How much spending money for menorca?

[Tropicaliyes]

I'm visiting menorca in 5 days with my infant and we are doing self catering. I'm unsure how much money to exchange over to spend there, if I exchange too much then I'll loose a lot trying to change it back to £.

We will be going for 7 days, I will mainly be cooking all our meals in the apartment however I do plan on taking my son out to eat maybe twice while there (he has allergies hence self catering and not eating out much). I don't really plan to do any excursions as my son is too young to enjoy most things and Mahon seems a bit too long on a bus for my son to tolerate so I'm not sure if we will go there, but if we do, it will be by bus both ways and I would be spending very little there.

How much money would I need to do a basic shop for 7 days for all 3 meals? I will add a little extra on for just in case and extra spending money.

Thanks in advance

We usually spend about £300-400 a week for a family of four going all inclusive.

I find supermarkets in the Balearics to be more expensive. Eating out is also expensive, we're about €150 for fairly standard evening meal, so maybe less than half that for you and a toddler. Then think about all the ice creams and drinks. Paying for things like little pool toys, a shot on bouncy castle, lounger at the beach etc.

Around €700 for one week self catering for 2, is realistic but not luxury level spending.

I also have a Monzo and don’t use it as my main account, but I did open it a few years ago so rules
may have changed. Another option is an account with Chase Bank, I use that for all my holiday spending as it’s fee free. Some ATMs will still charge you a fee to withdraw cash, even if if your bank doesn’t charge, so I would take maybe €200 in cash and put the rest in your Monzo/Chase account and pay with that. I always like to have cash as a backup just in case.

No monzo doesn't. I prefer starling and revolut though. Even if you can't get a physical card in time you can get one that's on your wallet/Apple pay on your phone that you can use contact less

Wow that's expensive. I used to live in Mallorca and knew prices have risen but that's extreme. Unless of course it's a fancy tourist restaurant

Thanks everyone fot your replies. Like I mentioned before if we eat out it will be maybe 2 meals in the whole week. I don't drink and the only drinks both my son and I do have is water so I'll just be buying a big bottle to keep in the fridge and fill up our little travel cups to go out and about with. He also doesn't have ice cream (had a sick maybe once in his life). I won't be lounging at the beach so I'm won't be buying a lounger, he won't be still enough for me to even think about settling in one place. His still at an age where just walking on a different textures floor keeps him entertained for a long time so I'm confident I won't need to be paying to entertain him much.

I have no issue with buying their own brand stuff, and I cook pretty much every day at home so I intend to do the same there with just different things to do and see.

I dont own any credit cards so I won't be applying for one just for these 7 days and pay anything back after, that just sounds like a terrible idea to me but might work for others🤷🏽‍♀️. Upon further checking on Monzo I think they are saying they will charge to withdraw from ATMs unless it's your main bank.. funny though I can't get a definitive answer on that one and there doesn't seem to be anyone I can speak with. ATM I'm going to exchange a small amount of money and then I'll likely pay the £7 to use my bank card. Starling is a close 2nd option if I don't need a physical card as I have about 4 days to go so won't get anything in time now.

@samarrange

What a helpful answer.

There’s not much for your infant to see in Mahon, so I’d save yourself the journey. The bud services are very good though!

@countdowntonap oh I wasn't going there for sightseeing and such, I was told the bigger and cheaper supermarkets are there or close to there so that was the only reason for heading in that direction.

Alaior is much closer for you.

@countdowntonap Can you get A bus there or is it just a taxi? And there are supermarkets there? Google maps is telling me it can't get public transport information for there🤦🏽‍♀️

So for anyone that's still following, we came home last Monday. I exchanged £60 to carry with me and just used my bank card which I used the majority of the time. We did go to maó very briefly which took us over 45 minutes by bus and then when it came time to go back I learned the buses run every 2 hours and we had over 1.5 hrs to go until the next arrived! I ended up getting a taxi back which was almost €30.

We went to Alaior twice to visit their hipercenter which we took the bus there and taxi back.

If I am being honest, I didn't enjoy the stay as much as I'd hoped. There was literally nothing to do, it was just countryside as far as the eye could see, it was full of such steep hills it was hard to navigate on foot especially woth a toddler and pram. The beach took about 30 minutes to walk to from our hotel but we did have a free shuttle if we went during their times. We didn't get to go on any glass floored boats or anything in Mahon because they all finished running around lunch time which was no do-able with my little one! The cooking facilities at the hotel was quite poor so I had to come up with ways to cook basic meals multiple times a day. The hotel resturant food was salty and gave me a bad stomach, we ate pizza at la gondola and ended up with really bad diarrhea and nausea the next day (luckily my toddler refused to eat their food). I got marinated meat at the hipercenter and everything was just so salty! Even their jars of pasta sauce was salty!

We did go to son bou beach twice though, I did buy my son his first chocolate gelato which he LOVED! we found a playground on the visit to Mahon which he also enjoyed. We visited cristo bakery and the staff wasnt the nicest because I didn't speak Spanish.

Otherwise we had nothing To do, nowhere to go, transport being every 2 hrs meant I couldn't get around to see any of the island unless I made it quick and got a taxi back. The most annoying thing is that when I looked it up, many was saying it was suitable to visit if you don't drive so I swapped going to corfu to go Menorca to find really you need a car or can't do anything really!

Nonetheless I tried to make the most of the holiday and tried to find some fun stuff for my son to do, I'm glad I visited now while he was young so I know it's ticked off my list and I likely wouldn't visit again. People were lovely and the beaches are gorgeous but it just wasn't for me and I wouldn't say very suitable for families with young children if you don't drive. It was shocking to see the amount of disappointed people on the plane back to stansted which were so excited on the plane out there!

Now I'm going to search better for out next holiday next year! Thanks for everyone's comments on here.