Tips for my first Villa holiday

[foodglorious]

We have booked the most stunning villa in Cala'dor. It will be myself, DH and 3 kids age 3-10 and DHs elderly parents for 2 weeks.

We are really bloody excited but have never done a Villa holiday before so would love any of your hints and tips to help make it more seamless !!

We are basically right next to the centre so i know we are next to supermarkets and restaurants etc and we will eat out alot but during the day and some nights we will do BBQs etc.

Heres the villa if anyone is interested

Why on earth are people suggesting taking sharp knifes???? How the hell do you expect to get them through security at an airport unless you are driving. Sharp knife in your hold luggage??? - WTF.
Lovely villa though - have a fab holiday.

We love a villa holiday but never take much with us. We will buy a bottle of fizz at the airport duty free shop so that we can have a celebratory glass on the terrace once we've unpacked.

Inflatable water hammocks from Amazon are great as they take up no space in your case and are lovely for lazing on in the pool.

We buy fresh bread, croissants cheese and ham for easy leisurely breakfasts. We always take nice ground coffee and check if there is a coffee press otherwise we bring our little portable ones.

We have salad , hummus and cold meats and cheeses in the fridge for lunches by the pool or if we're having an evening in.

Fridge filled with tonic water for the gin , beer and soft drinks plus we get lots of crisps nuts and nice olives in to go with the drinks.

We always eat out at a restaurant for at least one meal a day. We never cook a proper meal at the villa but we may get pizza or a pre cooked chicken to have with salad

DH will always find a nice patisserie type place and buy lovely cakes and biscuits to have in the afternoons.

We tend to alternate between villa pool days, days at a local beach and then a day trip somewhere.

We always have a car so we can explore the wider area.

Have a lovely time!

We have done many villa holidays over the years and it varies hugely what supplies are left for you.

We've had everything from a full fridge with fresh bread, fruit, cheese and homemade cakes plus laundry/dishwasher tabs, wine etc - literally everything we could possibly have needed! - to cupboards that are utterly bare!

Best advice is to check with owner/management company before you go.

"hold" luggage is the luggage that gets checked in and you can put pretty much anything in that, including sharp knives (I always bring a sharp knife on hols!) "cabin" luggage is what you take on with you and store in the overhead locker. This is what gets scanned at security and of course you wouldn't get any sharp object through that!

The villa looks amazing OP and I loved Cala d'Or particuarly that marina area so I'm sure you'll have a fabulous time. I am echoing the concerns about the outside area, please please please have a system in place for ensuring the children cannot access it overnight/early morning. Even though they can swim, accidents can happen unfortunately.

Put a sharp knife in your hold luggage, as well as a couple of extension leads. Everything else can be got when you're there. Have a great holiday!

Because s.c. properties rarely have decent kitchen knives.

They are in their own scabbard in hold luggage.

Sharp knife in your hold luggage??? - WTF. No idea what you mean by this.

Definitely a sharp knife!
As a pp has said, there are obviously shops there but price and products can differ. I don't drink them but DH makes sure we take tea and coffee.
We always use the mosquito repellent which you plug in and put a tablet in, but you get those there.

And plenty of chargers and extension/adaptor plugs!

We always do villa holidays.

I agree about the knives but we now only do carry on luggage so can't take one. In the last couple of years I've taken a knife sharpener instead.

I take very basic tea and coffee to get us through the first day/night. But nothing else really as on the first day we usually use the hottest period after lunch to do a supermarket shop.

Useful things to take with you are a couple of bin bags, a couple of laundry pods, a couple of tupperware containers and some klippits to seal bags.

We also always take some acrylic glasses - I love sitting in the pool with a G&T but often villas don't have them and I'm paranoid about breaking a glass in or near the pool.

Have a fabulous time.

Sharp knives in hold luggage are not a problem! Though I do agree with other posters that we very seldom bring anything other than clothes and books with us. I’m not trekking around Europe with a suitcase of bin bags and dishwasher tabs, unless we’re for some reason renting somewhere umpteen thousand miles from the nearest shop.

We also always take some acrylic glasses - I love sitting in the pool with a G&T but often villas don't have them and I'm paranoid about breaking a glass in or near the pool.

Oh yes, I'd forgotten this! We always take a set of beakers with us too. Nothing like a cheeky vodka and coke in a plastic beaker in the sun to scream Villa holiday 😆

@RedStripeypillow for 2 weeks in July we were i think around 9000 euros x

Thank you everyone these tips are great.

Re the pool, I m totally neurotic when on holiday with the kids and swimming, the layout is 3 ground floor bedrooms and 1 1st floor bedroom.

Th grandparents will be on the first floor and we will all be on the ground floor, someone up thread mentioned door alarms which im looking into as i think thats a great idea o we will purchase something like that.

From the pictures i cant quite tell how the patio doors look but i can see that they lead out to the pool so it is something we need to safety proof with the kids, im hoping they have key lock so we can lock them and all the doors ensuring the kids cant get out.

I doubt its something my kids would do however i am not relying on that at all to will put something in place x

After stalking the pictures i can see there are keys in all the patio doors, so at night we will lock them, remove the keys and keep safe in our bedroom so the kids cannot get out to the pool area once the house is all locked up for nighttime.

We went to a lovely villa once in Costa Blanca where the TV available was only "news" and WiFi very poor for films/sport etc (okay this was before days of Netflix) contrary to advertised tv channels, and we were incredibly grateful to have brought five good family dvds (Fantastic Mr Fox being one I remember as we watched it five times!) and a portable dvd player that worked.
Also beach towels if you have them already, villa towels arent for the beach. Good books also worth it as not so easy to buy English books abroad and you will get through plenty

Microfibre camping/travel type towels for the pool - they dry fast and don't get smelly. Also sand etc just knocks off them if you go to the beach, and they pack up super small for travel.

THE SPLITWISE APP. I cannot recommend highly enough - no faffing about who's paying day to day, just someone pays, puts the details into splitwise (takes seconds) and it divides it between all parties or however many people you choose.

Those mini squeezy bottles of diluting juice. If you've kids (or adults!) who don't like water but they're in a new, hot environment then usually they're more keen to have the diluting juice than water (and it stops them guzzling sugary fizzies, on holiday or not). Diluting juice, weirdly, is not a thing in many places, or they have cordial but it's not the same!

Lovely villa!
I'd ask about a welcome pack, if there is one or not and if there is, what's in it. You just need stuff for your arrival day if it's late, and for breakfast next morning .
So milk, bread, cereal for the kids, packet of biscuits or similar, take biscuits either in the hold or hand luggage. None of this weighs a lot or takes up much room, and perhaps some small boxes from a 'variety' cereal pack for the kids. A few tea bags to get you started. But if you're tea drinkers I should warn you that IME tea bags in Spain are a bit pathetic.
I also take a sharp knife, cafetière and small pepper mill. (That's just me, obviously.)
A coffee machine might be included anyway.
Hope you all have a wonderful time.😎

I think you are confusing hold luggage with cabin baggage.

You absolutely can put a knife in your checked in luggage.

That said, taking my own sharp knife on a holiday abroad would never cross my mind.

Second the knife sharpener!

We normally stay SC and stayed in a similar villa in France. Every supermarket we visited we looked for a knife sharpener without success!

We normally take one with us but for some reason hadnt done so for the villa holiday.

Make sure you have some supplies for the first night in case flight is delayed.

At 9000 Euros I think it would be reasonable to email the host/company and ask them to confirm there is a sharp knife in the villa.

That is gorgeous OP! I'm trying to find prices for August next year but it's not coming up. When are you going and how much was it?

No problem in hold luggage, we always take a couple of decent knives, even if we're just doing a road trip, we've never found decent knives in a villa however will equipped it is.

Ignore that, just seen your post re: price

We love a villa holiday but I don't take much with me - some clothes washing tablets or pods but that's about it. I do take a few 'bag for life' though and if we go out for the day I always put one (or a canvas tote) in my bag so it's easy to pick up some bits of shopping.

Check all doors and windows are secure and lockable upon arrival.
My first ever villa experience, we got burgled when we had gone out. Turns out one of the doors, that we had never used, had been unlocked the whole time. We just never knew.

Thank you, looking at pictures they all look to have a key buy husband & FIL possibly more necrotic than me so they will be checking all doors and windows x