Some good news - we had a brilliant holiday!

[Eulalia]

Just back from a two week holiday in the south of Spain which was wonderful! ds was brilliant compared to the last time we went away (he was only 3 then). He loved the plane and although everything was new he took it totally in his stride. Loved his bed which had his own special lamp and in particular absolutely adored the beach. He spent hours playing in the sand and it was a delight to see him skipping in the waves. He just lost himself in sensory pleasure. From that point of view I think he enjoyed it more than the rest of us.

He did run away a couple of times, so it wasn't much fun chasing after him along the beach, puff pant, trying to carry very heavy dd. In fact I had to just dump her to get him at one point.

dd was much more of a handful (she is 2 now and a real monkey). She learned a new skill - climbing onto a bar stool at the beach bar - very useful

Hope everyone is well - there are so many new threads I've not got a hope of catching up.

Ahhh, that's great news, so pleased it went so well.
Welcome home

brilliant I have just come back after about a six week absence and there isnt a hell of catching up on the gossip!

Brilliant news Eulalia!

You're never too young to learn how to climb on to a bar stool.

glad to hear it all went well ... ( except the running down the beach trying to catch ds)

That's great news Eulalia (what a pretty name). Well done - I am going to attempt to book a holiday for myself and my ds tomorrow and have only been abroad once when ds was 5 months old.

If you or Dinosaur have any tips or recommendations for Spain, I would be very grateful - sorry - not meaning to hijack your thread!

Hi Chocol8 - don't know your background, do you mean from an autism viewpoint or just general tips?

If your ds loves the beach then no problems, unless he is prone to wandering off but any child could do this. we could just leave ds literally for hours on his own as long as he was within view. However we had to keep an eye out as he did like to join in with other kids so had to make sure he didn't throw sand or snatch spades etc away. Nothing much to worry about as he could easily be enticed away if it was time to come home with an ice cream.

And of course plenty of sun-cream

Hi Eulalia - thank you, yes ds has AS and ADHD. He does love the sand, but I think even he would have a problem playing with it all day...unless he had Thomas and friends to play with, of course!

I was wondering if any parts of Spain were better than others for children with SNs? If you can recommend hotels or places to eat that would be fantastic - I am such a holiday virgin, it's untrue. I want to try and limit the mistakes I make with the location and facilities as this has happened with hols in Britain, and we have always ended coming home early as we are not having a good time.

Hi Eulalia

Glad you all had a lovely holiday.

I'm curious to find out where you went.

The last time I went abroad was when I was pregnant with dd back in 91 and that was to Southern Spain. I used to go there a lot 'pre-kids' and I hope to go back sooner than later. But I've got to take into account dd's needs so I'm interested in any information and recommendations you've got.

Thanks

Chocol8/dottee - will do my best. Can't really speak for one area of Spain as such as it can be totally different on the coast, and you go 10 miles inland and its a differnet place. Also along the coast there can be small quiet places or huge tourist monstrosities with massive hotels so really Spain caters for every type. BTW we went to a tiny place not even on the map which is a residential area of small apartments. However nearby there was Torrevieja (touristy) or further South a bit was Cartegena (ancient town) and also nearby La Manga (again touristy) or drive inland for an hour and you reach Murcia (lovely city).

One thing I would say if you are going to be bored sitting on a beach then hire a car. DON'T do it at the airport as it is v expensive. We pre-booked ours from a Spanish company we found on the website. Spain is a very big country and there is an awful lot of nothing inbetween towns and villages so transport is essential. The rail network isn't as developed as ours.

Regarding special needs - it depends on the type of holiday. We went self catering but that was OK as we didn't need special wheelchair access for example (I did notice that the pavements tend to be quite high and often had trees planted in the middle of them). If you went for a package holiday then the agents would be able to advise on that kind of thing. The hotels seem fine and some are big and very organised with excursions, events every nights, childcare etc. They can be a bit crowded and noisy though so maybe not good for autistic kids. There are also villas you can hire, or go to a smaller apartment style block with maybe only two storeys and self contained flats inside. There are many different options. Camping also but I've not seen many sites in the South of Spain (very little grass there!)

The Spanish just LOVE children so certainly no problems there. In the tourist areas nearly all speak English well enough for your basic needs.

Food - depends where you go but bigger places have heaps of different types of restaurants. Chinese seems to be popular in Spain and also the ubiquitous pizza.

Umm that's all I can think of at the moment. HTH.

I think I know where you went. There's been a prog on beeb 2 this week at 6pm about Brits settling in S. Spain and they were at Cartegena. I haven't been that far east.

Twenty years ago I went to Roquestas de Mar and have thought about going back there with dd because it's flat and relatively quiet. In the days before the children came along my ex and I used to visit Torremolinos regularly because we had a lot of friends down there (I can still make contact via the 'grapevine' and I'd love to see them again but I am wary of returning to Torre. itself as 1) it's busy with people and traffic and 2) it's hilly and large.

The place you went sounds lovely. Did you fly to Murcia? It's given me an idea for next year (the funds won't stretch this year as we went away in this country at Easter.) Was it private accomodation that you rented?

dottee - we flew to Alicante from Newcastle. Got very cheap flights from flightline. Not exactly close to us (we live near Aberdeen) but flying from Aberdeen is v expensive. dh doesn;t need to pay fuel for his car so it didn't cost any more. The apartment we stayed in belongs to a friend of the family so we got it cheap.

We have passed by Roquestas de Mar on the way to Gibralter. There seems to be an endless strip of tourist places along the south coast. Must be a lot busier than it was 20 years ago. MInd you depends when you go. we are talking about going back to Spain in the October break.

That should be Gibraltar.

Don't know if any of you have heard of Costa Tropical? It was recommended to us by SenoraPostrophe, it's where her family go when they need some sand, only 45 mins from Granada and also only 90 mins from either Malaga or Almeria airports.

We are going here for half term in October - have also booked cheapish flights (from Manchester) with Flightline. It sounds as if the beach this villa is on is very quiet and unspoiled - good for autis?

That looks lovely Jahn!

sorry I mean Janh!