If you’re looking for advice on how to have the best family vacation in the Caribbean, here is a step-by-step guide to help ensure that your time in the Caribbean with your children is one of the best times of your life.

Get Ready

In addition to the normal clothes to bring during a long trip to a tropical island, bring lots and lots of snacks.   Candy bars will do as well as cookies, chips,  chocolates, drinks, and any other quick snacks the kids would like.   And really, you should never forget entertainment, too, which should come in handy specially on long plane rides.

Below are some recommendations for fun stuff your kids can do during the plane trip to the Caribbean. The suggestions are divided into categories addressed to specific age groups.

For Babies:

Babies are certainly attracted to bright colors and sounds, so any object that is bright and new should do the trick. Anything that makes rattling sounds could also work, as well as pop-up toys and music-makers. Other things you can take along are listed below:

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*  Mega-blocks (not necessarily the whole set; a few pieces would be enough)

*  Toys of entertaining shapes

*  Magnetic blocks that stick together

*  Sturdy plastic mirrors

For Toddlers:

Toddlers are more active, with a better grasp on how things are conducted, so they tend to need stuff that is completely different from what a baby would need. Be sure to carry some of the following:

*  Things that can be put into storage containers

*  Plastic or rubber balls

*  Small wind-up toys

*  Toys that “talk” — baby push buttons to activate the speak function (but not very loud)

*  Bubbles (not while on the plane; use in the airport before passing through security)

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*  Busy boxes with bells, buttons,  moving parts

*  Cardboard books

Pre-Schoolers

Children around ages three to five have a more sophisticated way of having fun than the toddler. You can occupy their attention by giving them stickers, picture books,  or activity books to amuse themselves with. Lap-sized wipe-off easels will also work and for girls, you can give them costume jewelry and small mirrors to play with.

Other items you can bring:

*  Sock puppets

*  Hole punch

*  Sticky notes

*  Inexpensive sets of plastic toys (inexpensive because small items such as these tend to get easily lost)

*  Wrapped presents, snacks (they can enjoy unwrapping them)

*  Magnetic letters and metal to fix them on

*  Interactive books

Almost anything can be used to amuse children around this age. Just make sure that they don’t injure themselves with any of these things, such as accidental swallowing.

For Older Children

This is for kids who have already been to grade school and know how to read and write. Before the trip, stop by a good kid’s bookstore and get real books that are small enough to store in your kid’s backpack. Comic books and interactive puzzle books are good substitutes.

The best part of visiting a kid’s bookstore these days is they normally have a non-book section somewhere inside where you can get all sorts of fun stuff for your older kid, including high-quality games like Hangman and Xs and Os, Battleships, Speak ‘n’ Spell, Monopoly (there’s a travel-size version), Sorry, Snakes ‘n’ Ladders,  miniature chess, and so on.

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Filed under: Travel -- Caribbean