Never been long haul before! Where with a 3 and 1 year old? Mexico? Cape Verde? Cruise?

[AlwaysOneMissing]

We are thinking of going away in Dec / Jan but would like somewhere hot, and done the canaries. Don't fancy Egypt as it is so unsettled at the moment.

Cape Verde looks beautiful, perfect weather, only 1 hour time difference, amazing hotels BUT nothing whatsoever to do outside the hotel as it is a developing area, and not a great deal of hotel activities aimed at toddlers / preschoolers so we fear we'd be constantly struggling to entertain DC.

Cancun in Mexico looks perfect weather, beautiful hotels, child friendly BUT the 10 hour flight and 5 hour time difference is scaring us!!

Really like the idea of a cruise but would have to fly somewhere first to get to hot destinations at that time of year, so that bumps up the cost.

Does anyone have any experience of these places with toddlers / preschoolers or can suggest any other destinations?
Our budget would probably be 2.5-3k.

Thanks in advance if anyone can help!!

Fluffy great suggestions, thank you.
We would be happy with a resort based holiday where we stay in the hotel complex as the main reason we are considering long haul is for the weather, not for the culture or sightseeing if we're honest! That would be important to us if it was just DH and I, but our attempts at mixing toddlers and sightseeing in the past have put us off for life

I will look in to that St Lucia recommendation, thank you.
This will be the first time we have based a holiday around a hotel complex so we want it to be an amazing one!

what about Cuba, there is another thread on here about where to go on holiday and I saw this hotel;
Sol Cayo Guillermo it's on the thomas cook website and 2 weeks ALL INC in Jan is £642pp

I went straight on to Thomas Cook website and looked that up nannyafrica!
What a great price.
Unfortunately the dates available dont match up to the dates we can go so I've had to rule it out.