Category — Travel Advice

We did it!  We visited Universal Orlando’s two wonderful theme parks which included The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.   We toured the parks for two and a half days over Thanksgiving weekend 2010, and had a fantastic time.  I have to admit that my wonderful travel companions (my three kids) made the trip a joy forever.

We learned a lot during our visit, and I have written up an article full of tips to help other families enjoy their trips there as well.  Please check out my full article about Universal Orlando Tips and Advice – A few tips to make your visit to Universal Theme Parks and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter More Enjoyable!

Read the full article here: http://www.momsminivan.com/universal_orlando_tips.html

Also see the review we wrote for Butter Beer from the Wizarding World.

We hope you enjoy the parks as much as we did!

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Recipe:

• 6 Girl Scouts
• 1 Girl Scout leader
• Field trip to the local food bank to do community service sorting canned goods
• Large helping of silliness and giggles

Final product:    Minivan with barf on the floor.

Since I first posted my story on Carsickness Blows, where I sing the praises of a wonderful product I had recently obtained, I had not yet had the opportunity to even use it.   ….Until now.    On a recent Girl Scout field trip with my minivan full of giggly girls, the laughter got a little bit out of hand until one of them finally lost it — all over the floor in the back of the van.    The mess was everywhere, but I had no fear.

In fact, I was secretly delighted.  At last I had a chance to try my yak pack, a clean up kit for car owners who travel with kids prone to erupt into bouts of carsickness.  The first thing I did was pass the darling Girl Scout a barf bag, so she could contain any further pukage until we got home (I keep plenty of these on hand in my van).  Once the girls were safely delivered, it was time for the real test.

During the cleanup, I used the little scoop to remove most of the chunks while wearing the nifty non-latex gloves (my favorite part!!).  Then I sprinkled the absorbent powder that did a fantastic job of neutralizing the odor.  When it dried, I was able to vacuum it all, and my car smelled good as new!  It even passed my daughters’ sniff test.  To be honest, my minivan never did have that “new car smell” since I bought it used, but the point is that it didn’t smell like vomit anymore.

I have enough of the absorbent materiel left over for a future cleanup should it ever be necessary. And given the fact that I will be hauling children around in my van for many years to come, I’m sure that the upchuck will abound in my days to come.

Yes, Virginia – there is a cleanup kit for carsickness.  It’s a Bio hazard yak pack.  I give it a thumbs up!

….Read more for tips on preventing carsickness

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A MomsMinivan reader, Barbie, posted a picture (above) on her blog Mamaology showing how to re-use the printable bingo cards from the printable car games page on Momsminivan.com.

She wrote, “I made some games from a website called… momsminivan.com. The Bingo game above is from there. You can print it out for free, place it in a ziplock bag and use dry erase markers to check off the items you find, then erase it and use it again. I plan to give lollipops to the winner of the games.“

These bingo cards are the perfect size to fit into a quart sized freezer bag. The dry erase markers work perfectly on them. Fantastic! Thanks for sharing, Barbie. I hope you had a great trip with all of your adorable girls.

Last summer I had the pleasure of appearing as a featured “expert” at the PBS Parents website to talk about keeping kids entertained on the road. This week I have been invited back!

We are discussing ways to save money when traveling with your kids on the road, and creative ways to keep the kids entertained in the car without emptying your wallet.

Please click over and join in the Q & A discussion!

update: link has been updated to reflect archived story

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Don’t let your tightened budget put a crimp in your fun. There are many ways to save money, even on a road trip to help cut the costs. I’ve put together an article with lots of useful ideas to get you started on the following topics:

• Plan Ahead for Meals and Snacks
• Plan Free Entertainment for the Kids for the Road
• Adopt Good Driving Habits that Save Gas
• Call Ahead for Overnights On The Road
• Plan Your Route
• Save Money At Your Home While You are Away

It can be found on my website at http://www.momsminivan.com/savemoney.html

Hit the road, have fun and be safe!

Allow me to introduce my champion of chunks — my darling daughter#2 (Dd2). It’s a little ironic that she is such a barf queen now, because as an infant, she was the LEAST vomituous (I just made up that word I think) of my three children when it came to baby barf and spit up. As she grew older she thoroughly surpassed her older siblings in the heave-ho department. Most of her barfage is due to the dreaded result of car sickness. Poor child… motion sickness bags are her mainstay.

She is our baroness of barf. The terror of the technicolor yawn. A wizard at whistling beef. A trendsetter at tossing cookies. The heralder of heaving. Sweetheart of the stomach tsunami. A goddess at shouting groceries. Yup, she’s in training to be a supermodel.

We have found many ways to deal with her up-chuck when it presents its self. We try to avoid it when possible using many of these useful tips and motion sickness remedies , but sometimes barf happens anyway. When it does, I am now armed with a new product called the YakPack, a vomit clean-up kit for travel.

The kit contains vomit-absorbent/odor neutralizer, a scoop and scraper for rapid pick up, antimicrobial hand wipes, heavy duty dry cloth and non-latex gloves for clean-up. It also has a plastic bag for removal and disposal, a clear zipper bag for convenient storage, and a barf bag and absorbent lap pad to protect surfaces (although it’s probably too late to use these by the time you need the kit). The odor neutralizer smells really good, or at least it does now before the barf has been added.

Where has this been all my life? (all of her life, rather). It has everything needed to clean up when I’m on the road or in the air, and it fits easily into a carry-on bag or in my glove box. I’m SO excited about it that I can hardly contain myself.

That’s right folks, I can’t wait for my kid to hurl in the car so I can try it.

. . . Is that wrong?

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I’ve been groaning along with the rest of my readers over recent gas prices. But in a press release I received today, things got a little clearer. There is no need to let the pump prices become a fun-sucking black hole in your summer plans! Here is an excerpt:

Everyone seems to be complaining about the high cost of fuel causing them to cancel their summer vacation plans. Carol White, co-author of the book Living Your Road Trip Dream, says, “I don’t like the higher prices, but if you take a realistic look at it, it’s something that most of us can deal with.”

Did you cancel last year’s plans? According to AAA, gas prices have increased an average of $.56 a gallon since this time last year. Let’s go crazy and say it has been $.75 a gallon in your area. If your summer trip is 1000 miles long and your car gets an average of 23 MPG, your fuel will cost $32.60 more this year than last. One dinner at home instead of eating out before you go will save that much. Is $32 any reason to cancel your vacation?

Carol White is the co-author of the award-winning book, “Live Your Road Trip Dream” – the ultimate road trip planning guide for extended road trips.

Thanks for putting it into perspective. It may be a big increase in the price per gallon lately, but when you figure out how many gallons you are actually going to use, it’s not that big an increase in your overall travel budget. Just cut back a little somewhere else to make the ends meet. If you need help doing that, then check out all the ways you can save money on the road in my article “Stretch Your Dollar on the Road.”

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I love fan mail! Who doesn’t?! I got a really nice letter a while ago from a reader who had a great road trip. She sent me a list of some of the specific activities from MomsMinivan that were a big hit with her kids, and I thought others might like to know what worked well –

“I just wanted to thank you for your great ideas! We went on a roadtrip through Utah/Arizona in October – seeing 4 national parks and “4 corners” along the way. I prepared many things for the kids to do, but the biggest hits were:

• Counting cows game – my kids still say “your cows are dead” whenever they see a cemetery, and finding a man with a peg leg has become a big family joke.
• Fortunately, Unfortunately – they could do this all day.
• Pipe cleaners! My kids made strange hanging contraptions all over the backseat of the car. They want more, more, more!!
• Battleship – The kids love it, we even sent copies of it to a friend in Iraq to share with his soldier friends.

Thanks again – I love your site!!”

I’m so glad I could help! I wish you many happy travels! Readers, if you’re looking for the list of where she got these activities, head over to the article with my big list of kids car games.

QUESTION: What’s your favorite tactic for dealing with kids who start bickering in the back seat?

ANSWER:
Generally, the thing I recommend the most is to just change the activity. Make some suggestions to the kids from the ideas that you have hopefully prepared before the trip! More specifically though, my favorite tactic when nothing else seems to end the bickering is to put on some new music and start singing loudly! …..Very loudly!

The kids will either start singing along with me, or they will unite with each other to try to make the parents STOP singing! Either way, the bickering is over. It definitely helps to have a sense of humor about it. Sometimes I have even used it as a (humorous) consequence. For example, “You kids need to start another activity instead of bickering, or else I will be forced to start singing!” It works every time.

Some good advice I got from my father once — Be familiar with your spare before you hit the road! (ok, I got it more than once — I get it every time I got a new vehicle.)

Imagine being at the side of the road on a busy Interstate highway with a flat tire…. …alone…. in the dark.

I found myself in this situation recently. I was alone and about 50 miles from home in the countryside on a dark interstate highway on a short 200 mile road trip. It was 7 pm in January so it was pitch dark and very cold. My tire went flat. I pulled off the road as far as I possibly could. Changing a tire by the side of the road is very dangerous and very scary. But I knew what to do. Do you? Read more Flat Tire help for some great advice so you don’t get stuck!