Menorca..best beaches? Half board or self catering?

[SpiritualKnot]

Planning on going to Menorca in August 2008. Our kids are 16 yrs and 9yrs. Want somewhere with a nice beach, good hotel pref with air con in the rooms..appartment type with probably half board accommodation.

Everywhere looks good, but I don't know which are the best beaches?

Also, I see that up to age 12yrs is counted as child for half board and up to age 16yrs is child for self catering. Are the restaurants etc cheap in Menorca if we went self catering? Don't really fancy cooking.

Any advice would be really appreciated. We've never been away on holiday as a family before...let alone abroad, so we're hoping it'll be a great holiday that will lead to many more!

SK

I loved menorca as it is so quiet. I went there in 2003 (no children then). As your children are older wouldn't majorca be better as there is more to do for their age group? Just a thought. Its still very family orientated.

We went to Menorca this September with DS who was 3 months old. The beach at Son Bou is really nice- long and sandy. We stayed at the 'Son Bou Gardens' which are SC appartments. They were basic but fine for our purpose (a cheap week!). Menorca is really quiet, I'm not sure that there would be enough to keep a 16 year old entertained. That said, if they would be happy with the beach and pool, there will be lots of other children for them to make friends with. Son Bou as a resort is full of English people, English bars, English food etc. We hired a car to escape the Brits and see some of the real Menorca- well worth doing! HTH

Our problem is that we haven't been away before so Im a bit concerned that we might end up where there's lots of boistrous drunks keeping us awake at night, that's why I was opting for Menorca...all you see on these travel programmes are teenagers being sick in Benidorm, so it put me off a bit going somewhere more lively. But I don't want my son to get bored.

I thought he'd chill out during the day and then maybe go to some evening entertainment, which I thought the place we'd stay might provide.

He's so active all year round with football and running, that I thought it would be nice for him to do nothing for a fortnight...but he does like the sea and attempting to surf.

Anyway, I'm going to have a look at the self catering side of things. Someone suggested I look at villas as well, but I thought that would be too quiet really.

SK

We went to
Victoria Playa Hotel in Santo Tomas with Thomson Superfamily when the dds were young.
Great kids club, good entertainment in the evenings, right on a beautiful white sandy beach. The resort is quite low-key, but there are other bars & restaurants up the road if you fancy a wander out in the evenings.
Tbh, there were what I'd call a large contingent of the 'buggy brigade' (which put us off a return visit, but having said that, DH said it was one of the best holidays he'd ever had and quite a good base to hire a car from and drive around the island visiting other resorts.