Malta?

[Finlaggan]

Looking at flights for summer holiday and Malta flights are pretty reasonable. Anyone any thoughts on it as a destination for a family holiday? We have a 5 year old and 2 year old both love Playmobil so Playmobil fun park is appealing although I'm not sure how busy it would be in the height of summer. We would most likely be going at the start of July.

Thanks for any advice

We went last year and have booked again for this year. Dc ages 7 & 4. It's not bad. Island is quite small so you can drive round it in a day. We spent one day on the beach, the next sightseeing or pool day. DD's knew this so weren't allowed to whinge whilst we did more adult tourist things ie church tours (sounds dull but with over 300 churches on the island, they are pretty amazing places!). We balanced viewing the craft village and the pretty fishing village at the end of the island, with locating play parks nearby. Found that the parks were empty!
We did a day at Playmobil. Tbh it's what you make it. Essentially it's a large room with lots of playsets/buildings and figures for you to play with. There is an outside space with sand pit and water, again with lots of Playmobil to play with. It only costs a couple of euro to visit so good place to spend the day. The cafe looked quite nice and reasonable too. They do a factory tour but its for 5yr+. Also worth bearing in mind, there is a Playmobil shop at the airport and you can arrange to pick stuff up there and therefore take it home as hand luggage :)
We didn't make it to the Popeye village which is billed as a tourist attraction, nor Gozo. Hopefully this year. The bus service is great so going to go over as foot passengers, then catch the bus round Gozo.
Beaches - there are only 3/4 sandy beaches on Malta, lots of rocky ones. The best beach for little ones is Mellieha Bay. Very sandy and a very very shallow bay which is perfect for them to splash around in.

Hope that helps!

Have you thought about staying on Gozo? Or perhaps 1wk in Malta/1wk in Gozo? It's quieter and lovely restaurants. We did stay in Malta once but I can't remember where as it was about 20 years ago! Stayed in Marsalforn in Gozo. Sorry if this isn't helpful if you're just considering Malta.

We went to malta end of August last year (2013 that is) with our then two year old ds. We stayed in mellieha bay but it was a bit of an expensive disaster for us: I was 7 weeks pregnant with extreme nausea, ds hated all water (pool and beach) and it was bloody boiling! In retrospect, it was a silly choice for our family!

But, if it was cooler, your kids liked pools/beaches and you weren't extremely sick, I'm pretty sure it'd be enjoyable
We regret not doing much sightseeing, not even mdina as we just weren't in the right frame of mind. We did go to valetta and as a pp said, the buses were great and it was a lovely city. The beach at mellieha was tiny and you had to pay for a sun lounger etc, so I'm not sure I'd stay there again. St. Paul's bay looked very nice when we drove through it. We went all inclusive so can't really comment on the food either honestly, we never go on this sort of holiday normally!

Dh and I would like to go back, when we're retired with no kids also to visit Gozo which my friend loved.

Finlaggan - did you manage to find anywhere to holiday in Malta?
I'm looking at the moment, hoping to go in May for a week. We have 3 kids and are looking at apartments or villas, but don't want to spend a fortune. The flights are really reasonable though.
Has anyone been to Gozo with kids? The accom there looks beautiful, but worried there's not a huge amount to do & we'd end up having to hire a car or constantly get buses.
I think our kids will be happy with access to a pool, a trip or 2 to the beach and a boat trip. We really want to visit the towns, markets, Churches etc and be able to access nice cafes/restaurants if we want to eat out.
We don't really enjoy big hotels in the middle of it all but similarly I don't want to stay somewhere where we have to drive/get a bus everyday.
Any recommendations for locations would be great

Thanks for all the responses very helpful!

Not managed to find anything yet, flights are reasonable but I'm finding naice accommodation which doesn't cost the earth difficult to find

Currently looking at other options but thanks again for the comments.