What makes a vacation a vacation?

One of the greatest shocks of new parenthood is the lack of vacation days. Do you agree?

As much as I have enjoyed weekends spent with my family and other families in rental houses in Tahoe, Santa Cruz, and other drive-able destinations, I also crave a hotel stay to relieve me of some of my day to day responsibilities.

This week is an experiment in just that. My family and I will be at Velas Vallarta, an all-inclusive beachfront resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I think that all-inclusive means that I will be excused from packing lunches, making dinner, arranging for a babysitter, parking at the Y, washing dishes, and unpacking lunchboxes. I know it means that we can just wander around the property, swimming and borrowing rafts, ordering food and drinks as we wish, occasionally checking our kids into the onsite Kids Camp for a couple of hours, so that we can go use the gym together, or go snorkeling in the ocean.

If the website is accurate, nice people will be serving my kids popsicles all day long.

When I told her about our vacation plans, my friend Corey said, “Before kids, I would have said, ‘blech’. Now, I think it sounds amazing.”

Last night when I reminded my children that there will be kids activities that they can do all by themselves without us, just like a camp, my 4-year old said, “You told us that three times already.” Perhaps I am a bit enthusiastic about access to all-you-can-eat childcare.

What do you think? What sounds like a good vacation?

Photos of Velas Vallarta from their website