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TURKS AND CAICOS, November 2009 — Day One
ByEileen Ogintz December 7, 2009June 28, 2023

The concert goers are swaying to the music, clapping and crowding the stage so they can reach out and touch their favorite stars. Their smiling parents are right behind, video cams and digital cameras in hand. That’s because these concert goers are toddlers and preschoolers, many in diapers. Their stars are Elmo, Burt, Ernie, Cookie Monster and the latest to join the Sesame Street gang Abby Cadabby, a fairy in training. They sing and dance for the kids for an hour

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Giving Back While You Travel
ByEileen Ogintz December 6, 2009June 28, 2023

Avocados bigger than grapefruit, star fruit, breadfruit, wild watercress and vegetables I’ve never heard of… We’re not perusing a menu on the Caribbean island of St Lucia. We’re touring a local hillside farm owned for more than 40 years by the Richards family. Isaac Alphonse, the purchasing manager for The Landings

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St. Lucia — Last Day
ByEileen Ogintz December 3, 2009February 1, 2024

We sit on the deck overlooking the ocean, palm trees and St Lucia’s most famous site–The Pitons, the two tall lava cones that differentiate this Caribbean island. We’ve stopped at Jalousie Plantation, spread over a 192 acres on what was once a working sugar plantation just outside the town of Soufriere in between Pitons. We are staring right at the mountain—right next to us!

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St. Lucia — Day Three
ByEileen Ogintz December 2, 2009July 12, 2021

It’s not even 10 am and already they are handing out the rum punch! We’re on a catamaran courtesy of Carnival Sailing that will take us from the north part of the island where we are staying at The Landings resort to the town of Soufriere (which translates to “sulfur in the air,” we’re told). Along the way we have spectacular views pf St Lucia’s claim to fame — Petit Piton and Gros Piton.

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KINDER, GENTLER AIRLINES?
ByEileen Ogintz December 2, 2009June 28, 2023

Don’t we wish! I was thinking about that this morning as I drove my husband to the airport because his elderly mom had been rushed to the hospital and was very seriously ill. Luckily, I was able to get him a free flight. If not, it would have cost nearly $1,000 for a round trip ticket from New York to Chicago (and never mind change fees since he doesn’t know when he returns.) That’s what you get for trying to buy a ticket instantly.

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St. Lucia — Day Two
ByEileen Ogintz December 1, 2009July 16, 2021

Tangerines, star fruit, breadfruit, wild watercress. We’re not perusing a menu in St Lucia. We’re touring a local farm owned by The Richards family for more than 40 years. Isaac Alphonse, the purchasing manager for The Landings, the 120-plus unit new resort where we are staying

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St. Lucia, November 2009 — Day One
ByEileen Ogintz November 30, 2009July 12, 2021

There’s something to be said for direct flights to out of the way places. We are taking Jet Blue’s new nonstop service from JFK to St. Lucia, a small island near Martinique and Barbados. But instead of taking all day with connections in Miami or San Juan, we arrive in a little more than four hours. Nice!

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Scoring a Holiday Deal That Won’t Bust the Budget
ByEileen Ogintz November 29, 2009June 28, 2023

I’m perched in a wooden treehouse lazing on a cushy double mattress atop a white sand beach along Mexico’s Riviera Maya. Overlooking the turquoise Caribbean Sea, I’m about as far away from holiday hoopla and craziness as I can get when the beach butler comes by to see if I need anything.

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PIGEON FORGE, Day four
ByEileen Ogintz November 27, 2009July 9, 2021

Check out the lights! Four million–really–blue and green and clear ones on trees and buildings. Welcome to Dollywood. Of course it is named for star Dolly Parton who grew up in a two room cabin not far from here, pigeon forge, TN—you can even see a replica of the cabin where she grew up with 11 brothers and sisters and it seems one bed.

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PIGEON FORGE – Day Three
ByEileen Ogintz November 26, 2009July 9, 2021

I haven’t stopped eating—corn fritters made from corn meal milled at the historic Old Mill that is on the National Register of Historic Places–continuously operating for 170 years. I started the day at The Log Cabin with country ham and fresh biscuits.

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PIGEON FORGE – Day Two
ByEileen Ogintz November 25, 2009July 9, 2021

Trivia question: What is the most visited National Park? (Hint: It isn’t Yellowstone, Yosemite or the Grand Canyon) It’s Great Smoky National Park—more than 550,000 acres that straddle Tennessee and North Carolina that attracts more than 9 MILLION visitors a year.

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GET RID OF THAT OLD CRIB–NOW!
ByEileen Ogintz November 24, 2009June 28, 2023

I know when the new baby comes to visit it’s tempting to put your grandchild in the same crib you used as a new parent. DON’T!

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PIGEON FORGE, Tennessee – Day one
ByEileen Ogintz November 23, 2009July 9, 2021

The Living room is beautifully decked out for the holidays with greenery, wreaths and a tree in all its glory. On the mantel in my bedroom, Santa shares space with golden elk and garland festooned with bright red holiday balls and ribbon. Even the lamp is tied with a big red and gold holiday bow and there’s a poinsettia (albeit a silk one) in the bathroom.

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DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS
ByEileen Ogintz November 23, 2009June 28, 2023

I just got back from two entirely different kinds of destinations that are winners for entirely different kinds of families.

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Cruises & All-Inclusive | Families & Groups | Getting There | Weekly Column

When Life Interferes With a Planned Celebration
ByEileen Ogintz November 15, 2009June 28, 2023

Life has a way of changing planned celebrations. Jean Anne McKiernan and Richard Sandano were planning a big Brooklyn, N.Y., wedding when they discovered—very happily—they were going to have a baby.

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It pays to ask
ByEileen Ogintz November 14, 2009June 28, 2023

I’ve been saying for months that in this economy, we should ask for what else the hotel/resort/ cruiseline can do for us–a better room, resort credits, free food. But until last week, I hadn’t thought about that in the context of a family emergency. I found myself handling flights and hotels for family converging in Illinois after my 90-year-old mother-in-law was rushed to the hospital and then died.

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Sailing Home from Bermuda
ByEileen Ogintz November 10, 2009July 7, 2021

Life is too short to waste a minute, I think. We say goodbye to Bermuda and Hamilton’s Town Hall (click image to enlarge) DAY 5—I wake up on board Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas

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High Tea at the Hamilton Fairmont Hotel
ByEileen Ogintz November 9, 2009July 16, 2021

We learn it is the only place—and the place—for a traditional English Tea. In the 1840s, Anna, the 7th Duchess of Bedford, wanted a snack for tea and thinly sliced bread and butter.

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To San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences, the Greenest Museum in the Country
ByEileen Ogintz November 8, 2009June 28, 2023

In the year since it has re opened, the Cal Academy has emerged as the city’s top cultural tourist attraction, drawing more visitors than Alcatraz Kids get up close and personal with specimens at the Academy of Sciences

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The rain stops in Bermuda
ByEileen Ogintz November 8, 2009July 16, 2021

Not sunny, but not raining. Just 66,000 people live on this pristine island—actually a series of about 360 small coral island, which is part of the British Commonwealth. Yes, we see businessmen wearing Bermuda shorts, knee-high socks, and shirts and ties to work. Hedges are manicured and lawns mowed. Houses are painted a rainbow of colors—bright orange, green and blue, pastel pinks and yellows.

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