School vacation week in April

[alexia23]

Is it really busy that week? Aruba does not strike me as the top choice for people to travel to during school vaca, but wanted to see what others thought. Thanks!

[Andrea J.]

BUSY
Not like Christmas or Carnival
But, still busy.

If Holy Week occurs during that time period, then the crowds are almost comparable to Christmas. "almost"

Been there for MANY April school vacations and always great weather.
But, dear son is now grown, college graduated and married...........we now can avoid those school breaks!!!

[Arubalisa]

Most of the public schools in Georgia have "spring break" the first week in April.

[rob o]

Originally Posted by alexia23

Is it really busy that week? Aruba does not strike me as the top choice for people to travel to during school vaca, but wanted to see what others thought. Thanks!

Went there every April school vacation (Mass and RI) from 2001 through 2010 and never found it to be over-crowded. The busiest Aprils were when Passover and Easter coincided with school vacation.

The biggest challenge was getting a reasonable airfare, as the airlines typically mark that week up (but, nowhere near as much as President's Day or Christmas).

Which state would you be traveling from?

[alexia23]

We are coming from Mass. We have been going to Aruba in May for years but now our daughter will be in first grade so we are trying to decide if we can still pull her out from school for a week. Airfare from Boston is so expensive anyway, school vaca week definitely won't help with the prices!

[Andrea J.]

we always pulled our child out of school for different vacations/travel.

we were very lucky as he was a great student, we usually got work assignments ahead of time.
in the event that his teacher would not assign stuff (which was the case when one teacher in particular said she would mark him truant and not assign anything) we had him follow along as to what was happening in his class assignments by xeroxing some worksheets in his books.

he always did at least an hrs worth of work while we were away and he was missing school.

re: april school vacations........we'd usually head down there on wed prior to the school vacation week and come home 11 days later.

state your case early on with your child's first grade teacher.
we have found as long as it is genuine and respectful AND you let the teacher make suggestions and assignments, your child will be just FINE. teachers are always happy to have students with parents that are proactive and responsible.

Originally Posted by alexia23

We are coming from Mass. We have been going to Aruba in May for years but now our daughter will be in first grade so we are trying to decide if we can still pull her out from school for a week. Airfare from Boston is so expensive anyway, school vaca week definitely won't help with the prices!

[rob o]

Originally Posted by alexia23

We are coming from Mass. We have been going to Aruba in May for years but now our daughter will be in first grade so we are trying to decide if we can still pull her out from school for a week. Airfare from Boston is so expensive anyway, school vaca week definitely won't help with the prices!

Pulling a child out is such a personal decision. We always took two weeks, one being school vacation week, and pulled the kids out the other week. My personal opinion is that a child will always remember and learn from a quality family vacation, while one week out of school won't change their lives. Now that our girls are in college, I feel we made the right decision as those trips are fondly remembered and valued. They also learned a lot of "life lessons" including the value of family and the value of hard work and earning the vacation.....OK, so I digress!

We always fly out of Boston and used American. Of course, American discontinued their non-stops. Typically, we purchased 330 days in advance, which is when American goes on sale. For an April vacation, this usually got us the best price....but that has changed some. I would suggest plugging into one of those internet price watch sites (like Yapta) and let them do the work for you.

BTW, our girls went to private school, which made it easier to pull them out. Our friends found publics to be less reasonable.

Good luck with your decision!

[alexia23]

Thanks everyone! We are still debating, but know for sure that we will be in Aruba in the spring! :-)