Tag Archive for: luxury resort

Family glamping, Ritz-Carlton style

The goodies inside a Ritz-Carlton tent.

The goodies inside a Ritz-Carlton tent.

In most circles, the notion of “glamping” involves sleeping outside in a really fancy tent. At The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Tahoe, however, it has a slightly different meaning—yes, it involves a really fancy tent, but the tent is just for kids, and the little canvas oasis gets pitched INSIDE your room.

The resort calls the package its “Just for Kids Indoor Campout.” For $100 per child per stay, the promotion includes a 4-foot-by-3-foot tent complete with Ritz-Carlton linens and featherbed, an activity book with crayons, a camp light (which kids can take home and keep), a teddy bear, and a s’mores kit that can be enjoyed by the whole family at the Fire Pit.

Sounds cool, right? We thought so. Which is why we booked it for visit to the property next month.

Our girls love indoor camping here at home; we usually spend at least part of most rainy (or exceedingly hot) days doing precisely that. Sometimes I break out my backpacking tent. Sometimes we use a special princess tent I bought the girls for Christmas in 2013.

Heck, sometimes, the kids collect all the blankets in the house and use them to build tent-like structures of their own.

At The Ritz, of course, the “camping” experience should be a bit more posh. (The featherbed alone sort of makes me wish they offered “Indoor Campout” packages for grownups too.) The best part: If either one of the girls decides she *doesn’t* like the tent, we can either unfurl the pull-out sofa or use the tent linens to set up a bed on the floor.

Don’t get me wrong; we don’t intend to spend the whole 4-day excursion partying in indoor tents. The girls never have been to Tahoe, and we’ve planned our adventure around hiking the Tahoe Rim Trail, swimming in the lake, and hanging out with friends who rent a house nearby.

(I also will be reporting a story about kids clubs; the Ritz Kids Club, which incorporates educational activities designed by Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Future Society, is one of the best.)

I can’t think of a better way to kick-off summer.

When you stay in a hotel with kids, where do they sleep?