Hello, hello! Our kids were on spring break from school last week. We debated a bigger trip but in the end decided to keep things low key and close to home, and did two short trips nearby. Here’s part 1 of our adventures – what we did and what we ate!
(Please note some links in this post are affiliate links.)
For the first part of our trip, we drove a couple hours over to the eastern shore in Maryland to spend a few nights at a hotel some friends had recommended to us – the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay in Cambridge, MD.
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Food at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay
The hotel has a few restaurants on site, but we only ate at the casual options given we had the kids with us and kids + fancy restaurants = not an awesome combo.
Their main dining room at the hotel had a big buffet for breakfast and dinner or you could order off the menu. It worked perfectly to have the kids do the buffet (under 5 ate free, and 5 and up paid their age which was a good deal!) and for me and Matt to order off the menu as the buffet was quite expensive for adults.
What I ate for breakfast
I always love veggie-packed omelettes so I ended up getting omelettes 2 out of the 3 mornings we were there!
Except for the one day I got avocado toast. It was quite good too! The tomatoes were seasoned with rosemary, yum.
What I ate for lunch
We had lunch out one of the days we were at the hotel and lunch in the hotel the other. They have a bar area open for lunch and I got the salmon sliders. They were delicious!
I went to the gym awhile after this meal, though, when the kids were having some downtime watching TV in our room and Matt was working, and man those salmon sliders were like a rock in my stomach.
I made it 1 mile running on the treadmill before I was like… oof my stomach is not loving this. I did some weight stuff instead and then called it a day. And this is why I like running in the morning. 🙂
Anyway – the other lunch we had while at this hotel was out at a restaurant in town – Portside Seafood Restaurant – after we did a little hike (more on that in a minute). It was right on the water (“It’s not actually ON the water, though, mom!!!” as Riese said – yes, fine, it’s not a literal boat but it looks out over the water…) which was very exciting as there was a drawbridge right there that went up a couple times to let boats under! The kids were obsessed.
I got the crab cake for lunch because I figured, when in Maryland, right? The service was crazy slow (not ideal with two small children with us… apologies to the other diners near us for our feral kids at this meal) but this crab cake was legit so it was worth the wait in the end. All crab, no filler!
Plus sweet potato fries (my fave) and some steamed broccoli I was hoping the kids might help me eat but they were not interested so I ended up just eating it all myself with a little help from Matt. Oh well. I was still hungry after eating all this so I also helped Wes polish off his burger which he only wanted half of. Don’t mind if I do!
What I ate for dinner
We ate all 3 dinners at our hotel because it felt like it would have been way too much to try to take the kids out anywhere. Especially Wes was so tired by dinnertime now that we’ve dropped his nap that he was pretty much a hot mess.
Riese is quite good at restaurants now and will do an activity book or whatever happily (fellow parents, these “paint by sticker” style books are her current favorite and are awesome – no mess and great to keep them busy and engaged), but Wes, not so much. We definitely resorted to shows or games on Matt’s phone a lot during meals just to get through without Wes sprinting off or having a massive tantrum because he wanted to leave the table. Not ideal but he’ll grow out of it.
The hotel had some huge bounce houses in one of the big conference/banquet rooms, which was amazing, so we went there for one of the nights before dinner to tire the kids out a bit. Matt and I enjoyed some adult beverages while the kids got out their crazies and everyone was happy.
As for actual dinner, the kids had the buffet for dinner (yay for being able to get a variety of stuff and not pay a billion dollars for a meal they only ate 1 bite of), and Matt and I ordered off the menu.
One night I had the crab cakes – again, when in Maryland… – and they were good but very small! They were under the entrees but seemed more like an appetizer size when they came. I liked the beet puree that came with it though. And I was able to snag some bites of the kid’s chicken fingers and fruit and Matt’s pasta dish to fill me up.
The second night I had their gruyere-stuffed chicken dish (yum, I love stuffed chicken), which had sides of roasted potatoes and crispy kale chips. I love savory and this was super savory and delicious. I was impressed by the food at this hotel!
The last night I had their pasta dish with lemon, capers, sun dried tomatoes, spinach, and I added chicken to it. This was really good too! Reminded me of my easy Lemon Chicken Pasta with Kale recipe.
After dinner Wes and I basically headed right back to the room so Wes could go to bed, while Riese and Matt went and had adventures in the game room/arcade. Early bedtime is the downside (when traveling – it’s nice when at home) to Wes dropping his nap!
But I didn’t really mind getting him down and then curling up with a book in bed. Especially because we traveled with our SlumberPod (<- literally the greatest invention ever for small children) to put over the Pack ‘n’ Play travel crib, so Wes was in the dark and couldn’t see me but I could still have the lights on! That SlumberPod has been the BEST. Can’t recommend it enough to make travel better if you have a baby or toddler who still sleeps in a crib.
Outdoor + Other Adventures
Each of the mornings we were at the hotel we got the kids out and about for some fresh air after breakfast before mostly spending the afternoons at the hotel.
The first morning, we headed to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge to explore and hike around on the trails. It was beautiful there and pretty much empty!
One of the trails we wanted to do was closed for bird nesting, so we did one of the wooded trails instead. It had a cool little story book situation along the route that the kids loved!
Here’s a closer look:
The only problem was that the trails were a) quite short, we were done too quickly, and b) really waterlogged in some areas.
We attempted another trail after this one that was so soggy we ended up having to bail. Boo! Did not have the right footwear for a massive puddle walk…
The other outdoorsy adventure we got into while at this hotel was visiting the Sailwinds Playground in the town of Cambridge.
It was right on the water and the kids had a lot of fun romping around! (This was only one small part of it – it was pretty big.)
Afternoons at the hotel were spent swimming! I didn’t get any photos since we were busy with the kids in the water, but the hotel had an indoor pool as well as an indoor/outdoor hot tub (which kids were allowed into – they also have an adults only hot tub but we didn’t get the chance to check that out).
Riese and I spent a lot of time in the indoor/outdoor hot tub (you could swim underneath a divider to go outside which she loved) as well as the main pool pretending we were secret mermaids. (Yep, I’m that mom wearing goggles with my kid – I like underwater tea parties, what can I say!) The first day the pool was pretty mobbed which we didn’t love, but day two it was much more low key.
And here ends the first part of our trip adventures! I decided to split the post into two since it was getting so long. So stay tuned for part 2, when we traveled to a different location just for one night!
