brain frazzled planning 1st trip, need your brain!

travelang

Planning our first trip to India with 2 families end of October. Typical 1st timer trying to overdo. Now to the point of being completely overwhelmed. NEED YOUR HELP PLEASE!
Traveling: 2 families of 4 adults and 5 kids - ages 7 to 13.
Planned so far..
Sun-Mon stay in Delhi til Tuesday morn - looking for recommendation of medium - high level hotel in Delhi with pool.
Tues head to Agra on Shatabdi Express, stay at Oberio Amarvilas.
Wed GWL JP Intracity train in afternoon to Jaipur. Stay at Taj hotel - Jai Mahal Palace or looking at Samode Haveli. Feedback on these 2 hotels appreciated. Hotel with pool must with kids.
Thur-Sat in Jaipur. Tour Amber Palace, Jantar Mantar, Hawa Mahal and do some shopping in markets. Fly to next stop Sat am from Jaipur. Once again ideas & thoughts?
Sat onwards has be stymied, planning to fly out of Mumbai on Wed am back home. Thought of Kerala, but think it is to much in short time. Orginal idea was a bit of beach R&R but with side trips available to those who might want. Now thinking of Goa or any recommendations for animal/wildlife parks. This will probably be our one and only India trip for a long time. Want to make it special. Many thanks for any help and suggestions.

capt_mahajan

Delhi has a lot of four/five star hotels, but look at the Imperial too http://www.theimperialindia.com/

Central, and a different ambience to most hotels.

Since you are leaning towards Goa, I would consider shortening your Jaipur trip by a day (not essential) and spending 4/5 days there.

Or you could pick a wildlife park in Rajasthan itself.. sorry, my information is very dated on those, but there is a lot of information in the Rajasthan forum here on indiamike.



Enjoy.

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travelang

Thanks for your input. If we end up beaching it probably worth it to skip a day in Jaipur. Looking at south end of Goa - hear it more family oriented. Anyone with recommendations?

kmalik

Agree with the thrust of Captain Mahajan's advice. Some friends of ours traveled roughly the same circuit (Agra, Jaipur) with children and largish group. They rented a minivan and found it a good way to do it. While I am personally biased towards train travel - for the Agra, Jaipur circuit, it might be something to consider.

Also second the suggestion of shortening the stay in Jaipur some. This will give you more time to spend elsewhere. You might consider the Ranthambore Tiger Preserve in Rajasthan or fly somewhere altogether different.

Do not have experience with the hotels you mentioned. We stayed in Jas Vilas and so did our friends later on. We can definitely recommend it - although you might well be going for a higher class of hotels.

travelang

Kamilk thanks for your info.
Going to skip driving, sticking to trains, planes or taxis. Husband has gone to India on business many times and has spent most of it sitting in traffic. That does not include the early evening brush with death invovling a cow, a few monkeys and an elephant that almost left me as a widow.
Hotel suggestion looks ok.

Shaktipalooza

With that many people I'd be inclined to take a mini bus.

We had 11 people in our wedding entourage a couple of years ago. It was much easier to keep everyone together and with a trustworthy driver we could leave our gear in the bus while checking out the sites. This was in South India with destinations that weren't well connected by train. Your itinerary might be more practical for trains.

I think the time is a little short for flying down to Goa and you're not really seeing much in Rajasthan. Jaipur is nice but there is so much more in that area. You could easily just stay in the North visiting Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur...

Are there direct flights from Jaipur to Goa? If not you'll be wasting a day connecting via Mumbai or Delhi.

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