The Tides Inn Family Activities

The Tides Inn utilizes its location on Carters Creek, a tributary of the Rappahannock River, well. Kids can pedal or paddle the creek by using the complimentary paddleboats, canoes and kayaks and also learn to sail.

It's not easy to find a resort with a dedicated sailing program, but the Tides Inn has the onsite Premier Sailing School. The facility offers a variety of sailing programs for children, age 6 and older, and for teens as well as for adults and families. In the children's school, which operates from Easter to September, young kids learn to maneuver small boats. Sessions run from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday with breaks for lunch and swimming. Some courses take two, three or four days. Premier also offers a two-day or four-day course for ages 13 to 19 who learn in a J24. Check www.premiersailing.com for dates and prices.

Crab Net Kids, the supervised children's program for ages 4 to 12, is available from Memorial Day to Labor Day and during Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. A full day runs from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m, includes lunch and snacks and costs $65. A half-day morning program is from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m,. includes snacks and costs $40. The half-day afternoon is from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and costs $35. An evening program operates on Friday and Saturday nights from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., includes dinner and costs $40. Make reservations at least 24 hours in advance.

Crab Net Kids features themed weeks with special activities. In Outdoor Adventures, kids build their own kites and in superheroes kids learn magic tricks. All sessions include swimming in the pool, kayaking on Carters Creek, playing croquet and, our personal favorites: the get wet and silly games.

One requires kids to slip and to slide on a rubber raft sprayed with water and drizzled with chocolate syrup. For Cheese Doodlehead, a child gets his head foamed with whip cream while a teammate throws cheese doodles into the mess. The team with the most orange squiggles for a hairdo wins. We find it really nice that a resort, along with educational activities and crafts, understands kids enough to know how much fun it can be to get really messy. Like most programs that group ages 4 to 12 together unless many tweens register, the program works best for ages 4 to 10.

Kids (and adults) can swim in a fresh water or a saltwater pool. Although some guests
do splash in the creek, jellyfish are prevalent in summer and the rest of the year, the water is too cold.

In addition to canoeing, kayaking and paddle boating, families can get on the water by renting a duffy, a canvas-roofed boat with an electric motor ($65 per hour). The small boats make it easy to explore the inlets of Caters Creek, admiring the homes and the wildlife, especially the birds. If you don't want to maneuver your own craft, book an outing with Vintage Yacht Tours, a company sailing from the resort's marina.

Speaking of sailing, the Premier Sailing School can arrange a sailing program, even a one-day beginning course for your family. Inquire ahead of time. Families can also fish and, in season, go crabbing.

Landlubbers have croquet, tennis and golf. Although the Tides Inn does not offer any special tennis programs, rackets are available for free at the Gazebo next to the tennis courts. The Little Eagle, the front lawn's par-3, nine-hole golf course is a great place for teaching the fundamentals of the game to budding duffers. Play is complimentary and clubs, kid size and regular, are available for free. On the resort's 18-hole Golden Eagle Golf Club, a short drive away, all children under the age of 15 playing with a paying adult, golf for free. Youngsters ages 4 and older can sign-up for junior golf lessons.

Don't forget the complimentary bicycles for pedaling the short distance into Irvington.
Also, the Northern Neck offers plenty of outdoor eco-adventures as well as historical places to discover. At Westmoreland State Park, hike trails that wind through forests, marshes and beach front. Guides at Caledon Natural Area lead tours of an eagle habitat. In summer Belle Isle State Park offers guided canoe trips.

Despite the sale of some farms to developers, the Northern Neck still maintains much of its country appeal. On the way to or from the resort, stop at Westmoreland Berry Farm, Oak Grove, to pick your own bushels of peaches, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries. If you're too tired or hot to hit the fields, then cool off with ice cream sundaes topped with fruit fresh from the trees. The shop sells a variety of tasty treats to slather on bread or waffles from apple or pumpkin butter to hot pepper raspberry preserves.

Older gradeschoolers and teens might be interested in visiting two of the area's plantations. The George Washington Birthplace National Monument, near Oak Grove, is the site of Popes Creek Plantation where the father of our country was born on February 22, 1732. Even though only the footprint of the original Washington home remains, you do gain insight into what early life was like for little Georgie. An informative film using excerpts of Washington's own diaries sets the tone about life on a tobacco farm and the living history farm raises animals of the period. There is also a reconstructed 18th century upper-class plantation house -- not like the one George inhabited -- to tour.

To find out more about how the upper class lived, browse Stratford Hall, Stratford, seven miles from Oak Grove. The Lee family built the stately plantation home in the 1730’s. Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee, both signers of the Declaration of Independence, grew up at this plantation whose green lawns roll toward the Potomac River and Robert Edward Lee was born in the residence on January 19, 1807. The impressive plantation has a brick mansion, 1670-acres, gardens and dependencies that include "Negro" cabins.