September 2014 - The American Travel Project

What is a Farm Stay? And why you should try it

September 28, 2014 by

If you ask my daughter what her favorite vacation spot is, among all of the many places she has been in her 8 years, she would say American Girl Doll store and Times Square). Rocky Acre Farm is a farm stay. What makes this place so special, you ask? For one, she is an animal lover, and this place (being a farm) has lots of them. The other reasons are more intangible though. There is a special feeling that we get whenever we stay there. It is calm, peaceful, serene. It is not high tech and over achieving (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Although well cared for and beautiful, it is nothing fancy. As cliche as it sounds, it is a throwback to a simpler time. Just thinking about our times there makes me feel content.

We also did a farm stay when we visited Italy. In Tuscany we stayed on an olive farm (beautiful!), referred to there as agritourism (or agriturismo to be Italian about it). The views of the olive trees from the pool were just breathtaking. We had wonderful home cooked meals every evening in the outdoor courtyard with the other guests. The lodging was not at all upscale. It was authentic. There were no screens on the windows, so the tiny lizards were running around all over the room. The bathroom was a miniature all-in-one, with a toilet, showerhead on the wall, and drain in the floor – all within a 3 foot by 3 foot space. The bed was as hard as a rock. It’s one of my favorite travel memories.

What is a Farm Stay?

As you can probably tell from the descriptions above, a farm stay involves lodging on a working farm. Beyond that, they are as varied as the farms in which they are located. There are farm stays throughout the country (and the world, for that matter). Some are perfect for families, with lots of activities for kids. Some are more geared toward adults (like the ones at various vineyards). From the research I have done, it seems as though many are bed and breakfast style, with the farm atmosphere and workings as a bonus. Rocky Acre Farm offers probably the best breakfast I’ve ever had, made fresh using the eggs the kids gather in the hen house that morning.

The kids can ride the resident pony (and brush him too), feed the baby cows, milk the grown-up cows, hold newborn kittens, and chase chickens around the yard. There are porch swings, hayrides, and ATV rides around the farm with the farmer. They have canoes for exploring the waterway across the street. We felt like we were in the 1950s (in a good way). The accommodations are in the farmhouse, and there are different rooms to choose from. It is so popular that it is hard to get a reservation. Everyone who visits wants to return.

How can you find a Farm Stay?

One of the best websites I have found on the subject is here).

Another great resource is Reids Guides. This is a comprehensive list of places to find farm stays by state. I forsee many hours of my time clicking around on this page.

Here are some other links that I found while searching for our next farm stay:

Have you every done a farm stay? I would love to hear about your experiences!

Where: Hilton Waikoloa Village, Big Island, Hawaii

When: July 2014 for 6 nights

Who: 2 adults and 2 kids (ages 8 & 10)

In another post, I detailed how we used free night certificates for 2 nights & a timeshare presentation package for the other 4 nights. You can read more about that here.

Hilton Waikoloa Village Hotel Review

The only way that I can start this hotel review is by mentioning how enormous this resort is. I had done my research, so I knew this going into it, but I don’t think I quite understood exactly how huge it is until I saw it for myself. The fact that they have a boat and a tram to get guests from one area to another is one indication of the size. The resort is over 62 acres. There are 14 restaurants and bars and 3 pools. It took us 20 minutes to get to our room from the lobby/entrance area. You can see the map of the resort below. The arrow points to our room location, and red circle is the entrance.

Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort Map

Whether the size is a pro or a con is completely subjective. The kids absolutely loved it. They loved taking the tram and the boat. They loved the grandeur and enormity of it. My husband and I experienced the size as a con. It took forever to get from one spot to another. Going to the gym (in the Lagoon Tower, on the left on the map) was a major ordeal. Running back to the room for a forgotten item while at the pool (even the one closest to our tower) was a hassle. Now, if we had been given a room in the Lagoon Tower, maybe our experience would have been different. But we weren’t, and this review is based on our experience.

View of Ocean Tower section from across the resort

The Hilton Waikoloa Village tram

Check In & Service

Worst.Check in. Ever. We arrived on the 4th of July, which was part of the problem. We realized after the fact that a major July 4th celebration on the Big Island takes place in this area. Which means LOTS of locals book the hotel to stay for the weekend to celebrate & be closer to the action. Which also means that the hotel was packed for our first couple of days. Even just driving into the Waikoloa area, where many hotels are located, was a traffic nightmare. Understandable, as it was a holiday weekend, and people were going for the festivities that were taking place down the street (within the Waikoloa area). Once we got to the hotel, we waited in line for about an hour to check in (and it was very very hot) in the open air lobby. After waiting an hour, we were told that our room was not ready. We were treated very rudely by the front desk person. Probably the worst treatment I’ve ever experienced while on vacation. And then on top of that, we were supposed to get a call when our room was ready, and we didn’t. We waited a few hours, and then we had to wait in the hour long line once again. The only room that they could (or were willing to) give us was a partial ocean view in the Ocean Tower. We received some food vouchers upon check-in because of our Hilton Gold status. They do not offer free breakfast to Gold members, but give $10 food vouchers (I think we got 2 per day).

It was only the third time I’ve ever had to complain at a hotel, and I’m not all that comfortable with it. But we felt that the management needed to know the details of the situation and what happened (which are too long and boring to go into in more detail here). The good news is that the hotel did try to make it up to us. They gave us extra vouchers for food, which was very helpful (because the food is very expensive). The person who ended up contacting me about the issue was friendly and apologetic. We ended up getting $140 in food vouchers plus a 10% off food coupon (which you can normally purchase for about $30).

Service overall was OK. Not fabulous and not terrible. It was such a busy first few days that I think that they were so overwhelmed. We were told as much by one of the bellman. I think it’s another downfall of a hotel being so large. After the holiday weekend ended, things did improve. The occupancy went down enough to change the experience completely. I would suggest not staying there on a holiday if at all possible.

The Room & View

Like I mentioned, we were given a room with 2 double beds in the Ocean Tower. It was a very standard hotel room with a tiny bathroom. There was a mini fridge, and we requested a microwave. We had purchased some food because of the high food prices at the resort, so we did use both. We also purchased beer and wine at the grocery store to save money on drinks. The balcony was a decent size, with 2 chairs and a small table. It was a partial ocean view, but mostly looked out onto the golf course.

The view from our Ocean Tower balcony

The Resort Activities

This is probably the best thing about the Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort – there are tons of things to do. Although most do come with extra cost.

Pools – The pools are large, with some features like slides (not elaborate water features though). We went to all of the pools at different times, just to check them out. The kids liked the pool at the Ocean Tower the best, which was a good thing since it was closest to our room (and no tram needed to get to it). I think what they liked best was that they made lots of new friends each day because there were a seemingly endless number of kids at the resort.

One of the slides at the Ocean Tower pool

The pool area was pretty dirty the first few days because of the sheer number of people. After the crowds died down the cleanliness improved a ton. We never saw any pool service at all (not sure if it exists). There was a place to order drinks and some food, but it wasn’t easy to get to. They also stopped serving before dinner time.

Lagoon – The lagoon was a unique and interesting feature. I think it was my favorite thing about the hotel. Because of the sea turtles! The lagoon is four acres, and is open to the ocean, so all kinds of sea creatures can enter. We had brought snorkeling equipment with us, but it can be rented at the lagoon. We were able to see tons of fish and sea turtles in the lagoon. The turtles love to play over near the waterfall, and they are easy to spot. One of them came within an inch of bumping into my daughter while we were snorkeling!

The lagoon at the Hilton Waikoloa Village

They rent out various kinds of recreational equipment at the lagoon. It is pricey though. You can find more about lagoon activities here.

Another lagoon view

TIP: Ask one of the bellmen if they have any equipment available that was left behind. We were given boogie boards, beach chairs, an umbrella, and mats that previous guests had left. When we checked out, we left some beach toys and things that we had purchased (plus the things that we had originally gotten from the bellman).

Dolphin Quest– This is one of those swimming with the dolphins things. We did not do this, so I can’t comment on the experience except to say that it is super expensive. You have to judge for yourself (after doing your research) whether you think it’s an ok thing to do. Some people do. Some people don’t.

Luau – This is another thing that we did not do (we had done a hotel Luau before, and felt like it was a once and done kind of thing). It takes place in the Lagoon Tower area.

There are also other types of activities available that you can read about here.

It is important to note that while there are lots of things to do at the resort, the Big Island has so much to offer, it would be a shame to spend too much time at the hotel. There are such fabulous beaches and so many other things to see an do (you can read about what we did here).

The Restaurants and Food

As noted above, the food at the resort is expensive. This is not unexpected for a resort in Hawaii. We ended up spending very little money on food at the hotel, but that was because of the food vouchers we were given because of our negative customer service experience. We stretched the vouchers out as much as possible & this is how we did it:

Purchased some food at a grocery store & requested a microwave (room had a mini-fridge) – some ideas would be peanut butter & jelly, soup, mac & cheese, frozen meals, snacks, cereal & milk, yogurt, fruit, hummus & baby carrots
Often we would make a picnic dinner for the kids & would order (to go) from the Boat Landing Cantina restaurant, which was closest to our room. We would take our food out to the grass along the water to watch the sunset and eat.
Dona & Toni’s restaurant has pizza and salads that can be shared. These can also be ordered to-go.
We bought beer and wine at the Longs Drug Store to save money on drinks (and a case of water)
There is a ‘gourmet’ grocery right when you enter Waikoloa resort area (on the left). They have prepared foods and sushi that was very good. We stopped and got food to take to the beaches with us. It isn’t really cheap, but we liked the food there & it was cheaper than at the hotel
Search for farmers markets or fruit stands. We went to a few, and always had fresh bananas, papaya, and other fruits (I miss the lychee!)
We were given some breakfast buffet vouchers (again, as a gesture to make up for our poor customer service experience), and the buffet was quite good. I don’t know that I would pay for it, but I did notice some rates that have breakfast included (this would be a better consideration in the off season when rates are lower)

One small part of the breakfast buffet

The Gym and Spa

The gym is nothing to write home about. I think that they assume that people will take advantage of the natural wonder that is the Big Island and participate in fitness in a more authentic way. I, on the other hand, needed to complete a specific fitness program and needed man-made machinery in order to do that. The gym had 2 rooms, one for cardio and one for weights. They were pretty empty, and understandably so.

After I used the gym, I went to the spa to use the facilities there (they let me use the spa because of my Hilton Gold status). I did not get any services, but used the hot tub and steam room. The hot tub was relaxing and was semi open-air. I could hear the luau going on next door.

Conclusion:

Would I stay here again? This is such a hard one because I have very mixed feelings about this hotel. I lean toward saying no, I would not stay here again. While there were definite positives (the grounds are beautiful, as is the setting), I think that it was just too large for our liking. We also picked a holiday weekend, and high season, which did not improve matters. The room was nothing special, and the Ocean Tower was very far from everything. I think that our experience may have been different if we were in the Lagoon Tower (but maybe not). While the kids thought it was great, we adults didn’t enjoy having to take a tram or boat to get around the resort. We also had a initial negative experience with the service.

We love the Big Island, and would go back in a heartbeat. I think we will choose a different accommodation next time though, We stayed for 2 nights in a treehouse near Volcano (you can read about that here), and we absolutely loved that.

I always try to see the positive side of things though, even with a less than stellar experience. One thing we really loved were the sunsets (of course these aren’t exclusive to the Hilton Waikoloa Village though!).

One of our Summer 2014 family trips was a road trip from our home in Pennsylvania to New England. We visited Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont, staying for 10 nights along the way. We were able to make this trip happen thanks to our hotel points. Although there are certainly much more charming and interesting places to stay in New England (and pretty much anywhere, for that matter), we would not have been able to pay out of pocket for those 10 nights and do all of the other trips that we planned for 2014. This is how using hotel points made this trip possible for our family (and also for our friends, who did the same exact thing as us).

The trip and our itinerary worked out really well. I will go into details about things to do and places to visit in another post. In this post, I will detail which hotels we stayed in along the way.

When: August 2014

Who: 2 families. Our family of 2 adults and 2 kids (ages 8 & 10) and our friends with 2 adults and 3 kids (ages 9, 9 & 2)

Where: This map below was our road trip route:

New England Hotels Using Points

1. Hyatt Place Mystic, CT

The Hyatt Place in Mystic is a Hyatt category 3 hotel, which means that it is 12,000 points or 6,000 + $75. We were in the process of completing the Hyatt Diamond Trial, so we used the points + cash option in order for our stay to count as a qualifying night. It is also possible to use the annual free night certificate that we get from having the Hyatt credit card, but we used ours in Seattle this year.

Because of the location of this hotel, in a desirable vacation destination (especially in summer), the prices tend to be very high. They also often have 2 night weekend minimums. These were the paid prices for the dates we visited:

Hyatt Places Mystic price (that we did NOT pay) for 2 nights

Quick Hotel Review: It was a typical Hyatt Place, but a clean and friendly one at that. If you are unfamiliar with the Hyatt Place brand, you can read more about it here. Personally, I like Hyatt Place hotels for family travel. They have more space than a typical standard hotel room (ours had 2 double beds & a large sofa). The free breakfast is decent. The Hyatt Place in Mystic is in a very good location for visiting some of the tourist sites (Mystic Village is really close, and Mystic Seaport is right down the street – we were able to walk). When we went into the town of Mystic for the evening to walk around & eat dinner, we drove. I really liked the hotel & location and would definitely stay there again.

2. Sheraton Portsmouth Harborside Hotel, NH

This Sheraton is an SPG Category 4 hotel, which was 10,000 SPG points per night. Cash + points was not available at the time of our booking. We booked into a standard room with 2 double beds. At check in, I was offered club level because of my SPG Gold status. This is not standard for this hotel, however. Our friends (who checked in before we did) are also SPG Gold and were not given access to the club. They were not given free breakfast or any other amenities. This is the paid price for the room we were given:

Quick Hotel Review: I have mixed feelings about this hotel. If I had actually paid the above price, I would have been disappointed. Considering that we were able to use points, I think it was a good use of those points. The location is excellent. We were able to walk into the adorable town of Portsmouth & to Prescott Park (which was great). There are tons of restaurants and cute shops very close by. The rooms are very small and basic. The club is not very nice at all, and the woman working there was downright mean. It is very small, with very limited seating. The gym was tiny, but all I wanted was a treadmill, so it worked out for me. There is an indoor pool that the kids enjoyed. There are other chain hotels in Portsmouth, so I don’t think I would stay here again if the others were a good option.

3. Hyatt Place Portland, ME

This is a new Hyatt Place, right in the heart of Portland, Maine. It is the same Hyatt Place style as the one in Mystic, but in a city setting. It was extremely clean, and was a fabulous use of Hyatt points (8,000 points for a Category 2 – no points+ cash was available at the time of our booking). The paid nights were extremely expensive when I checked for our night. I would NEVER pay that much, but this just illustrates the point:

Quick Hotel Review: The hotel itself was new and very clean. As I said above, I like the Hyatt Place brand for family travel. The room was large, bright, and made good use of space. There isn’t enough storage for clothes, but we were not staying very long so it didn’t matter for us. We had a room with 2 double beds and the extra seating area with a large sleeper sofa. The location of this hotel is excellent, right in the heart of downtown Portland and within walking distance to tons of restaurants and bars. I had read reviews of noise because of location, but we did not have that issue at all (we asked for a quiet room). I would stay here again in a heartbeat, and would love to go back to Portland to spend more time there.

4. Bar Harbor Regency (aka Holiday Inn Resort Bar Harbor – Acadia National Park), Maine

I have so much to say about this hotel that I will be doing a separate review. What I will say here is that we used IHG points to stay here for 3 nights. At 35,000 points it was a lot, but the summer rates were really high (over $300 per night + tax). And Bar Harbor hotel choices are much more limited than they should be. This hotel was originally (and kind of still is) the Bar Harbor Regency. It is now a Holiday Inn, although almost all of the signs and printed material only say Bar Harbor Regency. The good news about that is the ability to use points for a stay at a hotel near Acadia National Park. The location was decent for visiting the park. It was a short drive into the town of Bar Harbor. It was one of the strangest hotels I have ever visited….stay tuned for a detailed review.

5. Holiday Inn Express & Suites, White River Junction, VT

We booked this hotel using one of our annual free night certificates from the IHG credit card (the $49 annual fee gets you a ‘free’ night each year). It wasn’t the best use of the certificate, but we had to cancel the night we had booked with it somewhere else (that’s another story) & it was expiring anyway. The nice thing about it was that this hotel has several different room types, including 2 room suites. We were able to choose any available room, even though the paid prices were all different. We obviously chose the largest suite available (it was going for around $200 + tax for our night).

Quick Hotel Review: I was pleasantly surprised by how nice this hotel was. We were only there for one night, but it had a large kitchen in the suite, which was nice. The hotel itself was very clean and updated. The free breakfast was decent. The staff was very friendly. The location worked out perfectly for us along our route. It is not in any town (it’s off of a highway), but it is close to lots of great places, like Woodstock, VT (a beautiful little town).

6. Hyatt House Hartford North/Windsor, CT

This hotel choice was purely based on us looking for a Hyatt hotel along our route (to break up our drive home from Vermont). We wanted to get the Hyatt night credit for our Diamond Trial (as mentioned above). The rates were higher than expected (see below for why), so we used the points + cash option (4,000 points + $55 for a Category 2 hotel) instead of paying outright.

Quick Hotel Review: We got there late, after a long day of traveling. There was a huge gathering happening at the hotel, which was kind of shocking considering it seemed more like a business hotel in a very random location. The hotel was packed. I have never seen a hotel so crowded with tons of kids running around in the lobby and probably close to 60 kids in the small hotel pool. The staff were so friendly, but completely overwhelmed by the chaos that was taking place. They gave us a room & said that it was away from the group. Because the hotel was booked up, there were no upgrades available. We were given a room with a king bed and a sleeper sofa. There were no blankets for the sleeper sofa in the room, and when we called down to the desk we were told that there was a waiting list for blankets because every room had so many kids that they were overwhelmed with requests for extra blankets. We gave our kids the blanket from the king bed, and decided we would be cold for the night (ugh!). A while later, a nice gentleman knocked on the door & gave us a comforter that he dug up from who knows where (I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually drove home and got it from his house or something). Overall, this hotel stay was a very odd experience. It was our first night in a Hyatt House. I really liked Family Travel for Real Life event) & really liked it a lot. If we are in a location with a Hyatt House in the future, I would not hesitate to stay, especially with a family.

Our New England road trip was one of our favorite family travel experiences we’ve had, and we could not have afforded it without using our hotel points to make it happen. It is just another reason why I love this hobby!

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