Anyone been to Cape Verde?

[vanimal]

Hi,

DH and I are thinking of going to Cape Verde over Xmas, with DDs (aged 2 and 4).

Has anyone been? I am a bit worried there is not much to do out there, but if the beach is good and it's nice and warm I'll take it ;)

Any experiences or recommendations?
Many thanks

Hi, we went a few years ago because our daughter was 18 months, the previous year we'd been all the way to Canada and the jet lag was terrible, and Cape Verde looked interesting, warm, and relatively jet lag free. We went to Sal, which at the time was the only island you could fly direct to from the UK. It was very dry, and indeed there wasn't that much to do really, but we stayed in a little town in a decent set of apartment hotels, so we could wander the town a little. We connected with a guy with a van, who gave us a custom tour of the island (we had a little guide book) for waaaay less than the Thomson people were charging. It was fun. The beaches where we were are not always great for swimming as there can be currents. The sand was great as was the SUN. Our daughter LOVED the pool and the sand and splashing in the water. We also got a local fisherman to take us out in his boat. I'd recommend if you're going all that way, definitely make time to visit at least one other island; some are supposed to be much greener and more interesting than Sal and I really wish we'd done that (but there was a dengue outbreak and we had some time constraints and you had to book flights in advance). Thomson has a huge resort on Sal, and if you stay there, it's really not in any town or anything, so people just literally hang out at that resort for most of their trip and at Christmas it's just a little cool for poolside swimming all day (or it can be). And I'd be bored to tears eating run-of-the-mill food and lounging all day in an environment that might as well be Florida...

Haven't been, but looked into it earlier this year. Check out trip adviser - we read that the only operator going there is Thomson and they use a tiny plane with very little leg room, that is, worse than normal for a fairly lengthy flight. Then there were reviewers who witnessed drownings in the sea, which is very rough, and we decided against it. If you decide to go, please put a post letting us know how you enjoyed it.