Before reading this article, go view our Youtube channel to see our videos while doing family tours around South Africa, Please like and subscribe or let us know what areas you would like us to visit. You can also view our products and gallery page for more info.
Our trip to Germany: Planning ahead for a extended Family Vacation
The Arndt Family will be taking a trip to Germany in march and this time we will be bringing a member of our extended family along. My Mother-in-law will be joining us and this will be her first trip abroad in nearly 70 years. So it will be quite a experience for her. Add that this will be Connor's first trip overseas as well, and he will be two years old then, this will make for a eventful trip for all of us.
But naturally there will be some things to prepare for beforehand when it comes to handling toddlers and elderly parents on a trip like this. If we consider the fact that we have a smoker who has never been overseas, on a long flight such as this, a active toddler who at least like car trips, but will require constant monitoring and things to do when out and about, there are things to be aware of.
In this article we will be discussing some of these aspects that we have seen come up when planning a vacation to Germany with elderly parents and toddlers.
Point 1: where to stay that can accommodate everyone.
So when we started planning our trip, we were aware of the fact that we would need to work around a elderly parent who is not very mobile and has difficulty climbing stairs. Combine this with the fact that we would need accommodation that would fit a family of 4, it means we had certain requirements. These included:
ground level accommodation
3 bedrooms minimum for me and my wife, mother in law and toddler so no one interferes with anyone when it comes to bed times and privacy etc.
a bath where possible as standing in a shower for long periods can be difficult and bathing a toddler is easier with play time etc.
Self catering accommodation due to stomach issues and a toddler being selective over their food choices.
So this automatically canceled out the large majority of hotels as they normally had separate rooms for our mother in law and us with Connor and this could be a issue as if she required assistance in anyway she could not just call out and we would here. Hotels also don't have self catering units normally, but they do have elevators normally, which would have made getting to and from the rooms easier. So we then had to expand our search to include guest houses which allowed for self catering units, in a single residence, and preferably without stairs.
But that is where the problem comes in. Through the search, we noticed a lot of the houses in Germany are built to be multi level. So finding a bungalow as they are called in Germany (a single level home) was very hard and so we had to be ok with having stairs for her to climb wherever we went. Thankfully a single flight of stairs ins not a problem, it will just a little longer.
After all the searching, we were able to settle on a few locations for our trip through Germany, landing in Frankfurt, onto Rothenburg, then to Schwangau, The Black Forest and finally Heidelberg to visit family.
Our locations are:
we are staying in the Viktoria cottage which is on two floors and has two bedrooms and a pull out couch for two more people, or can be used for a toddler. Otherwise they provide a crib if required. Breakfast is included but they also have a kitchen in the apartment. No bathtub but that can be dealt with pretty easily for a few nights. So from a family travel perspective this location gets a 3.75/5 as I don't see the bathtub being that much of a problem, but the flight of stairs might be an issue for the less mobile. but it offers self catering accommodation and a laundry and a baby crib, so has a fair amount going for it as well.
While we are staying in Schwangau to visit locations such as Neuschwanstein, we will be staying in Schwangau at Haus Moni. We had the option of staying in nearby Fussen as well, but this seemed to meet our needs better. We will be staying in the Enzian apartment. We had some confusion initially as the website states it is a 2 bedroom but the booking.com link stated it as being 3 bedroom. After confirming with the owner, it is a 3 bedroom and there website is incorrect. Please note they do not speak English so some German goes a long way with this, and they require cash payment. The apartment has a living room with two bathrooms with a bath and shower. Kitchen has all necessities with a stovetop, refrigerator, dishwasher and all kitchenware required. as expected there are stairs. But it provides mountain and landmark views of the castles nearby and all tourist locations are within 20km. They can also provide breakfast if you would prefer that instead of making it yourself, at a extra fee. This gets a 4/5 as it has the extra bedroom and two bathrooms with baths which is always a good thing. a baby crib can be arranged as well at a extra fee.
Onto The Black Forest, where we will be staying in the small town of Breitnau. This is probably the smallest town we will be staying in when we are there, and as such our accommodation is very quiet and surrounded by nature.
We will be staying in the Ravenna Bach apartment, as it has accommodation for 6 people in 3 separate bedrooms, with a bathroom on the ground floor with a bathtub overlooking the stream.
a full kitchen is available with coffee machines, dishwasher, stove top, dining area indoor and outdoor and they have a washing machine for doing laundry as well. it has heating available with fireplaces.
The Kitchen is especially useful as being away from everything, it is easier to cook your own food. But there is also a hotel 150m away with a restaurant if you prefer not to.
Once again the one flight of stairs make an appearance, but that is a reality to deal with. all the beds in this apartment are double beds, so we will build a fort around Connor to prevent him falling out the bed and use the bed rail we have at home as well.
there are no baby cribs or extra beds available, so this might be an issue for some with younger children, but we moved our son to his own bed around 18 months old. and babies can sleep anywhere, just take the necessary precautions and you will be fine.
This gets a family rating of 3.75/5, due to the lack of a crib and stairs, but if we were rating this on a overall location, beauty, facilities etc., it would easily get a 4.5/5.
For the last part of our journey, we will be staying in Heidelberg to visit my uncle and brother. My mother will also be coming in from England and will be staying a few days with us. So for this we needed a three bedroom minimum with a kitchen and plenty of space. We settled in on the Heidelberger Dachsbuckel and the Pinot Blanc room. We actually know very little about what we are getting, expect that it has two bathrooms, a large kitchen and three bedrooms. It is situated on a wine farm, which I know sounds a little crazy because if you read our other posts you would know my wife is a recovering alcoholic, with her choice being wine. But the world exists and people are going to drink around her, so she needs to control herself in these situations as she cannot avoid them. But it has been nearly two years now sober.
Giving this place a family rating is a little difficult as we don't know exactly what is available, so we will stick with a safe 3.5 out of 5 until we have actually seen what the bathrooms and accommodations offer. and whether it can survive having two mother in laws/mothers in the same building with a grandson and how family dynamics work around that.
Point 2: The Rental Car
So when it comes to a rental car, there was a lot of back and forth about this, as we originally started with a Peugeot Rifter thinking that the boot space would be enough if we went for the 7 seater version. But when we measured the dimensions out and saw that even with the last two seats folded there would not be enough space for 4 bags, and luggage, a pram and a mobility scooter. it measured roughly 1m x 1m so we needed a different model car. I was using discovercars.com to look through all the deals that were available as when doing a comparison over a few months, there prices actually matched what the companies themselves offered, and at times had vehicles available on their website that the companies themselves did not have.
So I started checking on a daily basis what else was available. First I changed to a Opel Vivaro with Wheego, which was about R25000 at the time, but I had my concerns about them as there reviews suggest they sell more cars than they have and then make it your problem. I know its standard practice to oversell, but how the company acts when they do and run out of cars is what concerns me. So I checked in everyday and eventually found a ford Tourneo 9 seater custom with Enterprise for R22000. They had a good reputation at the Frankfurt branch and mostly seem to do their best. So we booked this one instead. We could also go view this car beforehand as it is available in South Africa, and we can drop the last row of seats which will give us more than enough boot space for all the mentioned luggage we have with us while on holiday.
This car allows for ample space for snacking and feeding while on the road, and for entertaining Connor. Thankfully he enjoys a long car ride and so just watching the world go by might be entertaining enough for him.
I also think discovercars.com might have been onto what we are doing by checking for lower rates everyday, as a few days after changing again, their prices for the Tourneo went up to R35000, a increase of about 50%.
Now maybe their algorithm adjusts prices based on timeframe of when your holiday is compared to the current date, which is plausible, Or it was told to increase prices after a certain vehicle is selected, or after a certain amount of changes.
Either way we got our vehicle for a lower rate than a few weeks later. and everyone is going to be comfortable. see a review on it here.
We will give a more in depth review of what the trip was actually like afterwards. But to see our itinerary go read our other blog article about it here.
Mobility around Germany
So the one aspect we had to consider was that my mother in law could not walk very fast or very far for a long time. So in Germany there was going to be a fair amount of walking around with castles and tours etc. So we needed a solution for this.
That is where the mobility scooter came into play. it was going to be compact enough and lightweight enough to allow us to take it wherever we needed to go around the cities and locations we were visiting.
Yes we will see how it works on cobblestones. Our selected version was the EnduraLite 4 Wheel Mobility Scooter as it has lithium batteries for recharging and weighed in at 35kg. There is also a process to go through to get it onto the Lufthansa plane. As it has batteries which the airline needs to be made aware of beforehand. You can find the form here. once filled in you must email to specialcases@dlh.de along with the security data sheet of the unit you want to have flown over. I am still waiting to see if they will approve it or not.
The Flight
So my Mother-in-Law has been on planes before, but never for this long. She already has a fear of the plane landing and taking off and my wife has already been warned that she will be having her hand crushed at these times. The idea of a sleeping pill was suggested, but that is not our decision.
otherwise everything should be easy from that point. She can walk herself to the plane. It would be preferred if it were a jetway/loading bridge were used, but there is no way of confirming that until we get there. could be a bus and then some steps, but we will see on the day what happens.
As for our son, he is already watching videos on planes and getting excited about them. We specifically watched videos with the lufthansa 747-800 so he gets used to the plane he will be flying in.
We also booked the first row of bulkhead seats (Row 18 D-G) to give us more space and deal with all the extra baggage etc without having to be a disruption to others as little as possible. Lufthansa also provided a wheelchair service for my Mother-in-Law if needed, and we are waiting to hear back about transporting the mobility scooter.
Comentários