Christmas on holiday (2004!) - recommendations?

[handlemecarefully]

After another tedious Christmas saddled with the relies, we have decided to go away next year - probably to Lanzarote. I know it seems early to be planning this, but I am told that things get booked up for Christmas 11 months in advance (?!?).

Has anybody been away for Christmas in either a hotel or villa - and what was the accommodation like?

Spooky!

After discussions last night, DH and I have decided that we will probably go away next Christmas - probably Canary Islands.

I looked on-line at various places and decided to go for a villa - purely because I can't find anything that will sleep the 5 of us together (hence the reason we always go Keycamp for our summer hols !).

Look forward to reading the replies you get

handle, i work in a travel agents and we were still booking xmas holidays up to a few days before this year so you dont have to rush.
the company i work for deal mainly with 4/5* hotels and we generally get really good rates. if your still interested later on in the year ill give u my works number.

Just arrived back (as in early hours of this morning) from Florida. We spent the first week (before christmas) in Orlando at Disney/Universal etc. Very christmassy but weather was only in 50s/60s. Second week had far better weather 70s/80s so we spent it chilling out in Fort Myers Beach (near Naples). Villas were fantastic and christmas day was spent at the Carlton Ritz Hotel ($75.00 per head) eating as much as we could stuff into our faces, followed by dolphin spotting whilst dd1 and dh built sand castles. I went with other members of my family and that was not so good but I can heartily recommend Florida as an option. We booked flights around July, Villas in September and cars and tickets in November. Villas were very difficult to find in September so if we did it again I would want to do that far far earlier in the year.

HTH

We booked our summer 2004 holiday last month. We are off to Floriday doing Disney and the parks. We have a 4 bed villa for me, DH and DD (who will be 2), my parents, brother and sister. We go in August.

As I have to go in school holidays DH and I always book our holidays months in advance. This year's was booked 11 months before, and sometimes it is more than that.

The Florida holiday sounds great...although I still favour Lanzarote as a short(ish) haul destination

Any other suggestions very welcome - particularly if you can recommend specific named villas / hotels that you have stayed at and liked...since I have booked cottages / villas in the past and whilst the photos looked nice, reality was somewhat different (decor looking tired etc)

We are planning to take our 4 to Thailand next Xmas, but a diy job rather than hotels. We know someone living there, so will use their place as a base while we find our own.

wow lou...do you have room for three more?!?

The only slight hitch to our planis that we haven't told our friend yet! Still he did say we could come whenever we want.......