Traveling with Children?  Read DeliciousBaby.com

Speaking with my sister-in-law yesterday I was blown away by her statement that she hasn’t had twenty-four hours alone with her husband since their baby daughter arrived.  And now they are heading to London in November to see his side of the family.  When I told her how she could take two flights and save a few hundred dollars compared to a non-stop I could hear her eyes roll over the phone.   She said her savings would need to be quite a few hundred dollars to stretch the trip to two flights and risk a missed connection and a layover with the child, stroller, and baby gear.

DeliciousBaby.com is a blog and website to check out when you are freaking out about travel with children.  Seattle-based blogger Debbie Dubrow has a great site with advice and travel tips for surviving trips with your kids. 

The City Guides section has loads of activities and sites useful for most travelers, not just families, and city guides provide lots of links to restaurants, hotels, shopping, activities, and sample activity itineraries.

DeliciousBaby.com is good travel reading whether or not you are sleeplessly frantic about that upcoming flight with the kid(s).

U.S. Hotels Forecast: 3 Consecutive Years Declining Occupancy

HotelMarketing.com has an article with sobering hotel industry statistics for travelers.  Hotel occupancy declined by 0.3% in 2007 according to Smith Travel Research.   PKF Hospitality Research forecasts 2008 and 2009 will see even greater occupancy declines. 

Hotel stay demand is softening just as 275,000 more hotel rooms are scheduled to open by the end of 2009 compared to the end of 2007.  This is predicted to be the first time in 20 years hotels have experienced two consecutive years of occupancy decline.

Don’t make the rational conclusion that three years of declining hotel occupancy will lower average hotel rates.  The average hotel room rate for the U.S. is still predicted to rise 3.6% for all of 2008, followed by another 1.3% in 2009. 

The Good News?

Mark Woodworth, President PKF Hospitality Research, states hotel rates should not exceed the rate of inflation until 2012. 

I wonder if that considers the inflationary impact of printing $2,000,000,000,000 in money to borrow our way out of the current economic melt-down (there sure are a lot of zeros in trillions).

The Good News, Really!  Starwood Lowers Rates for Some Hotels

Looking over hotel rates here in the San Francisco region I see several Starwood hotel properties with rate drops for weekend travel.  I have predicted all year that as hotel rates increase for business travel days, Sunday through Thursday nights, the weekend rates for Friday and Saturday should decline to attract leisure travelers.  Resort locations tend to have the opposite peak period of higher rates for Friday and Saturday and lower rates Sunday through Thursday.

Starwood Hotels has 21 properties in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Recently, I have noticed rate drops at several hotels for weekend stays to some of the lowest rates in over two years.

W Silicon Valley has been stuck on $109 weekend rates for over two years and suddenly I see rates back down to $79.  This is an even lower rate than the limited time “Summer Sale” special offer Starwood Hotels ran last month. 

Sheraton San Jose is at $84 for many weekends over the next couple of months.  This hotel has just remodeled many of their rooms and rates had been $99 average for the past year.

The Palace Hotel in San Francisco which had been going for under $150 for many weekends in 2006 suddenly jumped up to $200+ for much of 2007 and 2008.  I see November rates back down as low as $139 for weekend nights.

There appear to be more bargains for the leisure travelers in combination with some of the best hotel loyalty program promotions of 2008.

Use the Categories link for “Fall 2008 Promotions” on the left side of the page to read about currently available promotions in all the major hotel loyalty programs.

Please leave a comment if you are seeing similar reductions in hotel rates for your area.

Hotel industry statistical data source: HotelMarketing.com U.S. Hotels to Bottom Out in 2009

Link to HotelMarketing.com

Link to Loyalty Traveler post: Hospitality Researchers Advise No Hotel Rate Cuts in 2008

The Nation’s 11^th Annual Caribbean Cruise

Holland America Westerdam, December 14-21, 2008, Fort Lauderdale

I took my first cruise last year on Holland America’s Oosterdam ship to Alaska (not The Nation cruise). The room was small, the views were incredible, and my wife was quarantined to our room for the first 3 days of a 7 day cruise as she came down with an incredible case of food poisoning about 3 hours after leaving Seattle.  Thankfully we had a verandah for her to sit outside once she was feeling well enough to get out of bed.  Oh, and it was not the cruise ship food that made her sick!  Once she could eat again, the Holland America dining options for food were a treat.

Rather than song and dance shows I would prefer to be educated and have thoughtful discussion when stuck with a large group of people in a confined space.  A Caribbean cruise with intelligent speakers discussing the really important questions and issues of our time is a vacation idea that caught my attention today. 

The Nation’s 11^th Annual Cruise is billed as the ‘Bye, Bye (G.W.) Bush Caribbean Cruise’.   I laughed this morning when I heard presidential candidate Ralph Nader on Democracy Now refer to our President as King George.

The Nation Cruise could be your ‘Loveboat’ adventure or a week of purgatory depending on your political leaning –

port (The Nation) or starboard (National Review).

The Nation Cruise 11^th Annual Caribbean Cruise information links:

Itinerary

Speakers

Pricing