A Trip to Lake Oconee

It’s the last day on the lake, and the view is incredible. All I can see is water stretching for miles and miles and tall, beautiful green trees everywhere that remind me of city buildings in nature. Everything is so perfectly placed, like something you see in a magazine. As the rain falls, I reflect on the magical time we had here. We’re sitting under our room terrace looking at the view, and the baby is playing and cooing in the background. Randomly, the baby heads towards the rain and extends her foot toward the water to feel it. At that moment, it reminded me that it is important to face new or scary experiences a little bit at a time, with one foot first. For me, this trip was all about experiencing first times and taking baby steps towards my desires.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that it’s important to plan ahead if you want to have a stress-free vacation. By planning ahead, you give yourself time to book what you need and think of everything you might need for your trip. When bringing young children on a trip, this is especially important because we all know young kids come with A LOT. The main key to success when traveling is the preparation process.

Our recent trip to the lake was one of my favorites because it was filled with new experiences. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to do something special for DJ for Father’s Day, but I have always started the planning process too late, and everything would be booked up. So, I was not going to let anything stop me from getting out of the house and doing the things that I desire. I booked this trip in February and started making a “things to do while at the lake” list. While here, our family had a golf lesson which was the highlight of the trip. My girls had never been fond of golf but being the type of mom that I am, I was determined to make them learn and play and then get their assessment of it after.

Just like I thought – they loved it. During the lesson, they said how much they loved it and wanted to take lessons when we got back home. That meant a lot to me because it confirmed that my mommy intuition was right.

On the trip, we also rented a boat. I was not able to be a part of this adventure because I had the baby (and the family decided to rent a speed boat). During the boat ride, the captain took them all around the lake and gave them a tour. He showed them important landmarks and let them use the aux cord to jam out to whatever music they wanted. When doing new experiences with kids, an hour to an hour and a half is the perfect amount of time. Anything after that, the kids start to lose interest.

Also, at the lake, the kids swam in the infinity pool, which was heavenly. Every night at 7:30, the hotel offers a free smores cart for its guests. They had the smores in individual baggies, so we could grab them and go back to our room and make them, or they had a huge fire pit where people gathered around and made their delicious smores.

At the lake’s edge, the kids jumped on the lake trampoline and slid down the water slide. The hotel offered a few other amenities that we did not get to take advantage of, but we definitely plan to do everything next time. The other amenities they offered were free fishing equipment, canoes, and other various water sports like jet skis. On our last night, we utilized the hotel’s complimentary photographer. This was such a nice feature because we threw on some casual clothes, walked around the beautiful property for 20mins and snapped some pictures. I am such a picture person. When I was younger, my parents would take so many pictures of us, so I hold that near and dear to my heart. I absolutely love going through the stack of albums we own. I think that is why it’s so important to me to document every single memory.

All in all, this quick getaway was a 10 out of 10 to me. Definitely a five-star experience! The grounds are beautiful, the staff is nice, the pool views are breathtaking, and most of all, it is family-friendly. Also, to wrap up, the food was good, and they were very interested in knowing if there were any food allergies which was a plus. If you would like to book a trip to The Ritz Carlton Reynolds Lake Oconee, I say do it!

Be like the baby and get your feet wet a little. Do new things!