Hellobee Boards

Saint Maarten! Nonstop from JFK is about 4.5 hours.

I've been to a lot of beaches and man, Florida has some awesome options. We just went to Tampa/Clearwater and our 16 month old loves it. Cheap, great Southwest direct flight of 2.5 hours, no passport or international flight, Florida is very kid friendly. It was better and less stressful that I thought.

@pachamama: ditto this. We were just in Florida for a week with our two year old. The flight was SO easy and cheap. Like $200. And so quick! We love the Turks and Caicos but Florida was just so easy. We have been to the Turks with our daughter (and several times as a couple and family trips) when she was about 11 months. It was fun but not as easy. We typically stay at higher end resort type places, but in Florida we did a nice condo with a pool and kitchen and rental car and it was so relaxing. 3 min to beach, no pressure to go out, easy meals in and a baby monitor so we could chill at the pool.

@PinkElephant: I've stayed at the Little Divi in Saint Maarten several times and it's awesome. Big suites.

I lily like the Bahamas. Atlantis if you like an all inclusive resort, British Colonial Hilton if you want something on the mainland and without a casino.

We stayed at the ritz Carlton in St Thomas and it was amazing. Easy direct flight from JFK. We did not have the kids with us, but there were a lot of families there.

@PinkElephant: We're going to Puerto Rico in February for a few days before getting on a cruise. We're staying at the Wyndham Rio Mar. it looks great, especially for the price. We're paying about $200/night. There were some resorts I didn't consider that looked great but were $500-$800/night.

It seems pretty easy to rent a car, and you can also rent a car seat. If you rent with Hertz and have AAA, they will give you a discount off the rental and include a free car seat.

The bonus of PR too is that you don't need passports for everyone. We need ones for the cruise we're taking and it was a big hassle getting them taken care of and my normally sweet and smiley baby decided she just wanted to howl while getting her picture. We then had to wait for an hour in line at the post office to do all the paper work. Ugh.

@erinbaderin: I;ve been eyeing Coconut Bay for so long! But to take our kids along...they will turn 2 and 4 this summer. How was it???

@erinbaderin: yay--it looks like a great family resort, so it's on my future list.

@snowjewelz: we went to siesta key just outside of Sarasota. That whole area is nice. The water is SO calm since it's bay side. Marco island is also really nice and family friendly. The flights were so easy and inexpensive out of ewr. Sarasota is basically the easiest airport ever. We stayed at a friend's condo so I don't have hotel reccs. There were plenty of hotels and such and also stroller and gear rental places.
We ended up cooking a lot (we rented a car)

The beaches were so great, flat and water calm.

@PinkElephant: Now that I'm thinking about it though, I'm not sure how warm Jan actually is for the pool/beach down there....