Is European winter sun always out of season?

[squirelled]

I have never done winter sun but hoping to go with DH and DS2. I'd like to go as short distance as possible so it's a little easier on DS2 so was thinking Canary Islands etc but is it the case that if you do European winter sun destinations you are always out of season / shoulder season? My concern with that is things being closed, I'd like to go somewhere with plenty to do and plenty of choice for restaurants etc so would it'd be a shame if most things were closed. Thanks

Well yes winter is the off season in Europe but those destinations like the Canaries and Cyprus that trade quite a lot on being winter sun destinations don't really shut down.

Thank you that's reassuring

The Canaries are pretty much year round, although it’s worth checking for any specific resort. I find it’s useful to look at Trip Advisor threads or there are usually Facebook groups for the different resorts which are full of people who have gone thousands of times.

The other option is to go to more of a working town rather than a purely tourist resort. This usually means there is a better choice of restaurants, shops etc.

The Canaries are open year-round and many northern Europeans have property there or regularly holiday there in winter to escape the cold and grey of the northern winter. Mediterranean islands are a bit different and can be wet, grey and chilly from Nov-Mar. So if you headed to a hotel in Majorca you might quite a lot of stuff closed, but not in the Canaries.

Does anyone know about Malta, please?

Malta has reasonable year round tourism because it's popular as a very cheap winter destination for retired Brits, Very cheap deals mean it can be cheaper than staying at home and putting the heating on or good for those who live in park homes that are only allowed to live there 11 months of the year so they spend every January somewhere like Malta. Unlikely to be hot hot, and can be stormy, but temperatures often high teens/low 20s.

We've been to the Canaries a few times between November and February and the weather has been mostly nice, but variable eg between about 15 and 30 C over a week. But it might not be reliably 'laying around in the sun' weather, but we usually go to dive or mountain bike so that doesn't matter to us.

Andalucian cities (Malaga, Granada, Cordoba, Seville, Cadiz) can also be good as there's other things to do. If you're looking at the first week in January, the evening of the 5th is Three Kings Day, one of the most important parts of Christmas in Spain, so always worth seeing the parades which happen in most (all?) towns.

One thing to note about the Canaries is that quite often the swimming pools aren't heated. We went to Lanzarote in May last year and the hotel pool was unuseably cold for the kids. You see water parks advertising heated pools, so they obviously know it's an issue. It wasn't especially warm in May either...

We usually go to the Canaries in the winter - no off season as such. We’ve stopped going in Feb though as the weather is too unreliable.. find it’s best between Oct and Christmas.

Thank you for all the experiences, sounds like Canaries might be a good choice but perhaps in October rather than February to hopefully get the benefit of the sun warming the sea / pools throughout the summer as compared to straight after winter