Taking babies, toddlers and kids on holidays

Yay for this thread! Any tips for international flights travelling alone with a 4-5 month old? I'm planning a trip to Hong Kong before I return to work. I'll have to fly from Griffith or Wagga to Sydney and from there to HK. Also, has anyone travelled around HK with a baby? :D

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Hi all,
Glad I searched this first because I almost started a thread in a different forum...

DH and I were planning to go to Brisbane (we live about six hours by car north) to see Kings of Leon mid-March, we were going to just go for two nights and leave DD (17 months, will be around 20 months by then) with her grandparents, but we missed out on tickets. I was so disappointed that DH promised me a 'real' holiday to Brisbane around the same time (March, that is), for a longer period of time (around a week, 4 - 7 days) and since we weren't going to the concert we could take DD with us for her first holiday.

I'm planning an intinerary so that we don't spend our days sitting in a motel room staring at the TV (hey, we can do that at home!), and although I've already got an amazing list of things to consider, I'd like to get some suggestions from mums with kids around the same age. We're planning to spend the first night of our trip in Toowoomba staying with my grandmother, but after that, we're looking for accommodation in Brisbane.
Our requirements for accommodation are just that it has private facilities (bathroom etc) including a reasonable kitchen, as we're planning on preparing the majority of our meals in the room - we are saving furiously but meals tend to take away from things like touristy stuff and SHOPPING!!, and most restaurants aren't really child-friendly - we can't live on McDonald's for a week. We are on a budget and would prefer to spend under $150 a night, and we don't mind at all booking a motel room that is just a double/queen bed and room for DD's portacot. The only trouble I'm having right now is determining the restrictions on motel rooms - the ones that only have one bed state that the maximum residency is two adults - does that mean we can have DD with us or is that '2 adults, nobody else in the room, too bad'? We are happy to pay extra for a child, we don't require a bed or extra room... I don't know how to explain it.
So, if anybody can tell me the right questions to ask or things to look for when booking accommodation online (I've used wotif.com to book accommodation before and found it great, now that there is a child thrown into the mix I'm a bit more confused!), I'd appreciate it. Also, any suggestions for motels that other families with toddlers have had good experiences with, I'd definitely love to hear.

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Gothmum,
We stayed on the gold coast at a place called Treasure Island. It is a caravan park, but they also have self contained units. It was a couple of years ago now, but I think we paid about around $160-$170 a night. They had a pool with a little slide, spa, games room, tennis court, mini golf, coin operated washing machines and dryers. We were quite close to Seaworld (think it was less than a 20 mintue drive) and Movieworld (only a few minutes longer to get to than seaworld) They also had a bus pick up out the front, which went to theme parks and then you also get picked up from the theme parks in the afternoon.
They are a part of the BIG4 chain of holiday parks. You can google for BIG 4, and see some of their other parks. we had been looking at another BIG4 park, but chose this one because of it central location to the theme parks we were going to.
If you are doing theme parks, do you know that you can pre buy your tickets online for a bit cheaper or from RACQ if you are a member.
As for accommodation in Brisbane, I'm not sure about that one. We stayed pretty close to the CBD in 2007, and I got a motel room for DH and I for about $185 by booking it through the net (over the phone was considerably more) but it wasn't self contained. I have no idea if you would find anything that was self contained in brisbane... maybe post in the QLD thread to see if any of the local brissie girls can help?

As for shopping... if you can, you have to check out DFO. It's out near the airport. Fantastic savings to be found.
Where we stayed at Treasure Island, there was a place called Harbour Town over the road, and it has the factory outlets too..plus a woolies (great so we could get food to cook a meal).

Nic

We're thinking of going to NZ for the rugby world cup next Sept and I'm wondering the best way to manage it.

Would self-contained accom be best, or a campervan? Can you hire car seats for a campervan? I'd rather hire one thre than take ours.

We're looking at a game in Christchurch then travelling the south island for about a week to 10 days.

We're also waondering if it's smart to try taking a 1 year old to a loud football game or if I should stay with bub while DH goes to the game by himself. I don't know yet if bub could sit on our laps - it wouldn't be worth it buying an extra ticket.

Is it worth taking a portacot and stroller, or just take a carrier?

What a great thread - that OS holiday is suddenly looking realistically appealing! aaahhhh...something nice to think of when Im up at 3am feeding!

Looking for suggestions of plane friendly food and activities for a toddler (20 months) for a 6 hr international flight! Ideas I already have...

FOOD
Sultanas/dried fruit
Cheesesticks
Frozen Raffertys fruit pouches
Blueberries
Crisps (never eats these so should be a novelty)
Sandwich

ACTIVITIES
Crayons and notepad
Cheap stickers
New mini board books
Borrow a DVD player or use Iphone (flying Virgin Blue so not going to have tv on plane)

Would love some other ideas!

Get a cheap Magna Doodle (Magnetic writing board) - kept DS amused for ages!

This thread caught my eye as I recently travelled around asia for a month with 3 year old daughter and 5 year old son. I got a real mixed bag of reactions from my friends when I told them I was going to do this, some thought it was a great idea and some thought I was crazy. Needless to say I went ahead and did it, we went to Thailand and Cambodia and had a fantastic time the kids loved it !! I just felt it was so beneficial even such an early age to see this other life and mix with completely different children. We still travelled as we did a few years ago on trains and ok our accommodation was a little more comfortable but not flash. Of course you have to be sensible at times as you would travelling anywhere in the world but I never felt that we were ever in any real danger and I did not let us get into any uncomfortable situations.

All in all I am very happy we did it, and would recommend it to anyone