we're going with. I would take my kids, but I don't think I can manage my kids and my mom and step-father, much as I love them!