Pros and cons of a villa holiday

[DanceMumTaxi]

Just thinking ahead to next year and we’re considering hiring a villa. For a good while now we’re done big AI resorts in Turkey, usually 10 days. We’ve always had a great time (including this year) but more and more we’re noticing that we’re not really making much used of all that AI offers. DC are 12 and 9 neither are bothered by kids clubs and we don’t watch the entertainment. They like the water slides but went less as the holiday went on. We’ll have a drink but certainly not big drinkers. This year we felt like the room was a bit on the small side, and we got fed up with the buffet even though the food was good. Sick of hearing kids iPads, crying children, people smoking outside, the queues. Also fed up with getting up at the crack of dawn to get a sunbed. This is one of our main reasons for getting a villa. One family secured 7 beds on the first day and left all their stuff on overnight for their whole holiday. This was by a quieter pool not the main activity pool so no staff moved them. Next year we’re considering renting a villa, but the main thing putting me off is that we don’t want to be driving and they all seem quite far away from amenities. I’m also a bit concerned about having to food shop, clean, cook etc. I do want a break, which AI provides. We would eat out but definitely not all the time. We’d be happy to use Taxis to/from a town but I’m a bit concerned that this might be tricky to organise? We wouldn’t want a big lively resort. Also not sure if we’d afford it. Budget is around 6.5K for everything (including spending money). Also considered SC apartment but then that doesn’t solve the sun bed situation. Happy to hear any thoughts or experiences anyone has. Thanks

If you’re willing to travel further than Europe, in South-East Asia you can get a villa with staff. It means you get daily housekeeping like you would in a hotel. Some villas come with a driver. You can also get the housekeeping staff to do some cooking, so if you want to stay in you give them money to buy groceries and they will buy and cook it for you. Basically you get all the perks of a hotel without the other people. This kind of set up is pretty common in places like Phuket and Bali.

We have just been to a campsite in Spain in a beautiful chalet. We were half board but the kitchen was well equipped. No rush for beds in the morning and there are 2 at the chalet.
Not really near a town but you can walk to the beach and the campsite is huge.

We have stayed here twice , lovely to walk to town, water park nearby , supermarkets , restaurants etc very close , beach 400 metres away, loved the peace and quiet even though it’s close to the centre you didn’t hear any noise https://www.villaplus.com/destinations/villas-in-spain/villas-in-canary-islands/fuerteventura/corralejo/villa-jenny

The good thing these days is that you can use Google Earth to hone in on a villa and see how close it actually is to restaurants, beach & other amenities and what the area is like.
As well as location, really zoom in on the photos and check how many sofas there are in the sitting room, how many sun loungers there are by the pool and that sort of thing. Probably less of an issue when there are only four of you but we go with another family and turned up once to find that, in an 8 bed villa, there were only 6 dining chairs around the table.

As far as cooking & cleaning are concerned, yes, it’s a bit of a faff but it’s very different from being at home as you have less stuff with you and there are none of the big jobs hanging over you. Everybody makes their own breakfast (and has to make a good attempt at clearing up after themselves) and then, if lunch at home, we just do bread, cheese & meats and, if dinner at home, it’s always a BBQ, usually with ready marinated meat & fish so all we have to do is a salad. I take a pack of Dettol wipes and use one of those to wipe around the bathroom when needed. And I spend a lot of time telling the DC not to bring sand in and then muttering to myself as you inevitably end up with what feels like half the beach in the villa. Washing is simple as it dries in minutes. And actually having a washing machine means you take less stuff.

Which area of Corfu was this?

I had Airbnb for a week in Menorca last year. Chose the villa as one within walking distance of shops and beach. 3 bed, was about EUR 2500 (school holiday time). Didn’t get a car as airport car hire so expensive (£600 for a week, plus £30 A DAY for child booster seat). However after a couple of days, I really wanted to explore a bit and the local car hire place gave me a car for 3 days for EUR 120. Car seat included.

My advice is research the area v carefully before you book using online forums. We had an intruder at a villa in Portugal on our second night some years ago which was bloody awful, couldn’t sleep a wink after that. I disturbed them and luckily they just took off (in a car). Explained the high fences, alarms and Dobermans in neighbouring properties which we’d thought was all a bit OTT in a nice residential area.

I was told these tossers look out for newly arriving relaxed tourists in hire cars. Unfortunately no one thought to tell us about the problem in that area before we went - a friend “didn’t want to spoil our holiday”!

Could you post a link to it please?

Vintage Travels are very good as mentioned up thread. All their villas have pools and you can filter by walking distance to beach/restaurants. It is nice to have either restaurant or bakery within walking distance.

We tend to eat out either for lunch or dinner every day and then just have bread, cheese/cold meat, fruit and veg for the other so don't ever really cook so it still definitely feels like a holiday!

My kids love it. Also if you have another family/friends that you'd like to go with, villa holidays work brilliantly with 2 families and you tend to get a bit better value for money if you're booking a bigger one.

Don’t want to hijack the thread, but I am looking for a villa for six people plus toddler and baby not school holidays next year. Walking distance to beach and shops but not close to other villas if possible and with a garden and table tennis. Somewhere not super. commercialised . We are thinking of taking family members who haven’t driven abroad before and can’t afford to hire a car or eat out much. So maybe we’ll take them out for a meal once or twice, but other than that we will cook for ourselves. Minorca, France, possibly the Canaries but somewhere with a great beach and must be family friendly. We would need at least three beds, probably four or the toddler will be in with his parents in three beds. Budget up to four grand but preferably less. We have been to France many times but never within walking distance of shops and markets or near a beach. The problem is getting from the airport too so an uber from from the airport would be helpful. Otherwise we’ll be driving them all.

Thanks for the tip about looking at the map and then Google Earth, this is much easier than looking at a list. Don’t know why I didn’t think of this myself.

@Ladedahlia is that the budget for just the villa or the whole shebang including flights ??

Also, does anyone know when flights for next summer are released - easy jet etc? Assuming this is when they’re cheapest? Thanks

villa holidays allow everyont to be together, work out cheaper, give you privacy and sole access of facilites like the pool!

Big Lanzarote fans here too… always a Villa. We love Playa Blanca, and if you look on the Los Calamares or Costa Papagyo developments then it’s an easy walk into the central part of the town and a little further to the Marina. We have a hire car but rarely use it in the evenings… Villa Plus properties often have a pool table/table tennis which is a hit with the kids. We go in October, so I’m not sure about summer flight costs..

We had a lovely villa in Dubrovnik this year, 4 bed, 8 of us went. Lovely big swimming pool, sea view. Booked it through Solmar Villas. Ten min walk into the centre of Dubrovnik which was obv busy, but the villa was very quiet. May half term, so school hols and I think our total spend was approx £8K for the week.

It's a city so no beach as such but you could jump off rocks into the sea, and there were plenty of boat trips to beaches (not sandy though).

We did a combination of eating out, cooking on the bbq and getting takeaways to eat by the pool. Everyone pitched in with washing up etc (adult kids and partners). No need to hire a car as it was so central to everything, hilly and lots of steps though so you need to be reasonably fit.

We've done AI a couple of times when kids were small and constantly wanted ice creams/drinks etc. But I prefer to have our own space ... the only thing I miss is the people watching.

No just the villa. Everyone would have to book their own flights.

What about self catering holiday in a resort so that you can walk to go out every night thats what we do. Then you dont have to clean, make drinks, cook and you wont be in the middle of nowhere

We have done villa holidays for the past 3 years with teens. It has been great as they can get up whenever, stay in the pool as late as they want, not everyone trekking back to the room to shower and change for dinner at once.

Our first villa was in the middle of nowhere, and meant driving to town for dinner each night. So we then ensured we got villas more walkable after that.

Lanzarote is good for villas in town, also Menorca which is where we are going this year.

The good thing about hotels though is that there is often entertainment in the evenings , no cooking or cleaning and transfers from the airport already sorted. It’s not a rest for me to be cooking every night for large numbers, or trailing round the supermarket. We did that once and it was exhausting for me. Also often water parks on site and other kids to team up with.

Not sure if you are set on Spain OP, but if not, how about a villa in France, which is drivable from the UK? We’ve just had a brilliant holiday in the south of France, staying in a villa with its own pool. We drove (from the NW of England!), and took a few days to get there and back, staying at hotels en route, which allowed us to explore a few towns. Once at our villa we did a big shop at the local Carrefour hypermarket (easy with our own car), and then did a mixture of eating out and a few easy meals at the villa. Our DC are 17, 13 and 9. They loved the pool and were in there every day, and in the evenings we played games, cards, Bananagrams etc. It was great.

That’s what we did many times with our kids and it was always great.

Sorry I see it’s Turkey you want, not Spain (or France!).

Too right! Just looked at Jet 2 villas for 3 of us for next July it was working out around 6k for one week!!

We have always done villa holiday - sometimes on our won with the kids other times with extended family or friends. Except one year we did an AI and hated it!

We search for villas we like with strict criteria of decent size pool (check the size as some are tiny if you want to play pool games) & aircon in bedrooms. It's nice to walking distance of a few amenities but not a deal breaker as we don't go out to eat every night and fine to drive to the beach as this can make it much cheaper - basically the more remote/rural you are the cheaper they tend to be.

Before booking a villa I always check flight prices as it can vary enormously -4 flights to spain last summer holidays with just cabin bags (we buy all our toiletries out & you won't need as many clothes for a villa vs hotel) came under £1,000. Same dates to some of the greek islands and portugal added another £500 or more.

We've used James Villas, Villa Plus, Oliver's Travels & AirBNB in the past.