Intercontinental

Halfway through the drive to the InterContinental in Bali, the concierge called us — on the iPads stocked in the back of the van they’d sent — to say they were ready for us. The hotel sits on Jimbaran Bay, the stretch nicknamed the Beverly Hills of Bali. One night we went to a themed dinner, which we normally avoid, and watched a Kecak dance performed a few feet from our table by fifty-odd chanting men. We sat there for hours. We barely left the property. The exception was sunset. The whole bay turns into an open-air grill of the day’s catch, and I’d run down for corn on the cob and carry it back to eat away from the smoke.

The Maldives resort has a private island to itself and 81 villas, 35 minutes by seaplane and then a short speedboat hop; the planes land well off the island, so the noise never reaches the beach. Axel was three and a half and Zave was one, and the place ran on their terms: bikes with training wheels pushed through the sand every day, a boat moored by the Fish Market that Axel was certain was a pirate ship, breakfast brought out to the pool on a floating tray. At The Collective he helped make and serve our lunch pizza, flour on his nose and all. The one night we booked a sitter and ate on the beach under torches, we came back to find both boys asleep on bean bags at the kids’ club.

The Amstel in Amsterdam is the outlier. It opened in 1867 on the river it’s named for and has its own dock — a better way to arrive than the one we used. We walked. We’d cycled past it daily for long enough that a night inside felt overdue. Our room was delft blue down to the wallpaper and looked straight out over the water, and La Rive downstairs held a Michelin star when we ate there. On weekend nights the bar runs a four-course ‘Late Tea’ where the tea is infused with alcohol.