What is your best ever holiday with kids?

[pumpkinpotpie]

Preferably primary school age kids (mine are aged 7 to 13).

Just fancied a bit of inspiration and thought I'd be nosy about other people's best ever holidays with kids to see if there's something we really should add to the (very long) list. Budget not an issue because this may be total fantasy.

I'll start. I think the best holiday we have done was to Brittany and the Loire valley. We stayed in Eurocamp accommodation in both and I really enjoyed the freedom of exploring during the day / swimming / going to the beach and then in the evening relaxing with a glass of nice wine while the kids made friends and played.

Downsides were that I couldn't get my kids to visit a chateau and we had a fair amount of arguing etc but I think it's definitely the best holiday I've discovered so far.

My kids generally don't want to do things like kids clubs and one of mine is on the way to an ASD diagnosis so overwhelm and meltdown is a real problem.

Best was trip to Canada with a visit to Disneyland California. Other than that, my favourite with kids was Bella Italia on Lake Garda, just a beautiful place and so much to do to keep everyone happy, would go back in a heartbeat!

@reluctantbrit where would you recommend in Germany? Thinking of heading there this summer - love being outdoors - hikes, cycling, swimming, water based activities.

It was next to Lake Idro.

I came here to say Efteling but I see I’ve been beaten to it. We are not even really theme park people (DH particularly would rather chew his own arm off than go to Disney) and we all just loved it, it’s the one place we talk about going back to the most. It was part of a great holiday in the Netherlands - we stayed in a really lovely chilled out camping/glamping site about an hour out of Amsterdam which another mumsnetter recommended, I can dig out the name if anyone is interested. Plus Beekse Bergen in the new safari hotel and a centre Parcs.

These all sound amazing, thank you!! Definitely some I wouldn’t have thought of and great to see some we might be able to afford as well as some which may have to go on the wish list for now.

I almost booked the Dordogne for this summer but in the end switched to further north as was worried it might be too long a drive but now I’m thinking maybe next year! (Would also love to see those links @MissAmbrosia )

My kids absolute favourite is Butlins.
Nice days on the beach, free fairground and soft play, plenty of activities.
We've been a few resorts but our favourite is Minehead because you can drive out to Exmoor and look at all the neolithic tombs and the wild ponies.

I can also recommend the Netherlands. There's an excellent theme park called Efterling which we go to every now and again.

We once had a ferry break down on us coming back and ended up stranded at Amsterdam ferry terminal. Which sounds dreadful but it turns out Amsterdam ferry terminal is actually located in a very pleasant seaside town called Ijmuiden.
It has a nice beach with a very delicious fried fish van. And this Very cool playground which is also conveniently right next to a swimming pool.

So yeah, if you're headed into Amsterdam don't overlook Ijmuiden. It's worth a day or two.

1st - touring Northern Norway. Up until secondary school we took him out of school for holidays and when his class was learning about the Vikings we were in the Lofoten Islands at the Lofotr Viking museum in an excavated Viking long house!

2nd Slovenia but specifically Lake Bled

3rd Florida - but not Disney!

@House4DS

You may have left it late finding accomodation for this year.

All of Bavaria. I know plenty of people will recommend southern Bavaria but Frankonia, esp. Frankonian Switzerland, the area north of Nürnberg is also a great place. Castles, caves, hiking, cycling, some lakes but plenty of public swimming pools, indoors and outdoors.
https://www.frankentourismus.com/regions/franconian-switzerland/

Lake Constance

Northern Germany - North of Hamburg is an area called Holstein Switzerland, three large lakes which offers watersport. The area is flatter but still great for walks and lots of cycling. The Baltic coast is not too far away, you can add Hamburg for a visit as well.
https://www.sh-tourismus.de/en/regions-and-cities/between-the-coasts/holstein-switzerland

It's a close call but The kids loved Florida but also had just as much fun Camping in Dorset for a week. They also loved Cruising
Let the kids look and see what they would plan and do you might be surprised at what they can be up for.
Ours now go surfing at every opportunity all done to a Cornwall trip many years ago and a surfing lesson.

@FishfingerFlingerim interested in Efteling plus the NL Centre Parcs (for our soon to be 5yo) but get bamboozled by all the choices every time I start looking! So any specific tips would be super helpful! Thank you 🙏

With primary age kids - Sandy Balls in the New Forest - we went every year for 10 years (I really miss it now they’re older teens!). Ponies, Peppa Pig World / Paulton’s Park, Moors Valley, Bolderwood Deer Sanctuary, NT places… just so much to do that’s perfect for that age.

We've done a lot of trips that have worked well. We've done two driving trips to California, both of which were great and the DC loved them. The first one was from San Francisco down to LA via Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Monterey, Pismo Beach and Santa Barbara. DC were 13 and 10 at the time. The second we flew to Las Vegas, which they LOVED, and then drove to San Diego and finished up in a hotel by the beach in Orange County. They were 16 and 13 for that one.

When they were younger, we rented a cottage in the Lake District that was part of a hotel. We were lucky with the weather as it was dry apart from one day. We did loads of lovely, but reasonably gentle walks. We did the same sort of thing in Northumberland and that was also good.

Otherwise, we had great trips to both north and south Brittany, the area around La Rochelle, various Canary Islands, Efteling (highly recommended as a theme park and SO much better than Disney), plus it has nice onsite accommodation.

Thinking back over the years the best family time we had on a holiday was on Jersey. Took the car over on the ferry, stayed in a traditional hotel in St. Helier, and spent the days exploring the beaches and towns.

As we don't live in the UK it was nice to have old familiar places like M&S for picnic food, squash etc and places like Pizza Express for dinner, but understandably appreciate that's not for all UK folks! Also enjoyed great seafood at places like The Crab Shack and The Oyster Box in St Brelade.

Camp in France. The best holidays we had were at these campsites, the facilities were great: https://www.les-castels.co.uk

Disney world Florida

We have loved France - Dordogne especially, eurocamp sites were Les Paradis for little ones and St Avits once they discover waterslides.
we have rented gites on various places and the kids loved pool olympics and bbqs.
Top favourite though is cruising, Med destination s, lots to do, food, freedom, just bliss…

@usernotfound0000 I’d love to know more about your holiday at Bella Italia. How old were your kids, what did you get up to aside from what was available at the complex, and which airport did you fly to?

@BunnyNumNum I know this is an old.post, I'd love some more specific details on your sleeper train and other highlights if you'd kindly share, please 🙏 😀 thank you.

@MNHQ
another one keen for the dinosaur park links.

Thank you! @MNHQ - maybe it's lost forever, but maybe have a look? Otherwise I will find some time to find them again.

Disney Florida, hands down. Staying on site was great.
Also enjoyed St Lucia and Hayle beach in Cornwall.

Speak to Scott Dunn travel agents. They are experts in this. We’ve done two years at Pine Cliffs in Portugal as it suited what we all wanted - a relaxed holiday with an excellent kids club. Next year DC are a bit older but we will most likely still book through them.

Speak to Scott Dunn travel agents. They are experts in this. We’ve done two years at Pine Cliffs in Portugal as it suited what we all wanted - a relaxed holiday with an excellent kids club. Next year DC are a bit older but we will most likely still book through them.

Best holiday for us was TUI Blue Cyprus Nissi Beach. In part it was because it was it was after a bereavement and we really needed it but the weather wasn’t too hot, it was term time, we had low expectation of what we would achieve and the TUI blue app means everything is much more predictable for my ASD child.

We have been to Efteling a couple of times but never stayed on site. It is the perfect place for a 5 year old.

We have stayed at a couple of Landal Greenparks campsites which are very similar to Centerparcs (Het Vennenbos and De Lommerbergen) and we've also stayed at Duinrell (an independent site). None of them is local to Efteling but we've been able to do it as a day trip with a car.

Book directly with Landal or Duinrell rather than through a holiday company. They speak English and it's very straightforward.