Toddler Travels

This app recently was a pick of the week at Starbucks. My daughter is a fan of Dora, so I thought I'd give it a try. We played it for the first time a couple of weeks ago on the plane to Phoenix.

Basically, this app is a game with 2 objects:
1. Trace letters using your finger to move a plane and pick up acorns. The plane leaves smoke, thus "skywriting" the letter. You can choose uppercase letters, lowercase, or a combination.
2. Tilt the screen to make acorns fall into holes. When every hole is filled up, it reveals an object that starts with the letter you just traced.

My daughter enjoyed the animation and letters, and the game kept her engaged for a about an hour of our flight. The game is a bit finicky in that you need to trace the letters very accurately for the game to progress. This is a tricky thing: I understand that the game designers wanted kids to correctly trace the letters, but doing so can be difficult for the game's target audience--and even I didn't trace up to standards sometimes. Because my daughter has the fine motor skills of a kid her age, she had trouble tracing the letters as accurately as the game wanted. She eventually became so frustrated by this that we had to stop, even though she wanted to keep playing. I'm hoping that this frustration factor will decrease as her fine motor skills improve.

Overall grade: B

We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn during our trip to find housing and a preschool in State College. It's about a mile away from the Penn State campus and downtown State College, so although it's fairly convenient to these areas, you won't want to stay at this hotel without your own transportation.

Overall we were pleased with our stay. Our room was decent-sized and very clean. Although it was not a suite, our room had a "hospitality center" with a microwave and mini-fridge, which was convenient. Whenever my daughter didn't eat much of her dinner, we could get it in a to-go box and heat it up if she felt hungry later.

The hotel also boasted beds with mattresses that you could adjust for firmness. This was a great idea, but we never tried it. The description of where the dials were was not very clear. We spent some time looking for them on and near the wooden headboard without any luck. It wasn't until our last night that we found them on the mattress itself. They were underneath the fitted sheet; the mattress pad has a velcro flap that you pull out to access the dial. When we finally found the dials, we were too tired to play around with them.

Outside of the room, we enjoyed the indoor pool and spa area. It was on the small side, but well-maintained. We also appreciated the complimentary coffee, cocoa, and cookies available in the lobby all day long.

Breakfast: A lot of mid-range hotels include breakfast, but this one does not. A breakfast is offered for 9.95 a person (6.95 for children 12 and under). That price includes a buffet with hot and cold selections. You also can order from a list of hot dishes (omelets made to order, French toast, etc.) that aren't on the buffet at no additional charge. We ate the hotel breakfast one morning when we were pressed for time. We also knew that we wouldn't be able to eat lunch until late that day, so we figured that it would be worth it to eat a big breakfast. Everything was well prepared, and for our situation that day, we felt that it was our best choice because there isn't much for breakfast near the hotel. That said, we went elsewhere every other day. In all, the hotel breakfast is fine if you think you'll get your money's worth from it.
Bathroom: shower/tub combo
Blow dryer: yes
Crib: We didn't use one, but they are available.
Internet: In-room wifi and wired internet are available free of charge. We had no problems with the wifi.
Elevator: yes
Nearest playground: I didn't see anything within walking distance.

Recommend to childless friends: sure

Recommend to friends with young kids: sure
Website: http://www.hiltongardeninn.com/en/gi/hotels/index.jhtml?ctyhocn=SCESTGI

In the past, I have reviewed play areas in some large airports. University Park Airport, which serves the State College area, is not a large airport: in fact, it may be the smallest commercial airport I've ever seen, with just one departure lounge that has doors--not jetways--out to the tarmac. University Park Airport does not have a play area, but it does have something that I thought deserved its own shout-out: a reading shelf with books and magazines that passengers can borrow while they wait for their flights. It's not very big, but it has several children's books. It was a nice surprise that helped us pass the time there.

Toddler Travels will soon have a new home base: State College, PA! We went out there last week to check out housing and preschools.

Unfortunately for us, the best flight itinerary to State College involved a 6 AM departure from Phoenix. We had gotten my daughter to bed early the night before to help with the early flight and the time difference, but she still was short a few hours of sleep. True to her nature, though, she did not nap on the first flight. We landed in Detroit for our layover and promptly had a couple of misadventures: soaking an arm in a fountain and falling on an escalator. My daughter was wet and scared after that, but thankfully that was it. She was so exhausted that she dozed for most of our shorter flight to State College. We tried getting her to bed at 7 PM Eastern to make up for lost sleep, but it didn't work. She didn't settle in until her bedtime in Arizona, which ended up being the case every night we were there. She didn't sleep in late, and she only napped in the car, so she never made up for the lost sleep. It reminded me how hard it can be for kids--and parents--to deal with the time changes on short cross-country trips.

Our trip wasn't very touristy. We had appointments to see houses and preschools, and we met up with some friends who live in the area. The weather was great, so we visited parks between appointments and took some time to walk around downtown and buy my daughter a PSU shirt.

We are looking forward to checking out more of what the area has to offer once we move there. Until then, we will be crossing items off our Phoenix bucket list!

We recently visited the Sea Life Arizona Aquarium in Tempe, which is inside the Arizona Mills outlet mall. Depending on your point of view, the location is either kind of weird or kind of convenient. Having an aquarium in the middle of the desert also may strike some people as kind of weird, especially because the Sea Life group of aquariums emphasizes local sea life. That said, Sea Life Arizona does stick with that theme, just extending the local area to the whole Colorado River System and the Sea of Cortez.

I have less experience with aquariums than I do with zoos, but your expectations for Sea Life Arizona will have some impact on how well you like it. If you're expecting something large like Boston's New England Aquarium with animals like penguins and seals in addition to fish, you will be disappointed. On the other hand, if you go in expecting something more like the aquarium at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, you'll probably be happy with your experience. Even though most of the tanks are on the small side and there is not a huge variety of animals, you do learn that the Sea of Cortez is home to lots of aquarium favorites, such as stingrays, sharks, and seahorses. Information about each species is presented on a screen to the side of each tank that cycles through every species on the tank.

Sea Life Arizona has several kid-friendly features. One of them is the touch tank, where you can touch starfish.

The aquarium is set up so that you take a winding path through the space. This layout works well for practical reasons because it helps fit more into the space, but it's also good for families because it's stroller-friendly. The only stairs are optional ones you can climb if you want an overhead view of the shark-and-ray tank. Sea Life Arizona also does interesting things with the layout of the tanks. There is a 360-degree tunnel through their biggest tank. There also are smaller tunnels where you crawl through and pop up in a bubble to look at the fish eye-to-eye. Anyone can go in the tunnels, but they really are sized for kids. My daughter loved them!

Throughout the aquarium, there are facts, quiz questions, and mini-activities like digging in sand for "fossils." My daughter enjoyed digging, though she didn't understand the purpose behind it. In general, these parts of the exhibit seemed best suited for elementary schoolers.

The aquarium also has various presentations throughout the day, some of which are aimed at kids. We attended the "Junior Aquarist" presentation, in which a staff member talked about sharks and rays and had volunteers feed them. It may have been good for older children, but my daughter didn't even realize there was a presentation going on and hardly noticed the feeding (the fish were pretty nonchalant about eating, though).

Finally, at the end of the path, there is an interactive quiz projected onto the floor. My daughter couldn't read or answer the questions, but she loved choosing answers by jumping on the floor.

There is also a children's area in a room between the interactive quiz and the gift shop. The children's area includes a large play structure with its own lobster.

There is parent seating around the structure and a craft area with kids' tables and chairs. The activity that day was "Draw your favorite sea creature." Unfortunately, the craft area had crayons, but no paper, so nobody was participating.

Because of its location, Sea Life Arizona can be a good place to go if some family members need entertainment while the others shop. It is also easy to get snacks or a meal affordably, even if hunger hits you midway through your visit: you can leave for the mall food court, and your hand stamp will let you back into the aquarium at no charge.

In all, even though it's not as big or as diverse as a big-city aquarium, it's still a fun place to take the family, especially on a day when it's too hot to be outside.

Admission: $18.00 adults, $12.00 children ages 3-12, free for children 2 and under. Buy tickets online a day or more in advance to get a 20% discount.

Best for: children ages 7-10. Although all ages can enjoy the aquarium, I think this age group will get the most out of their visit. They will be young enough so that they still might enjoy the play/craft area, but old enough to read the interactive exhibits and be interested in the presentations.

Website: http://www.visitsealife.com/Arizona/