Help please! Your hot new family-travel recommendation?

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

The Observer has asked us to come up with a "hot new family travel tip".

They want to know if we can recommend a new destination (resort, hotel or city, in the UK or abroad) that "is increasingly child-friendly".

Or if we can think of "a destination from a holiday company that is offering
excellent child-friendly packages to an unlikely destination".

Since we don't get out of Mumsnet Towers much, we're hoping you well-travelled lot can help us out.

All suggestions v gratefully received...

We go here.

Have been for the last 2 years and it is fab - the people are fantastic and there is nothing I would change about the place - I recommended it on mumsnet last year and met another mumsnetter there who had read my recommendation!

It is family owned and terribly family friendly - all nationalities go there and everyone gets on - we have met people each year that we continue to have contact with (my mumsnetter friend is coming over for the weekend soon with her husband and little beautiful horror!), you get baskets of fresh tomatoes, peaches and figs by your door, the pool is salt water and so better for the kids and the lovely matriarch of the family takes the kids off to feed the animals to give you a little break (although she can't soeak a word of english - which is in a way really good for the kids!)

We are off there next year with some more friends and half our village are planning on coming the year after!

South Africa. We spent our two week half term there (me and ds who is 5). Loads to do and very child friendly. We went to Cape Town and then across to Port Elizabeth via Route 62 and then back to CT along the Garden Route. We did safaris, ostrich rides, zip wire tour along a river gorge, wineries, whale watching, beaches, plus the usual CT stuff - Robben Island and Table Mountain. Can highly recommend it. Easy to drive around and incredibly inexpensive.

This place is fantastic, it isn't 'increasingly' child friendly as it was already the most child friednly place we have visited. We had never heard about it before but because MN is soo fantastic we won it through one of the competitions and it really was a great holiday... we went there after going to florida and ds said he would like to go back there first before we go over to florida!!!(we have family in florida so he doesn't see it as much of a treat because it is just staying with his aunty over there iyswim)
www.duinrell.com/
We will be going back there when the kids are older I think the ideal age range is about 6/7 - teens as they can then be a bit more independent.

Bogie - that place looks like my idea of hell! [shock} (but each to their own etc...)

Keeping it in the UK, I would say Forest Holidays - "it's is a partnership between the Forestry Commission and The Camping and Caravanning Club and provides Cabin holidays and Caravan and Camping holidays in 24 stunning locations throughout Great Britain"

(pasted from website)

Lovely forest locations with access to a few essential services, and cycle routes etc, but without all the over-commercialisation of say, a Center Parks.

We stayed in one of their lodges in Scotland over summer and it really was lovely and comfortable! A bit like camping for softies!

See: www.forestholidays.co.uk

Apparently they're due to open a whole load of new parks/ cabins across the UK in 2010/11?

Cornflake - Tbh the website really doesn't do it justice, it is set in a little old village in Holland that we had a walk into every day the people were really wonderful very helpful, it ws like stepping back in time when you were walking around there all cobbled streets and little shops.
The accomadation was simalar to centerparcs, aswell as having the big amusment park it has a family activity evey night ds loved the pantomime nights.

South Africa - wonderful holiday there with 10 month old. Loads of stuff to do with small children, very easy to drive around, great and cheap food and wine etc.

Mauritius - just returned with our now 18 month old. Best holiday we have ever had at Sugar Beach hotel - totally geared up for families with great kids clubs (you can take your kids in with you to use the facilities rather than having to leave them on their own) and excellent babysitting from very caring staff, fabulous food (lots of choice which means DS could try new things or just have old favourites) but still a classy enough hotel to be nice for adults. Staff were absolutely wonderful with DS. Easy to get around the island and lovely outings for toddlers and small children, including a lovely zoo/wildlife park and botanic gardens and tea plantation. Most of teh island is surrounded by a barrier reef so beaches are on lagoons which make it very safe for children to paddle and swim in the water.

Both are long flights but you can do overnight so the kids sleep, and there is virtually no time difference so no jetlag to deal with which means you can enjoy your holiday right from the start unlike US, Caribbean, Far East etc.

"aswell as having the big amusment park it has a family activity evey night ds loved the pantomime nights"

Sorry, but that is exactly the sort of thing that would turn me off - the whole 'organised fun' aspect

But I appreciate everyone looks for different things in a holiday - we had one of our best holidays in a wooden shack on a lakeside in the middle of nowhere!

Bilbao in Northern Spain. Great city, and if you want a beach you can travel out (or go to San sebastian - which also has a great seaworld place). Very friendly - they love children - ds spent many an afternoon/evening running around Plaza Nueva with all the other children. the Guggenheim is amazing (who can resist Jeff Koon's Puppy), has a fab playground outside and two fab resturants inside. Ds loved walked round the city, going to the huge indoor market and picking fresh veg, swimming at San sebastian and eating in some wonderful resturants and bars. Go in August for the party and its even better...

We really liked Bluestone in Pembrokeshire when we went earlier this year. It is very new and still needs a little time to bed in, but it is definitely a place we will continue to visit over the next few years.

The accomodation is great, very modern, family-friendly (stair gates, cots, high chairs etc., all provided foc and are of a good quality) and clean. There's plenty going on to entertain all ages - we went with our 2 year old and also two teenage boys and we all loved it. There's a large theme park next door (great for teenage boys!), Folly Farm a few miles down the road (great for 2 year old!), and plenty of hills to walk and cycle (great for us all).

Although, having seen the place in Italy that MadameC linked to I am sorely tempted to go there as it's just down the road from where I used to live .

Playa Blanca in Lanzarote - hotel there runs tennis, football, dancing clubs etc every morning. It's right on the most beautiful, clean beach. Top banana.

another vote for forestholidays here.

I also recommend forest holiday cabins - lovely accommodation, very friendly staff, they organise activities at each site - walks, wildlife spotting, kids crafts. You can hire bikes from most sites and they're great bases to explore the surrounding area by foot, bike or car. An outdoorsy type family friendly holiday
Some of the more luxury cabins have hot tubs and wii consoles.

Thanks, everyone, for these - all good stuff.

We've seen some posts on the Travel boards recently about Montenegro. Anyone been there? Is it the new undiscovered family-holiday gem?

montenegro is so last year, albania is now the place for your authentic 'we were kidnapped by bandits' dinner party anecdote.

Cor Albania - just don't say 'Karen Pil' to anyone when you go. Tis very, very rude apparently (and is the only Albanian I happen to know!)

We're planning to go here next year as I have heard it is meant to be very child-friendly .

dear god claraquack this is the observer not the express my dear

montenegro was beautiful but i'm not sure it is a particularly family-oriented destination. we're fairly intrepid and venture far and wide with DS but i'm just not sure it has the things he (toddler) wants - beach, parks and erm not much else! - or at least doesn't have them better than anywhere else.

it is lovely though

I can recommend Landal Much cheaper than Center Parcs and similar kind of holiday - no domes though. We went to Germany with them last Easter and dd still talks about it now.

And as a general destination, Sardinia! Gorgeous, nice food and the best beaches I have ever seen in Europe - excellent for littlies as so gently shelving. Italians love children as a rule anyway!

i want to know about croatia

MadameCastafiore - calling my dd a horror albeit a beautiful one .... wait till we descend on you and she lovingly follows your two aroud CONTSTANTLY!!!

I can also recommend the place MC liss - although dont want it to get tooooo popular, cant wait to go again, cant wait to go again.

i cant see hwat you do there apart form put up with kids moaning about the pool.

mine need space for sport

Get a Trunki for each urchin, blindfold them, put them on it and drag them round the neighbourhood until they vomit. Allow them to defecate down your leg while waiting for a cancelled form of transport (buses on Sunday are a good option) and then go home swearing never to do it again. Cheap and highly effective in convincing you travel is overrated!

montenegro or serbia

we went to Egypt (with dds aged 6 and 8) last autumn and it was fantastic. We booked it all ourselves on-line. flew to Cairo - did the museum, the pyramids, Khan el-Khalili; then flew to the Red Sea for a few days snorkelling and beach - tbh I didn;t like that much - had to stay in a resort type place which had pool aerobics and people who complained loudly about anything and everything in English or Russian, but the girls got to see lots of lovely fish, which was the main reason for going (though the reef is sadly depleted in places); and then flew to Luxor - which was a real highlight - (apart from Egypt Air, but let's not dwell on that...).

The girls were welcomed with open arms everywhere - waiters and taxi-drivers were more interested in them than they were in me and dh. they talked to them, like strangers in the UK very rarely do. they were treated like people in a way I don;t see very often. it was completely lovely.

and the ancient monuments are, of course, gob-smacking - and dds enjoyed them too. (but you can;t do more than half a day sight-seeing...then it's back to the hotel and swimming pool. fair enough)