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Hi! It’s been a long time since I did a hotel review, partially do to life changes (KIDS) and partially due to the pandemic. I’ve also been a little lazy for the last few years in this area. My travel used to be much more “Instagram friendly” – and if I’m being super honest I thought my life would stay like that forever, and having to descend to traveling with children was simply a fate that befell other people. We recently came back from Carmel Valley Ranch however, and I really enjoyed the experience and also had so many little tips I thought of for families (with children) that I wanted to do a review. So fair warning: I’m going to try and do more travel posts, and while I’ll try to make them universal, they’ll have quite a lot of details for those with kids! So let’s go:
The room: we did a hilltop ranch suite on recommendation from our advisor and it was perfect. This is I believe the base (or near base) one bedroom suite – though there are smaller “studio” suites that would be very nice for a couple! For families of 4+ however, I think the ranch suites and above are ideal.
No real extra frills but with lots of space, a smart layout with the living room and bedroom clearly separate, with the bathroom in between. A decent sized balcony with some nice chairs out front. The sofa in the living room easily becomes a sofa bed and more importantly, the sofa bed is quite comfortable – always important as I’ve seen some terrible ones! The rooms have clearly been designed with larger families in mind which I really appreciate. There was also a nice dining area with chairs, but we rarely used this.
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