Family affairs: from the mountains to the sea, kid-friendly resorts provide satisfying getaways for the whole gang, including Mom and Dad

Travel America, July-August, 2002 by Randy Mink, Karen Mink

For a northwoods vacation in the upper Midwest, many families gravitate to Mission Point Resort on Michigan's car-free Mackinac Island. While parents are shopping, tandem biking, playing golf, or working out at the health club, children ages 4-10 enrolled in the Discovery Club are busy flying kites, touring 19th century Fort Mackinac, doing arts and crafts, or going on nature hikes. There are themed events for special days like Space Day and Wild West Day. Those in the 11-15 age group enjoy evening pool and pizza parties. Activities for the whole family include poolside bingo, making sundaes, and seeing first-run and classic movies in the resort's theater.

Mission Point is a whitewashed colony of red rooftops and vast green lawns overlooking the Straits of Mackinac, where lakes Michigan and Huron meet. Two-thirds of the wooded island, accessible by ferry boat or small plane, is a state park.

A few hours south, near Muskegon, Michigan, Double JJ Resort is a Western-style dude ranch with a kid-oriented Old West town called the Back Forty Ranch. Families can stay together in a cabin or parents can check into the adult-exclusive ranch while their kids stay with other kids at one of the Back Forty's Conestoga wagons, tepees, or cabins under the supervision of counselors. The Back Forty has its own corral, plus a water park, petting farm, street shows, general store, dining hall, ice cream parlor, and crafts shop.

Other accommodations at the Double JJ include the Lofts hotel, Homestead condominiums, and an RV park. The resort also has a challenging 18-hole golf course set among pines, hardwoods, wetlands, and lakes. Some of the horse trails thread the lush fairways.

In the Wisconsin Dells, one of the Midwest's premier family fun meccas, more and more hotels are becoming designations in themselves, offering elaborate indoor and outdoor water play areas. While plenty of mom-and-pop motels still exist, a growing number of upscale, themed hostelries are stealing the show.

The rustic log Wilderness Hotel resembles a vintage national park lodge. Trappings of the South Seas flavor the Polynesian Suite Hotel, while the Copa Cabana has a Caribbean look and Treasure Island a pirate motif. The Raintree brings guests into the jungles of the Amazon, while Great Wolf Lodge recreates the northwoods and Camelot Hotel & Suites harks back to the days of knights in shining armor. The African-flavored Kalahari Resort, with a huge indoor water park that charges admission to non-guests, claims to have the nation's largest indoor wave pool.

Club Med, famed for its all-inclusive resorts around the world, has designed some of its vacation villages specially for families. One is the Club Med Sandpiper, set along a peaceful stretch of the St. Lucie River north of West Palm Beach, Florida.

Non-stop children's programs from 9 a.m. include Club Med's well-known circus workshop, where kids get to fly on the trapeze, juggle, cross the low-wire, and flip on the trampoline. A Big Top performance one night a week lets them show off their newfound skills to their parents and other guests. Kids Club participants also can learn to sail or water ski, attend a tennis camp, or take part in Crazy Lab science experiments. Other pastimes include rollerblading, basketball, golf, and tubing. Parents enjoy many of the same activities, including the circus school and lounging at the beach or the five swimming pools.