When people ask me for my favorite family friendly hotels, I have a very short list. And sitting firmly at the top of it is the Acqualina Resort & Residences.
This recent stay marked our third visit to the property, which makes it feel even more meaningful somehow. Our first two visits to Acqualina were actually for each of my babymoons while pregnant with the girls, long, slow days spent dreaming about the family we were building together. Returning this time with Lucy and Mia beside us felt incredibly full circle.
Watching them run the same pathways we once walked while imagining them was emotional in the most beautiful way. It instantly became one of those places we looked at each other and said, “this should become our thing.” The kind of family tradition you return to year after year, measuring life by how much your children have grown since the last visit.
As a family, our travel standards are admittedly high. We expect exceptional food and restaurant options, craft cocktails, thoughtful service, beautiful design, and a sense of ease. But at the same time, traveling with children means there also needs to be genuine joy and engagement for them, spaces that feel safe, entertaining, and immersive enough that the entire family leaves fulfilled. Acqualina somehow manages to do both effortlessly.
The property itself feels visually transportive from the moment you arrive. The iconic red umbrellas lined perfectly across the sand have become somewhat synonymous with the hotel itself, instantly recognizable and impossibly chic against the turquoise water. Between the pools and the beach, the loungers, hammocks, and shaded terraces are positioned so thoughtfully that every corner feels cinematic without ever trying too hard. It has this quiet European sensibility to it, polished but never pretentious.
One afternoon, Lucy and Mia spent nearly two hours racing between the foosball tables and the little soccer field tucked onto the grounds, completely convinced they were in their own version of a European beach club tournament. At one point Freddie got pulled into an aggressively competitive foosball match with a very confident seven year old guest, and I don’t think he’s emotionally recovered since. Meanwhile, the oversized chess set became our nightly ritual, while we waited for dinner on the terrace to arrive, the girls would play while we sipped our margaritas. Lucy took the role of “teacher” very seriously, despite inventing at least half the rules as she went along.
We visited during the girls’ Spring Break in early April, staying four days, and the itinerary struck the perfect balance between family time and moments to ourselves. Mornings began slowly with Acqualina’s lavish breakfast buffet, the kind of breakfast where you casually promise yourself “just fruit and coffee” before somehow ending up with pastries, fresh juices, made to order omelets, and a second cappuccino you absolutely did not need but fully deserved.
A highlight of the trip was spending an afternoon tucked away in a private Acquabed on the beach – a cabana of sorts. The girls ran between the water and our chairs, making sand castles all day while sipping on their fresh coconuts. Freddie and I traded off frozen cocktails and seafood towers under the shade. Those are the moments I remember most from family travel, not the perfectly planned excursions, but the in between hours where nobody needs to be anywhere and we’re just enjoying life.
While the girls played, I slipped away one afternoon to the Acqualina Spa, which recently introduced a cold plunge as part of its spa experience. I alternated between the crystal steam room, Finnish sauna, and ice fountain before trying the plunge itself, an experience that felt equal parts invigorating and mildly like a personal attack. But afterward? Completely addictive.
The standout treatment was the Tuscan Candle Massage using Seed to Skin Tuscany products, a deeply calming ritual where warm oils infused with oud wood and vanilla are poured directly onto the skin. The entire experience smelled like an Italian countryside dream and left me so relaxed I genuinely considered canceling the rest of the afternoon and moving permanently into the spa lounge.
Completely coincidentally, our stay aligned with the reopening celebration for Il Mulino New York at the resort, one of our longtime favorite New York restaurants. The newly redesigned space feels lighter, warmer, and even more refined, while still holding onto the old world charm the restaurant is known for. And somehow, despite the fresh new interiors, the thing we loved most remained exactly the same, the food. The same impossibly good pastas, perfectly crisp calamari, and martinis that always seem to arrive at exactly the right moment. It felt both familiar and entirely new all at once.
And that’s really the magic of Acqualina. It understands luxury through the lens of real life. It gives parents the opportunity to genuinely unwind while creating the kind of memories children carry with them long after the vacation ends.
For us, it has become more than just a hotel we love. It has quietly become part of our family’s story, a place woven into different chapters of our lives already, from the season before the girls existed to now watching them build their own memories there.
And if we’re lucky, it will become the kind of tradition they grow up remembering forever.
