Sleeping Arrangements, stacked like cord wood!

Today was a more relaxed day on the road.  We got up and enjoyed another complimentary breakfast.  When choosing hotels on this trip we have been looking for ones with complimentary breakfasts and a swimming pool, traveling as a large group, meals get very expensive so staying at a hotel that offers a complimentary breakfast really helps.  As the complimentary breakfasts tend to be quite substantial, come lunch time we stop at a grocery store and pick up fruit, buns, cold cuts and cheese to make a quick, lighter, inexpensive lunch.  The pool is a bonus because it provides a way to release the extra energy the kids seem to have and makes it easier than continually telling them to quiet down in the hotel room.

Having a large family with multiple needs we have found hoteling easier for us if we bring playpens for the 2 youngest children and we also bring a couple of individual air matresses for the children that have difficulty sharing a bed.  The younger 4 children shared a queen sized bed sleeping width wise (like cord wood) instead of length wise, this will work while they are young but will change as they get bigger. When hoteling with a large family you frequently run into issues of how many people are allowed per room.  At a couple hotels they were okay with 7 per room as 1 (in each room) was in a playpen.  One hotel we had an apartment suite that we all stayed in and another hotel had rooms for 8 people.  When determining what arrangement works best ask the hotel staff what room configurations they have for large groups, for us the apartment suite was the least expensive.  Also when the hotel staff quote you a price, ask if this is their best price.  We found that the pricing varied from what was quoted to the "best" price.

After breakfast and packing up for the day we were off to the "zoo".  This was a very large zoo that we spent many hours touring in the nice warm weather.  Some of the displays were outside and others had indoor housing for the animals.  They had a hippo display with a large glassed in pool, that you could view the hippos while they walked on the bottom of the pool.  A couple children were disappointed as the elephants had recently been relocated.  For most of us the penguin display was the favorite and the added bonus was it was in an air conditioned building.

We then got back on the bus and the exhausted children napped while we drove a couple more hours to our next destination.  Arriving at supper time we stopped for dinner and checked into tonight's accommodations early enough for an evening swim.