Villa (self catering) or hotel (all inclusive) holiday with 10 month old

[Colinthecaterpillar35]

FTM - what would you recommend and why?

Thank you :)

Hotel - no food and drink to prepare - no supermarket shopping . No floors to sweep no dishwashers to load. Your baby will hopefully sleep in the pram at times so you can have a lovely holiday. Or a drink on the balcony whilst the baby is having afternoon zzzzz.

villas are hard work for mums ….. unless you eat out every meal

We've gone for a AI hotel with our 9 month old for the reasons listed about - no cooking, no cleaning and the hope of few drinks during nap times! Holidays won't be the same with a baby but I definitely do want it to feel like being at home haha

We did an aparthotel when my son was 1 year old, food in restaurant was buffet, so no waiting, we were lucky that DS loved his food, so feeding him wasn’t a problem. He was a sleeper in the daytime and could sleep for 3 hours, so we tended to go somewhere nice for lunch and be served whilst he slept. We had breakfast in the apartment and there was nighttime activities like bands and singers so DS could dance and run around.

Depends. Would you be the one cooking and cleaning in the villa? Hell would freeze over before I'd go on a villa holiday atm because I know that, even if my husband 'helped' with the cooking, I'd still have the mental load of actually organising meals and feeding us. The only villa holiday I'd go on is one where we could eat out for every meal except breakfast and that wouldn't be relaxing with our 4yo (maybe when they're older).

Hotel, no cooking or cleaning. There may be the option of a crèche so you could have a couple of hours to relax, enjoy a meal together. Also hotel more chance of a spa. You deserve a holiday too with a villa you won’t get that.

What do you plan to do during your evenings? If you don’t mind being out and about with baby asleep until he pushchair then hotel would by fine but I think hotel rooms are really limiting in the evening.

I’ve heard stories of couples spending the evening with headphones in, in the dark hotel room because baby’s gone to bed. Or drinking wine in the en-suite.

basically if your strict about baby sleep and still want adult time in the evening I’d go for a villa. If not then hotel.

Personally I’ve enjoyed hotels that do 2 bedroom apartments. Everyone can have separate rooms, we can cook if we want to and we have a living space where we can spend time once babys gone to bed but can still enjoy everything else a hotel has to offer.

Villa.
No stress about baby being up at 5am. Have a separate room so baby can be put to bed, and you can have an evening in the living room with TV and wine.

We usually had a simple breakfast and lunch (bread, cheese, salad, fruit type) and go out for dinner.

But then we had the child who didn't sleep, woke several times a night, ate at times hotel restaurants were shut, and was so early waking evening entertainment in a resort was far to late.

So I guess it depends on your child!

We’ve done both and both worked really well for our DD so I’d say it’s up to you which you would prefer. With the AI we just pushed our DDs bed time back an hour but stuck with the routine and then when she was in bed we sat on our terrace and DH would go to the bar and bring back drinks for us.

With the self catering option we had our own villa and stuck to DDs routine completely and had lunch out and then dinner in the villa, we would split eating with her at dinner time or get her to bed and have dinner just the two of us. I didn’t mind the cooking as it’s something my DH and I enjoy to do together but I imagine for some it wouldn’t feel like a holiday.