We took a few days last week to celebrate the end of school and the start of summer and wanted to check out Portsmouth, NH. A quick 3.5 hrs from Fairfield. We have heard such great things to do and it was such a great little trip!
We booked at the Hampton Inn right away! It is located right in downtown and the perfect location close to everything. You can park your car for days and walk everywhere. This seemed most family friendly having an indoor salt water pool for the kids, a gym and free breakfast!
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We dropped our stuff off, changed and headed to Water Country, 10 minutes away from downtown. This waterpark was perfect especially on a hot day. We knew it was probably the only nice day we’d have so we wanted to take advantage of the water park.
We all had a great time and is very reasonably priced, you could spend the whole day there. It was $20 or $25 to park ($5 more to be closer to the opening) and was worth it to not bring a stroller in. They have lockers for your stuff, shops for anything you forgot and food areas throughout but you can also bring in coolers and your own food since they had picnic tables all over! 
We enjoyed the lazy river, wave pool, whirlpool and my daughter and husband were able to go on most tubed water slides. She is 45″ inches. The rule is 42″ to go on with an adult and 48″ can go on alone. For my 2.5 year old they had life vests scattered throughout so he had one on for the things he did! We were able to go on the big 4 person water tube ride all together which probably was my favorite part (big baby normally on rides). But to see how much fun they were having was so great! The kids area with slides, and waterfalls was perfect for all ages. We did the whole park in 3 hrs. but they are open from 10-5 and people could stay all day! We did everything and some rides more then once, them not me 🙂 We now know they love water parks and are associated with Lake Compounce here in CT and Splish Splash which I grew up going to in Long Island ( I wasn’t as scared back then).
We made a dinner reservation at the Hampton Inn sister hotel; AC Hotel Portsmouth. The Envio which was located walking distance and was the perfect dinner spot, with great views and was delicious. We enjoyed meatballs, flatbread, burger, short ribs and dessert. The staff was so friendly and accommodating for kids. We will definitely go back and it was nice to be able to walk! My daughter thinks it was the best ice cream she’s ever had!
Our next day was a little rainy but the hotel had a great gym and pool and free breakfast so we took advantage of that in the morning! With kids you know how much they love an indoor pool!
It was cloudy and misty so we drove to Hampton which is 20 minutes away and many people recommended. It is a beach, boardwalk, restaurants and arcades. We spent $20 in quarters pretty quickly, had some clam chowder and headed back to explore Portsmouth.
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We checked out cute little shops, toy store of course, restaurants on the water for drinks, seafood and ice cream!
The cutest toystore, Treehouse Toys!
. Needed Portsmouth sweatshirts of course!
Their are many breweries which we were excited to check out but one was under renovations and the other close was closed on a Monday.
We found Thirsty Moose Taphouse with a great local beer selection and ended with some great Mexican right near the hotel.
Stroll next to the hotel for a latte, the Green Room for smoothies and The Friendly Toast for breakfast and an early morning walk before heading home.
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The small city is so great and we can’t wait to go back. It was an easy ride and we should of taken advantage of the outlets that were close, the liquor stores that don’t have tax and Kittery, Maine is the next town over.
We can’t wait to visit Portsmouth again soon!