Is a villa holiday a real break or just same shit, different place?

[longnavyskirt]

Idly browsing 2021 holidays (they are so dear, I thought I'd get a bargain).

I love the idea of having our own space, especially in the heat. The kids are also good swimmers so it would be lovely to have a run at a pool of our own.

We had a villa last time we went to the USA and it was lovely. We had a pool and a bbq. Everyone had their own room, plenty of space. It was a great choice. We went out to eat a few times too.

Villas are the best! When my dc were younger we always had one with a pool. It gives you the freedowm to do what you want when you want. I like the privacy and no stress of noise from other people or struggling to get a sun bed.

I also enjoy going to supermarkets abroad and looking at the different food. Shopping for fresh bread, veg and fish in local markets is wonderful. WE eat a lot of bbq and salads so no spending time in the kitchen. Nothing beats sitting up around your own pool in the evenings, playing board games, drinking wine.

God I have missed that this year.

We stayed at a family hotel when we went to Euro Disney years and years ago. Breakfast service was chaotic and dinner was a buffet with a queue. DH refused to engage with breakfast and we ate in the a is carte restaurant (which was empty) instead.

The beauty of a villa holiday for us is not having to be sociable and not having to dress up. DC have always been kept entertained with sailing/snorkelling/riding lessons and as a family we walk, read, visit local towns and markets and potter in the nearby village.

Definitely go for a villa. Hotel rooms with little ones is not fun at all!

We always self cater in uk or abroad.
I find it more relaxing - it's not like home because neither me or DH are working and I wouldnt feel like I needed to do chores as such. I find it easier not to have a time table for meals like you would in a hotel, not to have to go out for room to be cleaned, more space etc. We usually eat out most days (either lunch or dinner, but not both) but DH really enjoys cooking so I could easily not cook for the whole week.

I love a hotel for say 3/4 nights but any longer feels claustrophobic. Best holidays for my stage of life (teen/tweens) has been the ‘luxury’ option on a campsite (dishwashers, 2 showers etc)

I have found villas too much work and unless in a busy complex, too remote.

Like others I do croissants etc for breakfast and make your own roll or salads for lunch. Dinner is generally out or bbq

Hotels with late teens isn't a good option. I found that I was constantly nagging DD to get up for breakfast.

With younger children it seems a good option, but depends I think on the family dynamic, especially whether or not the DH would do a share of cooking.

Depends what kind of holiday you like. We only do self-catering because we like the privacy, space and flexibility. We are not big socialisers so wouldn't be interested in entertainments. One DC is a fussy eater so to us it's far preferable to be able to prepare our own meals and know what food is available. I like cooking anyway and tend to just pick up easy stuff from the supermarket but some people who self-cater mostly eat out.

We usually go to France and always pick somewhere with a garden and play equipment, sometimes a pool, which keeps the kids entertained while we are at home, but we like to visit places on holiday so would never just stay in the house all day. If you have DC who like entertainments and other children, self-catering is not always for you. I always preferred self-catering when I was a child but I wasn't very sociable and didn't like playing with kids I didn't know! My own DC often like to have other children around. Sometimes we book a property which has others in the same location, which in the summer holidays usually means other children. We also have a caravan so we do a week in the summer and a week at Easter on sites where the children can play with others. They always enjoy the self-catering holidays too though.

In the evenings we sit in the garden and drink wine or play cards. We used to take a portable DVD player but recently if the place has WiFi we take our firestick.

I don't know about all European countries, but it's wise to check the cleaning policy. In France end-of-stay cleaning is usually opt-in and is an additional charge (although self-catering properties there are generally far cheaper than in the UK) so if you don't want to clean the property yourself you need to make sure you select the end-of-stay cleaning option. May be different in other countries.

"With younger children it seems a good option"

I think it's better when the children are much older. Having to watch them every second in case they meander out to the pool etc. Lack of entertainment so it is all on you to provide it. Cleaning up after them.

No. Thank. You.

It totally depends. We do both and both have their pros and cons.

When DD was small (under 7-8) we only did sc as I wasn't a fan of early mornings with nothing to do and stuck in a room. And she always was an early riser. Also, we do lots of days out so AI would have been totally wasted on us.

We started AI when DD was old enough to want other children to play with and she outgrew the farm stays we did previously. So AI with a good kids club, pool and unlimited drinks was great. We defintely paid more as we also went out for dinner a lot or had lunch on a day out.

If we do sc we normally do breakfast like home, jam,, honey, bread and cereals, lunch is often a picnic and dinner a local restaurant. We may swap if we eat out for lunch and then just have the picnic for dinner.

I do expect comfort though, dishwasher is a must, washing machine depends on the length of stay and where we are but they are normally standard nowaday I found.

Read the description of the villas carefully and I also am picky about decor. And it has to have a king size bed.

We also found that a city break is nicer in an appartment than a hotel if we stay for more than 2 nights and especially if we go in October half term as you can relax and have more space to spend the evening if the weather is not good enough to walk around that much.

I found villas were great when the dc were small and the pool kept them entertained for hours everyday. Now that mine are teens, they want to be up and doing activities everyday, so the extra money on a villa is wasted. My teens might only want to swim 2 or 3 times for an hour in a week, so we tend to do city breaks now.
When hiring a villa consider:

• How far away from amenities it is. IME nicer, larger villas with bigger pools are much further out. You don't want to be driving down a mountain face every day for bread and milk.
• The extra cost of hiring a car. If you have a good bag each you may need a 7 seater just to transport the family and luggage. These can be extortionate.

-We found some places to be really difficult for parking in peak season, so going out for dinner everyday became a real chore. If you are in a villa further out there will be no option for public transport, so do check out TripAdvisor for availability of free parking.

We always get a villa

But we eat out for the majority of meals...the vast vast majority

Own pool is fab

We usually have a villa with a private pool. My girls are adults now but when they were younger it was ideal. They could bob in and out of the pool and me or my husband could sit right by keeping an eye on them. No scurrying at 7am to bag a lounger. Pop in and out of the villa for the loo or a drink or snack.
We tended to get items for a continental breakfast the day before, then a salad type lunch, or lunch out and then alternate cooking at the villa (husband cooks, I wash up) with an evening meal out.
So long as you and your partner share the load of keeping an eye on the kids and cooking equally between you, then it doesn’t have to be just like home but with sun.

Villa all the way!

We had an apartment with shared pools/playgrounds and it was great except other peoples DC!

Parents would be sat with eyes shut & headphones in while their dc tried to latch on to anyone who would give them attention, it was really annoying. They kept trying to borrow my dc's snorkel so I had to keep interveening as my dc was only 6 & a bit shy about saying no. We ended up leaving the pool early a few times.

A villa with a private pool, even a small one is bliss! DC able to play together in the pool, we take dive sticks, snorkels etc & they love it. One of them can go inside while the others stay in the pool if they want a break.

They love a nose round a supermarket to find good food & plenty of snacks, drinks & meals are low key & relaxed.

DH does loads with the kids & cooks cleans the same as me so it's easy & peaceful.

We don't really use the washing machine, maybe 1 load of towels/swimwear but we don't end up wearing much else.

Like having a car to get out & explore but have managed fine with buses in the past.

@MacDuffsMuff

I've always wondered this. As a family we aren't good at sitting around a pool all day so I wonder what an earth you do all day in a villa??

What do you do if you're in a hotel though @Clockstop? I hate hotels and being around so many people so it's been years since I've even been in one and we've always had a villa for a family holiday. We use it as a base and like the privacy it gives us.

We tend to do hotel and theme parks, so we go out all day, crash back at hotel for the odd break and we get a suite so we have a mini kitchen for basic cooking if we need it. It's the thought of being stuck in a villa somewhere with nowhere to go apart from, as someone said up thread, local villages to potter about in or activities young DC can't do yet without having to pay damages for toddler trashing, like museums, art galleries or things they can't physically do like diving, cycling tours etc. Which means I'd spend the entire holiday on high alert applying sunscreen constantly and stopping them diving into the pool 24 hours a day. I can cope with an hour of pool time but then I get itchy feet and need to go and do something.

@longnavyskirt

I also like a foreign supermarket, but possibly not as much as I like hotel breakfasts

See meme

One of the best holidays we had was in an aparthotel, so it was bed and breakfast, but with an apartment rather than just a bedroom.

This was in Sicily, and we had the old town and loads of restuarants nearby. It really was a fabulous.

AI wasn't a thing when DD was little, and it wouldn't appeal to us now. The only times we have been on holiday where all the food was buffet style we had upset stomachs. Also, in the evening we like to relax when we eat out and have a drink while waiting for our order. Queuing for a buffet doesn't appeal at all.

I have just converted Dp to villa holidays.

We lie in and have a brunch by the pool. Spend the day there. We like to get cold drinks from the fridge.

Dp likes to get small bottles of beer from the supermarket (works out at 10-15p each) Then in the evening we drive to a restaurant and eat out every night

We have a check list of what we require from a villa

Pool
Internet
TV that gets Netflix
Washing machine
Tumble dryer &
Dishwasher

And close ish to the sea and amenities.

We also study the pictures and description thoroughly

We love the privacy. DP has several deep scars on his stomach and is self conscious of them so for him, he wouldn’t use a hotel pool

I like both villas and hotels depending where we want to go, but avoid AI or any hotel which provides it like the plague. I don’t self cater in any meaningful sense though. (Fruit and yogurt for breakfast, tea making and pouring my own wine).

You couldn’t pay me to go to a hotel!
We get a villa every year, so much more flexible. We do a big shop for essentials (booze and breakfast stuff) and then spend the time relaxing in peace by the pool, dh might do a couple of bbqs but in general we go out to eat. We aren’t early risers so often breakfast in the villa becomes a late breakfast/early lunch and we find somewhere nice for dinner.
As a family of 5, to go to a hotel we would ideally need 3 rooms and for the standard I would want (ie actual luxury!) I’d probably have to pay £12-15K for 2 weeks. I can’t justify that, we have 2 abroad holidays a year and 2 Uk holidays. We usually spend around 4K on a nice villa for a fortnight and then probably 2-3K more for food, drink and days out, hiring a boat, water parks, go karting, tours, car hire, whatever the dc fancy in the area really.
The villa is a good compromise for us. We have two teens who want their own sleeping space and a younger one who needs his own too. 4 bedrooms is a happy medium for everyone and having a home with lots of space is important to us. Holidays are something loads of people look forward to, I don’t want to be pressured into having to get up at a certain time or else we’ll ‘miss’ breakfast, hustling with people for good sunbed spots, listening to other people and their children when I’m lounging about the pool reading my book, and at the same time.
I don’t begrudge spending a bit of time at the end of the holiday tidying up, we don’t make too much mess anyway and If we stay in hotels for a couple of nights for city breaks anyway we always tidy up after ourselves there anyway.
We tend to pack light so may Chuck on a wash load or two during the 2 weeks but it’s really no effort is it?!
But just having the freedom and the peace makes it the ideal holiday for our family. I know people who would never want a villa though, different strokes for different folk really, there are so many options out there now to suit so many different needs (well, not exactly now but in general - I have really missed hot holidays this year!)

A chalet on a complex might give you the balance you want. Space in your own room and in the evening but a shared pool. We do this in France a lot and tend to make our own breakfast and dinner and eat out at lunchtime.

It's the thought of being stuck in a villa somewhere with nowhere to go apart from, as someone said up thread, local villages to potter about in

@Clockstop Literally never had a holiday like this in a villa. 😁 We always hire a car so go wherever we like for the day. Sometimes theme park, local ish cities, beaches etc.

Same here MacDuffsMuff we always get places close to the action anyway. Villas can be as central as hotels. They're not all in the middle of nowhere.