Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Winter 2012 - (Page 62)

FA M I LY T R AV E L ALL IN ONE FUN Clockwise from top left: Enjoying the suite’s giant bathtub; father and daughter enjoy the beach; playing pingpong in Coast Teens, the hotel’s play room; the pool at naptime. the term “American Riviera,” but the title originated here, where the Gilded Age oil baron Henry Flagler once saw promise in a barren strip of sand and resolved to build the country’s ﬁrst resort destination. He built beaux-arts hotels for his friends to stay in; he built railway lines for them to travel on; he even built a city — West Palm Beach, just over the Intracoastal Waterway — where his staff could live. Flying down from New York late one Friday after an exhausting workweek, Flagler was on my mind. Whitehall, the palatial estate he built as a wedding present for his third wife, was on the list of no-sweat, cab-ready excursions Joanna and I had drawn up for our weekend on the island. So was a visit to the Palm Beach Zoo, nature watching at Spanish River Park and a stroll down Worth Avenue, the so-called “Rodeo Drive of the East.” But a funny thing happened when we checked in at The Ritz-Carlton, Palm Beach: We decided not to go anywhere. We embraced the idea like giddy revolutionaries: No farther! For 36 glorious, unprecedented hours let’s stay right here at the hotel, as stubbornly immobile as barnacles on rocks. Even Annelise, normally a nervous child, seemed to be in a stationary frame of mind. After she’d gotten into her pajamas, we stood together on the balcony watching the remnants of a storm spark across the Atlantic. “Is that a pool?” she asked. “No, Sweetie. That’s the ocean. But the ocean here is very blue and warm, just like a pool.” She sighed. “Everything here is warm!” Neither Joanna nor I expected this mood to last: Preschoolers are as ﬁckle a breed as Roman emperors. Yet when morning came, the air still hazy and cool from the storm, Annelise was still serene and contented. With every unsolicited “I love you, Mommy,” and “I love you, Daddy,” Joanna and I shared a quizzical look. Did we take the wrong child off the plane? Or is she relieved that we aren’t carting her off to another museum, another park, another playground — merely happy to have some empty time with her harried parents? Whatever the reason, the morning was one of the most frictionless we’ve had. Annelise was so eager to start her day that she rushed through her favorite breakfast — pancakes with powdered sugar and plenty of maple syrup — so we could all go to the pool. For the next two hours, the only times we bothered to step out of the pool was to step into the ocean, just a few feet and a short ﬂight of wooden stairs away. Annelise, a city girl who equates the beach with goose pimples and squawking seagulls, could hardly believe the embryonic warmth of the water, or the graceful sweep of 62 W W W. R I T Z C A R LT O N . C O M http://WWW.RITZCARLTON.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Winter 2012

Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Winter 2012
Contents
Contributors
Editor’s Letter
President’s Letter
Falling in Love With ... Hong Kong
Design
Auto
Technology
On the Boulevards
Shopping
Jewelry
Watches
Palm Beach
Wellness
Santiago

Ritz-Carlton Magazine - Winter 2012