Meliá Chiang Mai’s “Family is Everything” getaway

Meliá Chiang Mai aims to reconnect families with its “Family is Everything” holiday, combining a stay in its Family Room with fun at its innovative kids and teens club offering the likes of Thai boxing and umbrella painting, a new kids’ pool, sightseeing and more.

“Family is Everything” is on offer at the hotel’s double 54sqm Family Room with city views, a sofa bed, separate sitting area, ensuite bathroom, flat-screen TV with Chromecast, puzzles and board games, children’s tent, toys and more.

The urban hotel’s kids and teens club Kidsdom offers a program packed with activities such as Thai boxing, umbrella painting, plaster model painting, arts and craft with recycled materials and origami.

Kidsdom comprises numerous sections including a ‘gaming zone’ offering Chess, Monopoly, Uno, Jenga, Tic-tac-toe, table football, and other games, and a ‘teen club zone’ featuring a drawing board, water colours, colouring pencils and crayons, and painted plaster dolls. In addition to a ‘mini club’ replete with Lego, rocking horses, indoor sliders, a ball house and wooden block puzzles, Kidsdom is also home to a library zone, TV zone and nap studio.

Adjacent to its large outdoor swimming pool on the second floor, the hotel has opened a shallow pool area for kids. The watery playground is home to two water slides, a rain curtain, water fountains and a giant tipping bucket.

Situated in the heart of Chiang Mai city in Thailand’s mountainous north, Meliá Chiang Mai makes for an ideal base to explore Chiang Mai’s broad spectrum of tourist attractions, markets, and Buddhist temples. The hotel offers compelling excursions to attractions ranging from famed temples such as Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep and Wat Umong, to the Chiang Mai Night Safari and novel “Elephant PooPoo Paper Park” that involves an “interpretive walking tour” through lush gardens and eight different pavilions to demonstrate the sustainable practice of making tree-free paper products from elephant poop fibers, from poo collection to rinsing and final product assembly. During the self-guided tour, families are encouraged to pull up a stool, roll up their sleeves and join the park’s artisans and guides to participate in handcrafting the paper used for cards, paper pads, journals and more.

“Inspired by the simple yet significant need to escape the stress of daily life and unplug from our mobile phones, ‘Family is Everything’ instead channels our energy into what’s truly important, as family really is everything,” Meliá Chiang Mai’s general manager Marc Selinger said. “There is so much for the young and the young at heart to see and do here in Chiang Mai and strengthen family bonds all the while.”

Drawing on Meliá’s Spanish origins and celebrating Spain’s famed gastronomy, Meliá Chiang Mai’s dining landscape includes restaurants Mai Restaurant and Bar and Laan Na Kitchen, bars Mai The Sky Bar and Tien Pool Bar, and Ruen Kaew Lounge. Freshly made classic churros served with warm dipping sauce are a favourite with the youngsters.

The hotel’s YHI Spa offers treatments for women, men and children. For children aged six to 12 years, a 45-minute or 60-minute “Kids Therapy” aims to prevent hyperactivity by starting with stretching and animal yoga poses before a gentle massage with HARNN coconut oils to stop skin irritation.