Barbie Rooms In Paris and Other Travel Delights for Children

by Ann Brenoff (RSS feed)
Jul 12th 2010 at 11:02AM

For those who enjoy watching Suri Cruise strut around in high heels, we offer these luxury travel amenities for the pint-sized set.

The one-and-only Hotel Plaza Athenee in Paris has customized two rooms with Barbie decor and enough pink to turn your eyeballs into sherbet. The Barbie rooms connect to deluxe rooms for parents and are straight out of Barbie's Dream House. They are available only from Aug. 6 through Sept. 2 because clearly, a little Barbie goes a long way. Price tag for making your Barbie princess's dreams come true: $1,980 a night for the connecting suite. Special editions Barbie go home with the lucky little girl. Children are greeted at check-in with a personalized welcome note, as well as fresh milk and cookies and are given nap-ready robes and teddy-bear slippers. The children's breakfast menu is thoughtfully illustrated for non-readers.

This is, of course, not Barbie's first foray into the luxury market. She has her own 2,350-square-foot Barbie Suite at the Palms Resort in Las Vegas loaded with pink and more pink, plus Barbie pictures, a two-way fireplace and a Jacuzzi we presume for times when Ken leaves the gaming tables. Nightly tab: $4,000.

Starting in September, Coworth Park -- a 240-acre estate just 40 minutes outside of London -- will provide children with their own concierge to sign them up for a half-day Polo Experience ($271 per child, over 8), which includes a three-hour lesson with a professional polo instructor and a Coworth Park polo shirt to complete the look. The posh restored Georgian manor hotel with 70 rooms is the only hotel in the UK with its own polo fields and stables for 40 horses. The resort also has a Kids Patch where gardeners will help children plant, tend and harvest the fruits and vegetables used in the hotel's two restaurants.

Stateside, we don't seem to be nearly as clever. The Beverly Garland Holiday Inn near Universal Studios in Los Angeles has a Dive In Movie program where they show family-friendly movies on weekend nights near the pool and have family suites with a partitioned kids section equipped with bunk beds and a flat-screen TV with video games -- so you can pretend that you never left home.

And the Loews Miami Beach Hotel has a SoBe Sundown Survival Kit for Kids which provides extra sheets for tent-building, flashlights for telling ghost stories and a nightcap of milk and cookies. Frankly, we don't think Barbie would be caught dead near the place.

Tags: barbie, children vacations experience, coworth park, Hotel Plaza Athenee, london, paris