Normally, we rent a car when we holiday so it doesn’t really matter where we stay, but this past trip in Atlanta I knew I would be doing a lot of adventures with the kids on my own while the hubby worked all day so I didn’t really want to have the burden of trying to find a parking spot or driving through a new place in an unfamiliar vehicle. We narrowed our stay down to a couple hotels: the Embassy Suites at Centennial Olympic Park and the Hilton Garden In Atlanta Downtown near the Centennial Olympic Park because they were both close to the Imagine it Children’s Museum of Atlanta, the World of Coca Cola, the Georgia Aquarium and the CNN newsroom. We ended up picking the Hilton Garden Inn because it had both an indoor and outdoor pool and we were thankful we had the indoor pool when it chose to rain everyday that we were in Atlanta.
It was so convenient being near everything. I’m really into seeing children’s museums in other cities and this one was a short walk away from where we were staying and we had so much fun. The guys loved all the building equipment and could have played there for hours.
They also liked the delivery truck and the tractor.
The moon sand table.
And a water table thing.
I liked that it was only half-price because we have a reciprocal membership with the Bellevue Kidsquest Museum in Washington. We brought a few snacks to munch on because I wasn’t sure if we could eat there or not and I noticed there was a rather large area where you could lunch but we were close enough to our hotel we could have also walked back if we needed to snack (or nap or even swim).
We ended up lunching once at the Pemberton Cafe which was a little like cafeteria food but it was walkable and we got to try a Coke cupcake (and now I want to try this recipe from Sprinkle Bakes!) and we didn’t need to drive. We also had a meal at Baja Fresh and we enjoyed the breakfast at our hotel. It was around 12 dollars for me and the kids were free but it was the easiest way to feed hungry kids in the morning alone. (It especially helped one morning when they watched a garbage truck from the window for about half an hour.)
One afternoon we visited the Coca Cola Museum. The guys and I weren’t really into the video that they showed (the flying mouth things scared Leelee to pieces and he almost screamed! I have to admit they creeped me out too) and we missed the vault but it was really neat watching how they made and bottled the drinks. We also sampled a few fun flavors, but the guys aren’t really into fizzy drinks yet.
We also visited the aquarium and I’ll tell you more about this one later.
When we had to meet up with the hubby it was a short taxi ride away. It should be around 10 dollars each way around downtown by taxi but we had rides vary from 10-14 dollars and one taxi dropped us off three blocks away from the location we agreed on. (I’ve never been so thankful for Siri or Google maps!)
So although the hotel wasn’t fancy, we loved how convenient it was to everything and the cookies they had at night were pretty yummy. I recommend the suite because it gave us a good amount of space and ours was on the same level as the swimming pool so it was super convenient.
(PS. I just wish the pool towels were bigger. I think they were gym towels.)
(PPS. I really wanted to go on the CNN tour and eat Chick Fil-A in their food court. Alas, when you travel with kids, you don’t always get to do what YOU want to do.)
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)
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