Saturday 10 November 2007

Entertaining kids travelling to your Ski Holiday

Before you go on your ski chalet holiday:

You can browse some travel games and buy your child a children's suitcase so that they can cause havoc at the airport and at least keep you amused.

Print out the ski UpMyMountain resort report so that you have all the numbers you’ll need in resort such as the doctor, mountain rescue, the vet(if taking your pet), where the bank or pharmacist is, and of course where the pub is!

Get children involved in the journey to your ski chalet holiday:. Giving a child ownership of what could be a bothersome task makes them enthusiastic about it. Let them pack for themselves (more or less) so that they become excited about what books and toys they might take. Get them to search for travel games before you go.

Pack using a list, make your child and yourself comfortable, and don't forget a change of clothes for journey in case of accidents. Check what the latest regulations are for flying with dangerous liquids such as breast milk.

Tip: drive overnight if you can. The kids will awake with only a few hours left of the journey. Or take the high speed train from St Pancras station in London to your ski holiday; travel overnight and gain a day skiing!

Pack loads of snacks, they help break up the journey and give everyone something to look forward to. Try to avoid the sugar and E-numbers though as this will only lead to hyper kids; not good on a long haul flight.


Flights:

BA offer a bottle warming service on long haul flights only on unopened baby food. Great! On short haul flights kids receive an activity book. On flights exceeding 170mins kids get a sky flyers pack which includes various items depending on their age.
Other flight companies may offer childrens' services too.


Games:

I Spy!

Straight Face: If you have to answer a silly answer such as 'lump of cheese' to everyone’s question, how long is it before you can no longer maintain a straight face.

Stories: Invent stories about the people in car/seats next to you. Where do they work/live, what do they eat, do they have pets, what is their name?

Map: Print our a map, with things to spot on the way. Get the kids to map how far we’ve come and give commentary on what we might be close to.

Words: For example Disney characters; one person says 'Simba', the next person must say another character beginning with the last letter of the previous word so 'Alladin', and next beginning with 'N' and so on.

Follow on Stories: Someone starts a story ‘Fred met a snake in the park who turned out to be’ and the next person might say ‘a wizard who had lost his back to never never land’ and the stories continue.

Alphabetical: Spot anything out of the window with a word on it. You have to find words in alphabetical order; so on a billboard you might see the word 'all' and then on a sign the word 'Bridge'.

Guess the song: Sing or hum or say a few words and everyone has to guess the tune.
Celeb guesswork: You are a celebrity and everyone has to ask you questions to guess who you are.

Find it: Give everyone something to spot, and whoever spots it first gets a treat. For example, a sign, a dog in a car, a statue, a tree, hearing someone speak in a foreign language, pillows, air steward with coffee, a walkman, someone wearing no shoes. You can turn this into bingo or some other points system.

Ball: Waiting departure lounge roll small ball for kids to fetch to you, other people join I, gets excess energy off instead of just sitting there.

Animal, vegetable or mineral: What category does anything fall into.

Puppet show: Hand out puppets, give everyone some time to think up a story, then it’s Showtime.

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