Not sure this combo is possible....

[SussexSun25]

Hello
Have been racking my brains for a holiday destination for July for me, DH, DD aged 12 and DS aged 10. Both children love cities, being busy, shopping, going to arcades, bowling etc and also swimming pools and beach type stuff. We also all enjoy entertainment of an evening.
Ideally I am looking for somewhere not too hot, with things to do during the day but with entertainment at night (ideally of the type you might get in a hotel in Tenerife or Costa del Sol etc). I am not sure there are any cities/non traditional resorts that would have hotels with entertainment at night? I would happily do a city for a few days followed by a beach/more traditional resort but struggling with that too as thinking eg Palma plus resort in Majorca might be too hot, but then if we did eg Stockholm plus islands or Copenhagen plus Danish beaches then I think the hotels in those places would not be lively/have anything on. Thought about Lake Garda or Como but my recollection of hotels there is that it might be a piano player in the evening at most.
I feel like I am searching for the impossible but any ideas would be very welcome. Thanks!

Barcelona? The area around the port has some bars which might have that sort of thing.

Or Lisbon which has a good Atlantic breeze. Loads to see and do and again a few livelier areas like the docks and the TimeOut market.

I was about to suggest Barcelona as well, a city on the beach!

You could try Croatia too?

You could stay somewhere like Palma Nova in Majorca and get the bus into Palma to spend the day there. But in July it will be hot like everywhere else in the Mediterranean. That's why people go from the northern half of Europe go there, and that's why the hotels with entertainment are there.

Maybe this will start to change if we have another few years of very hot summers, but generally for tourists it's "the hotter the better" unless the place literally catches fire.

There probably are holiday places in Denmark or Sweden that are by the sea, not too far from a town, and which have evening entertainment. But that entertainment is likely to be in the local language, and that is also what 95% of the other guests will be speaking. I assume you are not considering staying in the UK and going to Butlin's, so you could extrapolate a bit from your reasoning for that decision.

La Rochelle area in France, few nights in the city and then move on to a Siblu type place on the Cote Sauvage. La Palmyre is a good town, great beach, watersports, it's the Atlantic so sea is refreshing cold and you mostly get a breeze. It can be hot but then so is much of Europe going to be in July. There is a big theme park there and arcades etc and the entertainment is watchable if not quite West End standard!

Thanks so much everyone. Will check out Barcelona and Sitges and also La Rochelle area, hadn’t thought of there at all. Thank you x