Holiday with a toddler!! Help!!

[ZackyM]

Desperate to go abroad but husband isn’t keen with our very active toddler. We’ve done air bnb in the past and also many TUI holidays pre baby and main worry is going to a hotel and being stuck in the room from 7pm onwards when Lo goes to sleep. Air bnb would mean potentially no pool so we are stuck as to what to do! Anyone been on a holiday with an 18 month old and found somewhere they can still enjoy a bit of an evening?

Thanks!

We are in this situation ( DC will be nearly two when we go this year). We took him abroad twice last year, once at 10 months and once at 16 months. What worked for us was:

1. Kept the flight short ( sub 3 hrs)
2. Booked a 1-bedroom aparthotel places, so you get the benefits of an apartment ( e.g kitchenette) with the facilities of a hotel ( pool / play area).
3. Made sure the room had a balcony, so we sat outside in the sun during naps, and nice drinks and some netflix in the evenings when they had gone to bed.
4. Kept DC on UK time, which meant he ate at 6pm, instead of 5pm, so easier to find restaurants which were serving food at that time, even though still the very early end of normal for the locals. Also meant he was going to bed at 8pm instead of 7pm, so could still squeeze in a nice pre-bed drink at a beach bar or in the main square will they toddled about ( though we did have to tag team this depending on how much he was roaming and how enclosed a spot we were in).

1. Lastly, we massively lowered our expecations of what we could do on holiday. We weren't Martyrs to DC, but we kept it to the beach, the pool and the playground. If we'd tried to look round the museum or the upmarket posh shops it would have ended in disaster, so we didn't bother.

meant to say, we went to Spain both times, if that helps

We have taken a few trips with our two DS- we went to Croatia at that age with DS1 and it was great- stayed in three different air b n bs, split, hvar and bol. All had a kitchenette where we would make dinner for him. We would head back to apartment sort of 3-6pm most days, when it was v hot, and give DC some down time and shade and dinner, and then go back out in the evening for a drink and dinner and he would snore in the pram.

Mallorca we have also done at that age, again an apartment with kitchen and balcony, and DS napped every day in the shade on the beach. Evenings spent either out with him asleep in pram, or on balcony and ordered food in.

Currently in Lisbon for a few days and DS2 is 18 months. We arrived today so an early night for everyone tonight, but tomorrow we have booked dinner and a bar for after and hopefully with a long nap in the day he will happily sit and do stickers and colouring

We also did/ still do what a precious poster said and keep our toddler on UK time which has worked really well for us as it means he is up ‘late’ on holiday which is great for being able to enjoy a bit more of an evening. My husband would also sit out on the balcony with a drink once we got back to the room.

We did self catering Agro Tourismo in Italy at this stage and it was heaven. They are very rural farm type accommodations and we picked 2 that both had shared pools and offered breakfast / dinner.

Most of the time they are pretty small and we had pool to ourselves.

At one, the owner came to the pool on her way to market to ask us what we fancied for dinner! Also had lots of lovely affordable restaurants nearby.

DS was 2 and just loved having us to himself, exploring the farmland and kicking a ball around.

We chose accommodation with 2 bedrooms and outdoor space so DH and I had lovely evenings sitting out watching sunsets and playing cards / reading.

Plenty of time for kids club hotel hell yet - do something for you!!

Shower.
Pj's.
Buggy.
Walk to restaurant.
Sneak dc into cot after that!
You may be sure it won't work. A busy day and a short nap and it WILL work!
Did this for years with several dc over those years abroad!

www.agriturismo.it/en/

We also kept him up late and ate out before heading home. The cliche of how much Italians love kids is 100% true and DS was a fair skinned golden ringlet type kid so we were always well looked after

Do you have links for these apartments/apart hotels as they sound exactly what I’m looking for :)

We’ve done a TUI AI holiday of sort every year with DS since he was 1. Key things for us:

• apartment, not a room. DS goes to sleep in the bedroom, we sit in the living room/at the balcony. AI means that one of us can always nip out for cocktails/wine/snacks which are available and just a few steps away. We have honestly had some of our loveliest evenings at the balcony, watching the waves, sipping our wine
• no huge expectations. Some days might be shit because..well..you know - toddler so it’s perfectly fine if all we can manage is sitting by the pool for a couple of hours.
• we didn’t really do any proper days out/trips until DS was nearly 4. It just wasn’t worth it.
• relax as much as possible. Toddler wants to live on ice cream and chips for 3 days in a row? Fine. It’s 3 days. No one cares. It’s not worth the hassle. Bedtime routine goes to pot? Also fine. You’re on holiday. You need screens to survive a meal out? Also fine, and if someone is judging you, just tell them to fuck off

French campsites are fab when they're little - stay in a mobile home - kids have seperate bedroom and you have an evening and go to one with a water park and you're sorted - better pools than hotels often and extras like inflatables in play parks etc in a lot. This company have some lovely ones. Plus travelling by ferry means you get to take scooters and the like with you. www.sandaya.co.uk/our-campsites

Self catered, but that suits us as kids are fussy eaters and we'd often get food from onsite restaurants for ourselves or make the most of the variety on offer in french supermarkets

Loads of times. A rental with a pool but only if all fenced and alarmed as pools and toddlers are a dangerous combination. There's loads of sites do rentals apart from Airbnb and often they're cheaper.

We only stayed in a private Villa. So DS could have his own room and we had the rest to the place to hang out in the evening. Private pool too so very relaxed daytimes.

Always shifted his schedule to a couple of hours later 8/9pm- 8/9am sleep to allow for dinners out. Still much quieter than pre baby holiday but worth it.

Supposed to be attempting a hotel this year but not sure how that'll work tbh unless we get a suite.

Get an AirBnB with a pool? Or at least with one of those pop up high sided ones- also safer. We are taking our toddler this year- house with a pool to start then hotel apartment. Both times she will go to bed while we sit up and have drinks on balcony/terrace. Will take baby monitor. Did the same when older DD was a toddler. Advantage of Air BnB type places is you can find one that belongs to a family and has stair gates, toys etc.

We always did apartments or Eurocamp when dd was little. www.hotelcaladifalco.com/en/residences/ we did when she was 15 months old - pool, across the road from the beach, stroll in to the little town, with an apartment with kitchenette and nice terrace. www.residenceoliveto.it/en/home Here when she was younger than that. Flight to Nice and short train ride along the coast. Lots of lovely restaurants and sandy beach. We had a lovely apartment in Juan Les Pins and spent every day on the beach. www.unionlido.com/en/ in Italy. Close to Venice, but so much to do on site we never left. Big choice of places to eat, pools and beach. Huge choice of accommodation options these days - I think we had a mobile home through Canvas.

We used to do pool or sea in the morning, lunch, nap in the pushchair so we could sunbathe in peace. Have a bit of a run around, then back to accommodation for shower/bath/chill out - then pop her in pushchair and wander out for a stroll and food in the early evening. If tired and grumpy I would feed her first and try and get her to sleep/get a pizza. Happy days. I found it worse with teenagers when they moan all the time.

All inclusive holiday, kids stay up later or sleep in pushchair.make sure you gave terrace or balcony to sit out on once back in room

Wow thank you SO much for everyone’s responses- I’m so glad I asked on here as I’ve been trawling the internet with no avail!

I’m going to look at all of these option... have always loved the idea of agriturismo!

If anyone has links to the aparthotels or AI that you have stayed in and would recommend please do post them thanks again!!

Self catering one bed apartment with separate lounge. Lounge used as DC bedroom. Ground floor with balcony leading off main bedroom. Can have drinks at night. Resort with a bar/restaurant. DC ate from restaurant whilst we had drinks and then we all went out later. No stress if DC was tired/didn’t want to eat.

www.jet2holidays.com/greece/kos/kos-town/aegean-houses

I’d get an apartment with a terrace or balcony so you can put little one to bed and relax with a drink out there after dinner.

Little one will be fine having later nights if you go out for food and will hopefully fall asleep in the buggy on the way back so you can just pop them into bed.

Omg thanks to all of you posting links. I have started another thread about Greece but willing to expand my search! I don't want to be stuck in a hotel room but want food available or it's not a holiday!

@Susurrar

We’ve done a TUI AI holiday of sort every year with DS since he was 1. Key things for us:

• apartment, not a room. DS goes to sleep in the bedroom, we sit in the living room/at the balcony. AI means that one of us can always nip out for cocktails/wine/snacks which are available and just a few steps away. We have honestly had some of our loveliest evenings at the balcony, watching the waves, sipping our wine
• no huge expectations. Some days might be shit because..well..you know - toddler so it’s perfectly fine if all we can manage is sitting by the pool for a couple of hours.
• we didn’t really do any proper days out/trips until DS was nearly 4. It just wasn’t worth it.
• relax as much as possible. Toddler wants to live on ice cream and chips for 3 days in a row? Fine. It’s 3 days. No one cares. It’s not worth the hassle. Bedtime routine goes to pot? Also fine. You’re on holiday. You need screens to survive a meal out? Also fine, and if someone is judging you, just tell them to fuck off

Do you have links to ones with apartments, separate lounge area etc?

We always did French mobile homes at that age. You get a terrace / separate areas to sit in in the evening, the pool is fenced and away from where you're staying, activities for little ones.

Unfortunately I wasn't blessed with kids who would sleep in a buggy by the table or go to bed later and get up later.

Up the budget and the modern vans are actually comfy, air conditioned and spacious enough.

@thebigpurpleone tui holiday villages have family rooms with a separated sleeping area for the kids. Some of them have duplexes, Kos does.

You still end up on a pretty small balcony unless you want to sit on your bed with the family rooms though. I would never take a ground floor one as they are all direct access onto pools that aren't fenced off.

Martinhal in Portugal is pricey but fab.

Hi OP - have you checked out Mark Warner? They have an evening creche! We went to Lemnos last year when my son was almost 2. We bathed him and gave him dinner and then dropped him off at 7pm in his pyjamas and the babysitters would put the kids down infront of a movie and they'd fall asleep. We picked him up at 11pm fast asleep and carried him back to the room. Total gamechanger, as like you, we were not keen on staying in the room / balcony every evening. I haven't found anywhere else that offers the night creche...check it out! They also have sitters you can hire to your room if your kid wasn't happy in the group setting.