What if I told you, you don't have to leave baba at home for your second honeymoon?
What if I told you, you can actually have a great romantic time with a baby? Plus you'll safe a ton on babysitting fees for not leaving her at home.
We recently spent a weekend at The Palace of the Lost City, Sun City. I'd love to share some tips on how a high end holiday can keep all of its luxuriousness in-between bottles and diapers.
Strategise getting out of town
The Friday afternoon traffic out of Gauteng can be intimidating, but with some careful planning and packing the night before we managed to get out of time in under an hour of starting to pack the car (o the joys of adjusting time expectations with a baby right?) The days where we booked a guesthouse the night before and only took along an extra pair of knickers are unfortunately gone.
Be specific on packing time and departing time, this can be a source of conflict if expectations differ between partners. You don't want to start the weekend off at a stressed note.
Make sure baby is fed before you step on the petrol, even if it's in between feeding times.
2. Carseat safety first
Daphne fits perfectly into her Pebble Maxi Cosi car seat, and with the nifty tune of our matching Isofix we know she's secured and ready to go. We hardly reached the end of the driveway when we knew she was already sleeping. Why use the Isofix? There's been countless crash tests done comparing Isofix to seatbelt. When properly installed the difference between the two is negligible. However there are so many variables with seatbelt installed car seats that it often comes in second in terms of safety. So why take the risk when you can opt for something standardised.
3. Stay mobile for your activities
Arriving at the Palace we were greeted by top hats and ducktails, with an effortless checkin courtesy of the team at Maxi Cosi. The car seat fits seamlessly into our Thule running pram with the help of adaptors. This allowed us to effortlessly move around the endless corridors and ballrooms. We opted for a running style pram that fits our lifestyle better. We only have the one stroller, and contrary to advice from other parents we've never been in a crowded shopping mall or a space where it feeling it's too robust to manoeuvre.
Did I mention we both are aspiring to jog more often? (Keyword here is aspire, not always happening but hey, we can dream right?). The whole setup is really well designed and balanced, we can easily hang our overfull diaper bag onto the handle without if becoming wonky.
4. Room retail space
The rooms at the Palace are spacious enough for us to have Daphne's cot in the bathroom. The sliding doors separating the two made for a great extra room. At home she sleeps in her own room, so naturally we'd like to keep some form of routine. When she tapped out for the night around 8pm, we had the opportunity to catch up over coffee without disturbing her.
This way we didn't have to bump up to a family room with extra formal rooms.
5. Plan around your interests
The rest of the weekend was filled with pram strolls and runs along the golf course, the Valley of the Waves, the Palace grounds. I tried very hard to find the Nile Crocodiles hiding in the 13th hole's lake, but I wasn't lucky this time. On the drizzly day we even spent time in the Gary Player gym, felt starstruck knowing the likes of Tiger Woods and Ernie Els did some million dollar swings here. We rolled out the play mat on the gym floor, Daphne tried to crawl around and we got a good exercise in after overdoing it a tad at the buffet. Which leads me to my next suggestion...
6. Leisurely picky eating
We used the extravagant buffet as an opportunity to introduce Daphne to 8 new flavours she hasn't tried before. She's at a space where she can eat just about anything as long as its partly mashed/soft.
Hence she tried oysters, salmon, superfood smoothies, sweetmelon (for some reason we haven't tried that fruit yet)
Yes, it will be messy. Yes, old retired Germans in khaki will glance over their shoulder. Yes, you will get over the fact that your OCD wants to wipe her hands all the time. I promise, try it.
This in itself was such a great adventure for us, we don't often have the luxury of time during the week to take things so slow at meals.
7. Make friends outside your circle of influence
What surprised me the most was how many other families with kids were there. I've romanticised this destination as more of a couples retreat, I'm so thrilled that more families are making kids part of every adventure. We are so open to meeting parents with kids, so we made new friends all around.
Some of them we have seen again after our trip and have become great family friends.
Pro tip - ask a couple with a kid how they're liking their pram or car seat? It's a sure topic to get them talking. We all spend a lot of time and research into finding the right fit for our baby, so before long you'll be moving on to more philosophical conversations over a bottle of Pinot in the bar lounge.
Even though we were hosted this time (thanks once again Maxi Cosy team for your incredible gererosity), we'd definitely budget and treat our family to an outing like this again. Ironically, it works out roughly the same as flying to Cape Town for a weekend. (We love doing some personal finance budgeting, and this was a surprise to us.
I'd love to hear which gems you've discovered with your kids outside the city? Let me know in the comments down below
Love
Surgeon Mommy
PS - a merry Xmas from our family to yours, see you in 2022.
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