Recommendations for appartments/aparthotels in Sardinia or Majorca

[rookiemater]

Hi,

We are looking to go away for a week in September with DS aged 3. Ideally we want somewhere in a complex with a heated outdoor pool if possible and prefer self catering with two bedrooms rather than a hotel.
We like to go out during the day so somewhere within walking distance of restaurants and a beach would be excellent.

For Sardinia we fly to Olbia so would have to be at that end of the island.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

rookiemater - just noticed that you arrive at midnight - so did we. If your rental car is with Hertz - here's another tip, send DH straight out to Hertz whilst you get the luggage so he gets to the front of the queue - worked for us! If it's Hertz, it's out of the airport, turn right and walk 5 mins up a small slope to a mobile office that is Hertz. AND print off detailed directions from multimap as to how you get from the airport to the main motorway to Chia if you're not paying extra for Sat Nav. The details from Just Sardinia is not good enough - we got slightly lost!

Don't worry Rookiemaster only about £40 cheaper so that's about 2 bottles of wine at the current exchange rate. We'd be flying in about midnight too - you're not going ryanair from Edinburgh are you?

Selby - many thanks for all the low down - it's really useful.

PS - read some reviews today with trip advisor and some were quite neagtive about the rooms - people always like to find somethig to moan about - they were generally aimed at the cleanliness of the rooms with comments about cockroaches and midgies. I'm not a great fan of the roaches - tell me you didn't find any? On the positive the feedback on the staff was excellent saying they were falling over themselves to help out.

Crikey joeymac that is a bit of a coincidence, yes we are going from Edinburgh. We have never flown so late with DS but I'm sure he will be fine.

Thanks for the hire car tip selby assume hire car is through Hertz, so will send DH off to arrange car.

That also sounds good about the eating arrangements. I will have to train DS to stay up later. He can usually manage one night, but if its more than that he cracks up, but hopefully he might sleep in later in the morning particuarly if tired out from all those childrens club activities.

Good luck with that Rookiemater - DS1 wakes up 6.30 every morning regardless of what time he goes to bed. His brother woke up this morning at 5am with pooh nappy and decided he wasn't up for going back to bed so that was me watching the Home Show on catch up TV at 5.30am before I went to do full day at work!!

We're alsmost decided we're going now but just trying to get time off work - could end up being the 12th for us but would prefer the 5th. Not looking to the midnight madness in the airport with my two but I suppose they may pass out on the flight which will give us a break

Would you mind a highjack?

I have been thinking of Sardinia for our holiday next year - can anyone tell me about sightseeing and trips etc. Is there enough to keep me, dh and 2 children (9 & 4) occupied for 2 weeks or is it more of a 1 week place?

No cockroaches in our rooms and ours were very clean so we had no complaints regarding the room servicing. It's not a small resort so there are bound to be some unhappy customers - you get that everywhere imo. Of course there are midges - this is the Med - as soon as the sun goes down, cover up and close all the windows/doors (which you probably would anyway since you'll be using the air conditioning). Just bear in mind that it's a 4 star - not a 5 star resort and Sardinia is normally expensive anyway compared to other holiday destinations. We had absolutely no complaints with the rooms nor the food quality (expensive when you have to pay for it if you stay in the resort for lunch though) There's always the Forte Village down the road if you're willing to pay the extra.....(I hate to think how much they charge for a bottle of mineral water - part of the reason we decided to opt for Chia Laguna instead!)

Have you booked yet Joeymac ?

DH is now convinced that we will all have swine flu and be unable to go ( he is v excited by the whole pandemic thing and has stocked up on basics just in case).

No - not yet. It's complicated - have booked to go to NZ at xmas and all holidays and money tied up in that. Now considering not going as was going to see my mum who has announced she's moving back to UK. So need to cancel NZ flights and get holidays re-allocated with work but boss not responding and hubby still sitting on the fence about NZ. Am also slightly paranoid too about the plane and swine flu but a bloke I was sitting very close to yesterday at work came down with it today (he thinks) and took himself off home so I may get it before. GP mate told me today that it's really not that bad though and it's all being hyed by the media. Need to get my bum into gear though or I could end up with no holiday at all - or they may be sold out!

Is he currently lining the cupboard with baked beans and bottled water?

Swine flu has hit our office. However I'm more concerned that DS was in contact with chicken pox and we are due to do houseswap in a week and a half. Actually DH hasn't been as bad as expected on the provisions front. He got a whole load of stuff in for bird flu, then the rice got weevils and the water and milk went out of date so I threw them out, so perhaps he has learnt his lesson this time.

Your situation does sound complicated, do let me know if you book, otherwise I will be doing a surreptitious check round the airport for likely candidates, dressed in Boden - check, children not eating fruit shoots or Greggs sausage rolls - check, mother sweating slightly and rushing off to internet terminal to get last mumsnet fix before the holidays - yup that will be me.

Just to add - we went to Chia Laguna at Whitsun a couple of years ago and stayed in the hotel bit in interconnecting rooms (with 2 small DS, then 3 and 5 or a month or so shy of those birthdays). Had a great time - it was all very tastefully decorated and rooms were enormous. Food very good and a great sommelier. In the high season they do have some outdoor entertainments in a big sort of village sqaure area in the village part of the resort - we didn't go along to these and I think you can simply ignore them quite easily. We were tiwht scott Dunn who were running their own children's club there - it was next to the hotel's club which looked absolutely fine, nice girls and lots of stuff focused on the children's pool. I do recall all of us Brit mums staging a bit of a protest on day one to get them to serve children's teas earlier than 7 pm - and the hotel capitulated.

It is a lovely area with a beatiful beach but next time we go to Sardinia I want to go back to the north east which I found a bit more interesting with more local towns and restaurants to go to and a bit more exposure to Italian life.

I would definitely recommend Chia Laguna - and we saw Mariella Frostrup and Frankie Dettori in the hotel while we were there (er, not in the same group!)

Agree with Work2hard, Chia Laguna is breathtakingly gorgeous beach-wise but you do seem very far away from Sardinian village life. We stayed at The Flamingo close to Santa Margherita di Pula (about 20 mins from Chia). It was lovely too but too far to stroll into Pula for dinner. Car was an absolute necessity. Would definitely recommend the area for a beach holiday but will definitely try the North this time or further over to the South East.

Sorry for hijack but has anyone seen the news on the Sardinian bush fires? They want to declare it as a state of emergency.

Slightly panicing as we are due to holiday there in 3 weeks..

OOh will look out for celebrities, although am unsure who Frankie Dettori is. Don't know anything about bush fires, but assume they will be sorted soon, hopefully.

We have a car so we can drive to the other bits, this time a chance to read a chapter or so of my book a day would be quite welcome.

Hi, I was reading this thread avidly yesterday and have spoke to Just Sardinia and have got a really competitive quote. Think we may well be booking next week. It's a toss up between this and an all-inclusive place in Majorca (although don't really like AI but good for kids). We will be going from 18th Sep to 2nd Oct so think we will miss any other mumsnetters going. I also read some dodgy reviews on tripadviser but agree that you can't please everyone all of the time. The only downers I have is that the Family classic cottages don't even have balconies so no outside space atall. And also they cannot guarantee that all of the reastaurants will be open at the time that we will be going, although the childrens club most definitely is.

Rookie: Who did you book your car-hire through?

Hi Rollergirl, we just got ours through Just Sardinia, didn't seem too expensive so thought we would just go for it.

Let us know what you book.

Hello, we are looking at Sardinia for week beginning 12th September. I will be 27 weeks pregnant - do you think it this resort will be managable? We are taking DD (1, nearly 2), will have lots to entertain her?
Thanks in advance
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