Who to use for a last minute cheeky holiday and where do you recommend with a short flight?

[crosser62]

I’m thinking main land Spain as it’s 2 hours flight, we want just 5 nights, near a beach. Never been to Spain so clueless..

Can you recommend somewhere?

Who did you use to book? It’s overwhelming on the internet.

Thanks all.

Try here - I've applied 5 days and beach to the filters.
holiday.holidaypirates.com/holidays/?state=BQoUAAAAA_____hQoABBRw1XtgppiBAAAiHA

Barcelona has beaches. Algarve is reachable from Faro. Nice has miles of beach. Bordeaux to access the south west coast of France.

If you've not done much booking yourself and want a package, there are a number of companies like jet2 holidays, holidaypirates, onthebeach and travelsupermarket.com who'll come up with flights and accomodation for you. It would probably be cheaper to do it yourself though which is what we always do. If you want to give it a go yourself, use Skyscanner, Google Flights or Kayak to find the best flights. I usually use Booking.com for hotels and apartments and sometimes AirBnB. There are filters on Booking.com so you can specificy requirements like pools etc. Once you've found a hotel, check it out on Trivago (hotel comparison site) just to make sure you can't get it cheaper and check the reviews on Tripadvisor to make sure it's not a hellhole! For airport transfers, I've use Hoppa.com a number of times and they've always turned up.

Barcelona and Nice as the PP above would both be great options - depending on accomodation, Nice would be cheaper. The old town in Nice is particularly charming and there are lots of squares with great restaurants, bars and shops. The beach at Nice is very stoney with a steep slope to get into the sea which isn't great for smaller kids - the beach at Villefranche ten minutes away by train is much gentler to get into to swim and more (but not completely)sandy. Monaco, Cannes etc are easy to get to on the trainline that connects the Riviera and the journeys themselves along the coast often next to the sea are great with the Riviera sparkling in the light! Barcelona is good for a couple of days - the beach isn't the most lovely beach in the world but it's ok and there's lots to do, partcularly if you like art & sculpture. As another alternative, have a couple of days in Lisbon and then take the train to Caiscais/Estoril on the coast. The beaches are nice, the towns pretty (if a bit past their best) and Sintra (beautiful castle hilly castle town) is a short journey away.
If none of the above appeals as you're looking for somewhere very popular with Brit families and straightforward, then take a look at Puerto de Mazarron in Murcia (flying into Murcia) which would probably fit the bill. There are lots of Brits retired out there so it's got a big Brit population, golf courses, entertainment etc. It wasn't really what I like in a place but the area did seem to be very popular with families. Cartagena and Murcia City were both in parts attractive and worth a trip if you're out there.

Cadiz or The Algarve -Alvor or Tavira .

Malaga. Easy flight, lovely city, great beaches.

Thanks everyone, fab ideas there.
Will have a nosy and book something