Travels With A Toddler

Holidaying with a toddler is a challenging task, at the best of times, and more so in India. But hotels and resorts are increasingly going the extra mile to make the experience memorable, as the author discovered during his recent stay at The Leela Palace, Udaipur

- By Magandeep Singh

The words 'luxury' and 'parenthood' seldom are carried together in any advertisement for a fancy resort. If anything, people consider them to not only be mutually exclusive but also auto-cancelling — the utterance of one negates the possibility of the other. There's a solid reason why fancy sit-down meal-type restaurants don't allow children.

But what is a parent to do? Give up hopes of being pampered till the child is off to school, or plop them in front of a screen, buying a few precious hours at the cost of pickling young minds with questionable content?

Luckily, some hotels understand this dilemma, and I have made trips to them on multiple occasions, writing about my experiences here. So far, I'd set my sights on destinations abroad, but this time around, I looked inland, and soon enough, we had packed bags for The Leela Palace, Udaipur.

The word 'palace' is a heavy jewel to carry in your crown; you either wear it with pride and it adorns the building, or else, the mighty head crushes and stoops under its weight and responsibility. A hotel is where you get service, but a palace is much more; it’s where you get to feel like a king or a queen. It’s a place where everything has to be perfect - from the way it is conceived and made to the presentation. A palace is an idea for a property which will envisage your every need and desire before the said need or want has even found root in your mind. And we turned up at this palace with a two-year-old in tow. We didn’t know what to expect, but we had been assured that they had us covered.