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Three More Classic Family Resorts

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Wetter and Wilder
Grand Wailea Resort Hotel & Spa
Maui, Hawaii
800-888-6100; www.grandwailea.com; doubles from $465, children's program for ages 5-12, $75 for a full day.
Grand is an understatement. At this 40-acre resort, built in 1991, everything seems oversized, from the open-air lobby (including a pool with an outrigger canoe) to the 780 guest rooms to the name of its most popular restaurant. The Humuhumunukunukuapua (just sound it out) floats on a saltwater lagoon; inside there's a huge aquarium full of fish to watch, not eat. Order the lobster.

WATER, WATER, EVERYWHERE Just off the beach, nine swimming pools are linked by water slides, waterfalls, white-water rapids, and a water elevator that uses hydraulic power to lift swimmers back up to the top of the slides. And at the 50,000-square-foot Spa Grande there are five aromatic hydrotherapy baths and a delicious cascading waterfall massage.

HOW TO AVOID SUNBURN Camp Grande has so many diversions your kids might never make it to the beach: a theater, video arcade, computer room, and a craft room where they can learn to make a lei, tie-dye a T-shirt, or dance the hula (parents are welcome to join in).

Welcome to Brahmin-ville
Mount Washington Hotel & Resort
Bretton Woods, New Hampshire
877/873-0626; www.mtwashington.com; doubles from $380, including children's program.
The most famous of the Northeast's great old hotels is a 1902 Spanish-Renaissance Revival building that is now a National Historic Landmark. Its 200 high-ceilinged rooms still look much as they did when Winston Churchill and Babe Ruth crashed here. A good alternative for families are the 70 town houses linked to the resort by a shuttle.

CHECK THE SCHEDULE The weekly menu of Kids' Camp activities features: Monday fishing, Tuesday tennis, Wednesday cooking with the chef, Thursday golf with the pro, Friday kids' Olympics, Saturday "visiting artist," and Sunday, nature adventure. In between, kids squeeze in some swimming and croquet.

I THOUGHT I COULD Not far from the hotel, a steam-powered train takes a leisurely one and a half hours to chug its way up 6,288-foot Mount Washington by means of a cog railway. The first of its kind, it was built in 1869 and designed to allow a locomotive to negotiate a steep, often raised track. At the top, you're up above the clouds.

A Shore Classic
The Winnetu Inn & Resort
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
978/443-1733; www.winnetu.com; two-bedroom suites from $450 (with kitchens), including children's program.
An old motel on this prime South Beach site below Edgartown was demolished to make way for the Winnetu, which opened in 2000 with 50 suites. While the outside has the traditional ocean-weathered Vineyard shingles, the inside is spick-and-span contemporary.

IT IS SAFE TO GO BACK IN THE WATER The movie Jaws was filmed on Martha's Vineyard in 1974, but as long as your kids don't know this they'll enjoy being on one of the island's best beaches.

REELING THEM IN The resort's new chef, Ed Gannon, has cooked at the Four Seasons Boston and the legendary White Barn Inn, in Maine. There's also a weekly clambake by the pool, with the requisite "chowdah," lobsters, and grilled hot dogs.

EASY RIDERS A bike path is right outside your door—and after you make it all the way to Gay Head Lighthouse (24 miles), you and your bike can take the bus back. The resort's 1945 fire engine and vintage Ford woody station wagons also ferry guests around.

DIDN'T ONE OF THESE TRY TO KILL HARRY POTTER? A life-size outdoor chess set has four-foot teak pieces; moving them is a two-person challenge. New this summer are the pond's five-foot-long steamboats, navigated by remote control.

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