Adventurous kids have grand travel partners

By KATHERINE SNOW SMITH

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 4, 2001

Much to the amazement -- and horror -- of some of our friends, we have Florida resident season passes to Walt Disney World. I admit it. I'm a sucker. I'm a tourist. I simply love the place.

My favorite trip so far was in November, when my parents flew down from North Carolina to join us. It was great to revive those memories of when they first took my sister and me there in 1974. And it was also wonderful to watch my children and their grandparents have so much fun together making new memories.

I'll give Disney credit for a lot of the good times. But some of it was just the sheer novelty and excitement of traveling with grandparents. My 4-year-old, Olivia, shared a hotel room with my parents, which she still recounts as her favorite part of the trip.

There are so many grandparents vacationing with their grandchildren these days that they have come up with a term for it: grandtravel. When parents go along it's called "multigenerational" travel. There are actually people out there studying this trend to find out how grandparents can spend more time and money traveling with the grandkids. There's even a travel agency that plans trips just for grandparents and their grandchildren.

"We call them America's newest set of travel companions," said Helena Koenig, founder of the Grandtravel agency, based in Chevy Chase, Md. "We call it providing cultural enrichment. . . . They aren't just leaving them money; they are giving them an experience they will never forget."

There's nothing new about grandparents wanting to spend time with their grandchildren. But instead of going along with the family to a beach cottage, grandparents are taking their grandkids to hotels and resorts, historic towns, the Grand Canyon, Disney World, Europe and beyond.

Grandtravel offers 20 trips, domestic and international, as far away as Africa and Australia. Prices range from $3,500 to $9,000 a person.

"I think there are a lot of the baby boomers who are grandparents and they are tending to be grandparents at a state of physical and economic health that they are able to do more things," said Walt Disney World spokesman Dave Herbst.

In its first three years at sea, 40 percent of the families sailing on Disney Cruise Lines include at least one grandparent.

Another factor boosting "multigenerational" vacations is the fact that these days many grandparents live far away from their grandchildren.

"It's not like 20 years ago, when Grandma was right down the street and they had that close relationship. (Traveling together) gives them a chance to really connect and get that quality time condensed in a shorter time period," said Maggie Varnadoe, a Disney marketing manager in charge of grandparent travel.

But even parents who live close to their grandchildren say a vacation setting offers more time to bond and enjoy each other.

"Once you get out of your own home, your focus is completely on them," said Jan Willingham, a St. Petersburg grandmother of two boys. "You don't have the telephone. You're not fixing dinner. You don't have to worry about getting them to bed early for school."

Disney, not known to miss a chance to market itself, will soon offer a vacation package for grandparents and grandchildren -- parents are optional. A recent poll by the AARP found that more than 6-million American grandparents go on a vacation with their grandchildren each month. The folks at Disney sure want them to go there.

The package builds anticipation by sending a Disney character and autograph book to each grandchild in advance. It also includes hotel accommodations, park passes and breakfast with the Disney characters. Prices start at $424 per adult and $220 per child for a three-night stay.

Sue Navage and her husband are pros at taking her granddaughter, Ashley, who just turned 5, to Disney. They have season passes. But their best trip was a 10-day vacation to Georgia over spring break last year. They visited the beach and then rented a lakeside cabin.

"We were laughing in Savannah because we took a boat trip to go dolphin watching," Navage recounted. "We were in Georgia dolphin watching when we could do this any day in Florida."

But that's the whole point. When they are on vacation together, grandparents and grandchildren take time to do neat stuff they don't do at home.

Willingham has taken her oldest grandson, Guthrie, to Disney World and to Miami to visit his aunt.

The car ride to Miami was intimidating but turned out fine. When they started out, she suggested to Guthrie, then 4, that they pass the time learning something new like counting by fives or the months of the year. So they traveled the miles singing made-up songs about the months, three at a time, and when he got home he proudly reeled them off for Mom and Dad.

At Disney World, Willingham and her husband let their grandson set the pace and choose what he wanted to do most. On one of their three days, Guthrie spent the entire morning playing on the statues of movie characters at their hotel.

Grandparents, it seems, can be more flexible and less schedule-regimented than parents. Maybe that's why parents aren't included on Koenig's Grandtravel trips.

"Parents? Oh, no, never," she said flatly.

Her trips, offered only in the summer, are broken down into groups based on the ages of the grandchildren.

I asked her if there were problems when the grandparents wanted to relax with a good book and the grandchildren were ready to walk across a mile-high swinging bridge.

"The person who wants to swing across the bridge is the grandfather. The kids are the ones who say they're tired," Koenig retorted. "Today's grandparents are fit aerobically and nutritionally sound. They are ready to go. They are not going to give me $10,000 a person to sit and read a book."

Tips for traveling with grandchildren:

Work with your grandchild to choose the destination.

Pick age-appropriate activities.

Talk with grandchildren's teachers to find ways to link travel to studies.

Discuss homesickness in advance of trip.

Share itinerary and other plans with parents before trip.

Before departure, get a primer on how to identify and handle any possible emergency situations.

Roommates of any age need to agree on times to go to bed, shower, watch television, etc.

Have some down time or nap time each day.

Make a photo album or scrapbook of the trip with your grandchildren or give it to them at a later date.

- You can reach Katherine Snow Smith by e-mail at Oliviachar@aol.com; or write Rookie Mom, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.

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