Kerala Family Christmas & New Year 9N 10D Price
Christmas and New Year are Kerala’s peak travel dates. The family prices below already reflect the higher festive-season accommodation rates rather than showing an off-season headline price and adding the peak supplement later.
2 Adults From
₹69,998
for the 9-night / 10-day festive itinerary
Kerala Christmas & New Year Family Package Price Examples
| Who Is Travelling |
Total From |
Rooms Assumed |
| 2 Adults |
₹69,998 |
1 room |
| 2 Adults + 1 Child under 5 |
₹69,998 — child travels free |
1 room |
| 2 Adults + 1 Child aged 5–11 |
₹87,498 |
1 room, extra bed |
| 2 Adults + 2 Children aged 5–11 |
₹1,04,998 |
Family room or 2 rooms |
| 4 Adults + 2 Children aged 5–11 |
₹1,74,996 |
2–3 rooms |
This already includes the peak supplement.
Hotel rates across 20 December to 5 January run roughly double the rest of the season. The same ten-day itinerary in early December or late January costs around ₹24,999 per adult. We build the peak rate into the quoted price rather than adding it at the invoice, which is the commonest complaint we hear about other operators.
Compulsory Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve gala dinners:
Almost every Kerala hotel and resort makes its Christmas Eve (24 December) and New Year’s Eve (31 December) gala dinner mandatory for guests in house, charged per person and usually including children at a reduced rate. You cannot decline it and eat elsewhere. Depending on the property this typically runs several thousand rupees per adult per gala.
Your quote from us will show both galas as their own itemised lines with the exact amount for the exact properties, before you pay anything. If you are comparing quotes, ask every operator the same question —
are the 24th and 31st gala dinners included, and at what rate for children?
A quote that does not mention them is not cheaper. It is incomplete.
GST is shown separately on every quote, never folded in. All quotations and invoices are issued in Indian rupees.
Day 1 — 24 December: Arrive in Cochin & Christmas Eve in Fort Kochi
Airport transfer: 45 minutes · Overnight: Fort Kochi
We meet you inside the terminal at Cochin International Airport and it is about forty minutes to Fort Kochi. Nothing is scheduled during the day — most families arrive tired from a long flight and the evening is the part that matters.
Fort Kochi on Christmas Eve is worth staying awake for. Paper stars hang outside houses along the whole peninsula, carol groups move through the streets, and the Santa Cruz Cathedral Basilica holds midnight mass that is open to everyone. Whether or not your family is religious, it is a genuine local Christmas rather than a resort performance, and children find the stars and the singing more interesting than they expect.
Most Fort Kochi hotels hold a Christmas Eve gala dinner, and it is usually compulsory. See the pricing section above.
Day 2 — 25 December: Christmas Day & Fort Kochi Family Sightseeing
No transfer · Overnight: Fort Kochi
A slow morning. In the afternoon, Fort Kochi by tuk-tuk with a licensed guide — the Chinese fishing nets, St Francis Church, the Paradesi Synagogue and the spice warehouses on Bazaar Road. Three hours of walking in the heat is where family sightseeing collapses; children who would be complaining are instead hanging out the side of the auto.
The Cochin Carnival opens today and runs to New Year’s Day. It is a street festival with processions, music, beach games and a great deal of noise, and it culminates on 31 December with the burning of Pappanji — a giant effigy of the old year, set alight at midnight on the beach. You will not be in Kochi for that, but the build-up runs all week and Christmas Day is when it starts.
Day 3 — 26 December: Cochin to Munnar Family Hill Station Journey
Drive: 4–4.5 hours · 130 km · Overnight: Munnar
We leave after breakfast, around half past eight. The first two hours are flat; the last ninety minutes climb through rubber and then tea. This is the longest drive of the holiday and we do it while everybody is fresh. We break at Cheeyappara waterfalls, which drop in steps beside the road and are the natural place for everyone to get out.
Nothing is scheduled on arrival. Munnar sits at around 1,600 metres and late December evenings drop to around 10–15°C — colder than most families expect from a trip to southern India, and the one thing people arrive underdressed for. Our
Kerala packing guide
covers it.
Day 4 — 27 December: Munnar Family Sightseeing & Tea Country
No transfer · Overnight: Munnar
An early start for Eravikulam National Park, where the Nilgiri tahr come close enough to the path that nobody needs a zoom lens. Late December is peak season here and the queue builds fast, so we go at opening. Then a working tea factory tour — the moment a day of looking at tea bushes finally makes sense to an eight-year-old.
In the afternoon, pedal boats at Mattupetty Dam and the Indo-Swiss dairy farm next door, consistently the stop younger children rank first, and Echo Point on the way back.
Day 5 — 28 December: Munnar to Thekkady & Kerala Spice Plantation
Drive: about 3 hours · 90 km · Overnight: Thekkady
The easiest of the major transfers, arriving in time for lunch. The afternoon is a guided spice plantation walk around Kumily — cardamom, pepper on the vine, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, vanilla and ginger, almost all within a few square metres and all of it touchable. Most children recognise the smells long before the plants.
In the evening, a Kalaripayattu demonstration — the staffs, swords and shields of Kerala’s own martial art. For children of about nine and up it holds attention better than a second cultural show.
Day 6 — 29 December: Thekkady & Periyar Wildlife Experience
No transfer · Overnight: Thekkady
Take the first boat. The Periyar Lake safari leaves around seven and it is the one where animals are actually at the water — by midday they have moved into shade. That early start is only possible because you slept here last night, which is why this itinerary gives Thekkady two nights. Life jackets are issued and compulsory for everyone, children included.
An honest expectation worth setting with children beforehand: tiger sightings from the boat are very rare. What families reliably see is elephants at the shoreline, sambar deer, gaur, wild boar, otters and a great deal of birdlife.
The afternoon is deliberately loose — a village walk, a guided nature walk for children of six and above, bamboo rafting for twelve and over, or the hotel.
Day 7 — 30 December: Thekkady to Alleppey Family Houseboat
Drive: 4–4.5 hours · 140 km · Overnight: Private houseboat
We leave at eight. Houseboats board between roughly noon and half past twelve, so this is the one morning where the departure time is not negotiable.
Lunch is served on board as you push out into the Punnamada backwaters. The boat is yours alone — crew of two or three, a cook, and nobody else’s family. At sunset it moors and stays moored until morning. Late December is the best houseboat weather of the year: cool enough at night that the generator running from around 9pm to 6am is more than adequate, and dry through the afternoon cruise.
For families we confirm three things with the operator before booking: railed upper decks, cabin doors that lock from the inside, and child-size life jackets actually aboard rather than adult ones assumed to do.
Day 8 — 31 December: Alleppey to Marari & New Year’s Eve
Drive: 30–40 minutes · 25 km · Overnight: Marari
Breakfast on the water, disembark around nine, and it is a little over half an hour north to Mararikulam. You will be on the sand before eleven.
Marari is a working fishing coast rather than a resort strip — the beach shelves gently, it is long enough that it never feels crowded, and the village behind it still lands boats in the morning. The day is deliberately empty.
New Year’s Eve at Marari is a resort gala dinner: a buffet, live music, usually fireworks on the beach at midnight, and an early children’s sitting at most properties so younger ones are not kept up. It is compulsory at essentially every Kerala resort on this date, and it is priced above rather than added later.
Day 9 — 1 January: New Year’s Day Family Holiday at Marari Beach
No transfer · Overnight: Marari
A day with nothing in it, which after a late night is the correct plan. The pool, the sand, a long lunch.
If you want to fill it: the fishing boats land in the morning and are worth walking down for, the coir weaving co-operatives welcome visitors, and the resort’s Ayurvedic centre is Green Leaf classified if the adults want a treatment while the children are in the pool.
Swimming in the sea depends on the day — the Arabian Sea can produce strong currents and Marari is not lifeguarded the way Kovalam’s Lighthouse Beach is, so treat it as paddling and pool unless the resort says otherwise that morning.
Day 10 — 2 January: Marari to Cochin Airport Departure
Drive: about 2 hours · 85 km
About two hours back to Cochin International Airport on flat road. We recommend leaving three and a half hours before an international departure.
Ending at Marari rather than on the far south coast is deliberate, and it matters more over New Year than at any other time — a family finishing at Kovalam would spend five hours driving north on 2 January, on roads still busy with the holiday. If your flight leaves after midnight, as many long-haul departures from Kochi do, ask about a day-use villa rather than sitting in the terminal from six in the evening.
