family friendly hotel in long beach, california

Last week we took a family vacation to southern California.  The kids had just gotten out of school for the Summer, Viktor had 6 days off work, and I needed to see my awesome rheumatologist who practices in Orange County.  It was the perfect lead in to a short and sweet family trip to the west coast beaches.

We spent our first few days hanging out with Viktor’s family {who live in the area} before heading up the coast to Long Beach, a hop skip and a jump from our regular Huntington Beach hangouts.  Our destination in Long Beach was Hotel Maya, a personality hotel nestled right in the Long Beach harbor, overlooking the beautiful water and the glittery Long Beach skyline.

There are several Joie de Vivre hotels up the coast of California, and it’s my goal to stay in all of them.  We’re giving it the old college try; we’ll see if I can get it done before 2012.  Hotel Maya is now my 4th stay at a Joie de Vivre hotel, and not-surprisingly we had a marvelous time while we stayed.

Right after check-in, this was sent to our room:

I may or may not have eaten the entire Snickers bar all by myself.  I’ll never tell.  The goggles were of no use to me, nor were they made of chocolate, so they survived to tell about it.

Our room was situated perfectly between the swimming pool and the harbor so sat on our patio relaxing as we watched the boats bob up and down in the water.  At least, that’s what some of us were doing before some others of us wanted to head to the pool immediately, if not sooner.

I can’t say I blame them.  The kids, that is.  The swimming pool, and hot tub might I add, were fabulous.  They were both the right temperatures: pool, not too cold, not too warm.  Hot tub: scalding hot.  None of this lukewarm wishy-washy business.  A hot tub is meant to be hot, and it was baby.  Very, very hot.

Once we were done swimming, which actually consumed the whole of our day, we headed into the rooms to clean up so we could head into town.

Our bathroom was small but clean, and the square pedestal sink made me want to remodel a bathroom.  Almost.  Isn’t the wallpaper cool in there too?  Sort of….. Mayan?

I wanted nothing more than to sink into one of these (very comfortable) beds after a day in the sun, but Viktor had other plans.  He always does.  We took a free bus from the hotel across the harbor bridge into Long Beach proper in search of food and extraneous entertainment before I was finally able to conk out for the night on the deliciously fluffy hotel pillows.

Thanks to Hotel Maya for the lovely stay.  Really.  I apologize for my child, Charming for splashing all the hotel guests.  He may have done a little dive bombing into the deep end of the pool, and he may or may not have gotten some bathing beauties a little, uh, damp in the process.  Sorry!

Allison

Hello there! I'm Allison Czarnecki, founder + editor of Petit Elefant, a blog all about style on a budget for every part of your life: style / home / travel / family. I do a lot of how-to beauty + style tutorials, travel posts, easy recipes, home remodel projects, and cool DIY crafts you totally want to try. I'm super happily married (to a hot Polish immigrant) and am the mother of two kids, a daughter and son, all of whom are featured here on the regular. We live in the country but we're a little bit rock + roll. Welcome!