Best Resorts for Family Reunions

Congress Hall
Cape May, New Jersey

The Flood family of Ridgewood, New Jersey, marks the bittersweet end of summer the same way each August: they spend a week at Cape May’s Victorian-era buttercup-yellow Congress Hall hotel, which they’ve been visiting since 2001. “It’s like a summer house where you never have to lift a finger,” says mom Lorraine. The four kids (ages 11 to 15) practice cannonballing into the hotel’s pool and boogie board along the cabana-lined beach. The clan’s roster of field trips always includes mini-golf outings and strolls along the pedestrian-only Washington Street Mall for frozen-custard cones at Kohr Brothers. But their favorite activity?Reconvening on the hotel’s back-porch rocking chairs at the end of a full day, waterlogged and exhausted but ready to wake up in the morning to do it all again.

Guest Tip: Lorraine and her husband, Mark, sometimes treat themselves to massages at the hotel’s spa—or sneak into the lobby’s cozy Brown Room for cocktails before heading to dinner.

(Doubles from $309.)

—Alison Goran