We have just returned from a marvellous holiday on the Italian Adriatic coast and I thought I'd share my findings and include all the sort of information that I'd like to get myself when searching for a family holiday.
We went to a large 'holiday village' called Pra delle Torri. This is situated on the coast near the town of Caorle north of Venice. Nearby airports (all within one hour) are Venice Maroc Polo, Treviso or Trieste.
It is a very large campsite. In high season it can take up to 8,300 guests. However it is really well laid out and supberbly organised so it never felt really crowded. Guests can stay in mobile homes, tents, 'bungalows' or the hotel. We stayed in a mobile home. It had 2 bedrooms, one with 3 bink beds, one with a large double, 2 decent bathrooms and a small kitchen- diner. Our mobile home had a wonderful covered decking out front with a long sturdy table & chairs which is where we ate every day (some mobiles dont' have this). We also had air-con and it would have been impossible to stay there in July without it to give you some respite from the heat.
Mobile homes can be rented out from the usual mobile home operators. The largest mobile homes on site are 2 bedrooms, there are no huge 3 bed roomed versions such as can be found in some UK campsites. Some of the mobile do not have decking out front and some do not have air-con (both of these make the holiday far more comfortable). We booked ours, a so-called CP3, through a company called Elle Vacanze (www.ellevacanze.com), they seem be be Dutch-based, and it was very easy. We did it all by email. As far as I could see we had the best type of mobile available and the company were a pleasure to deal with. Also, they found us a mobile home when all the other operators were long booked out (booked in June for July), and as far as I could tell ours was very reasonablly priced.
The bungalows can be rented from the Pra Delle Torri operators directly. These are situated is a large grassy area and there is more room around them, but they are more expensive and the space inside is not a lot larger. I think they total 49 sqm each and can accomodate a family of five.
There is also a 3-star hotel on site (pretty uninspiring) and a modern apart-hotel, effectively more bungalows but with breakfast thrown in. I enquired about these for another time but the hotel reception was pretty rude and dismissive so I didn't pursue it.
The site is ideally suited to families with small children. I don't think I saw anyone there without kids and most of the kids were under 10 years. There is tons for them to do. There is a huge childrens pool, it is effectively five or six linked pools. It is the best I've seen for a family yet. The water was very shallow in the pools, it varied from about 500mm in the baby pool to 1m max elsewhere, so it is great for kids. There was a baby pool, a toddlers pool and a few pools for older children. Each pool had a slide, some of the larger pools had two or three.
A little bit away there were also two separate deep pools for serious swimmers with swimming lanes.
The pool complex is surrounded by loungers and sunshades. You can rent these by the day (E6.50) and you get a numbered spot for the whole day, so there is no rushing to bag a spot in the morning. Even in high season there was lots of room by the pool.
The pool complex is beside the beach. The sand is fine and golden and the water is shallow for a long way out. This is not the widest beach we've been to on the Adriatic but it's fine. Again you can rent loungers etc there. Happily, the beach also has a niuce breezy beach bar/restaurant.
In the centre of the holiday village there is a sort of town square which has a number of restaurants, a large ice-cream cafe, a newsagents, hairdressers, jewellers, gift shop etc. There is a large supermarket where you can stock up on virtually all supplies. Given that it has a captive market of holiday guests, it is amazingly reasonable. Even the restaurants (pizza, pasta, fish) were pretty reasonable. The ice-cafe was brilliant (and being under large awnings was a lovely cool breezy place to sit on a hot day too). A cappucino cost E1,30. A child's -novely ice cream in the shape of Pinocchio: 2 portions of ice cream served beautifully in a glass dish with Smarties, cream, chocolate and a long cone(for his nose) cost E3.
Staff in the shops were OK, not particularly friendly. They keep a watchful eye on the shoppers, as if they suspect you of shoplifting.
One of the highlights for our kids was the evening entertainment. During the day there were some organised kids activities but we didn't get involved in those, it was much too hot. However, every evening there was a kid's film shown in the square, it was usually in German or Italian but nobody seemed to mind. There was a large a stage positioned at some distance from the accommodation, where the kids club people sang kids songs or played a mini-disco for a few hours. Beside this is a type of mini- fairground. One part of it consists of a sort of soft play area with 4 large bouncy castles, a ball pool, a tricycle track and other stuff for toddlers. It costs E5 per child for the whole evening. Beside this was a motor track with electric cars and quad bikes for kids. It was all very safe. You buy tokens to start the cars; E10 gives you 9 tokens. Our boy made a beeline for this every night. There was also a little train going around a track costing E1.50 a go. Our kids were so taken with this place that we never really got outside the complex to see any other attractions in the area.
Most of the guest were Dutch, German or Danes. Many of them had brought their own bikes and cycled around (the site is quite large). Uk-Irish guests were very much a minority but it was fine. Everyone we dealt with spoke English. The atmosphere was always friendly and I never saw any trouble. Any music had to stop at 11pm and thereafter it was pretty quiet.
All in all I thought it was an excellent family holiday and I would thoroughly recommend it. We have been on several much more expensive holidays that weren't as family friendly and werenn't as relaxed.
On top of that it was extremely reasonable. There were five in our party and the week cost us a total of E1,300. This was based on flights with Ryanair from Dublin direct to Treviso airport (easy peasy, small airport, in and out in no time, then down the motorway to Caorle), and our mobile home accomodation E850 for a week in July. Food cost extra of course but it didn't come to much.
I hope this info is useful for anyone with small kids considering a holiday in the area.
Best wishes