The anatomy of a perfect holiday kids’ club
There is a particular parental state of bliss, when you know that your child is having a wonderful time while you relax. You have dodged the “Muuum, I’m bored” bullet, at least for the next half an hour, and you have a chance of reading a book, going for a run, or pursuing an uninterrupted conversation with another adult.
As a child, there is a not unrelated state of bliss in which you are removed from the churn of assessments, times tables, school dinners and utterly predictable everything, and find yourself instead in an anything-within-reason-goes fun park.
My family and I have found this happy state everywhere from a tiny island in the Indian Ocean, at Constance Halaveli to the top of a mountain in Switzerland, at Bad Ragaz, and also in the flat East Anglian fields surrounding The Ickworth. The essential ingredient in each case: a well-run kids’ club.
So how do you find the right kids’ club? It’s often a process of trial and error – so we’ve put together a comprehensive list of the hotels and resorts which get it right (and how) to help eliminate the guesswork, and set you on the course for a successful, relaxing family break.
Skip ahead to the best for:
Best for under threes
Sani Resort, Greece
For beachside babysitting. The on-beach “babewatch” service (30 minutes included in the price of your room) is a real liberator for parents at this high-end Greek complex, which includes five hotels lined with baby-friendly facilities and 18 restaurants. The crèche meets Ofsted standards, takes children from six months to four years old (from €32/£28 for two hours), while the complimentary Mini Club hosts children aged four to 11, with excursions, beach days, football and tennis academies. You can even arrange for private nannies.
Book it: Sani Resort (sani-resort.com) offers rooms for two adults and one child from £318 per night, with a minimum stay of five nights.
Martinhal Sagres, Portugal
Set above a 700-metre beach by a national park on the eastern tip of Portugal’s Algarve, Martinhal Sagres boasts an award-winning kids club, five pools, three restaurants and lots of on-site activities, including mountain biking and surfing. The stylish houses and villas have all of the clobber you will need, and older children will be thrilled with the watersports centre on the beach, with wind surfing, kiteboarding, and kayaking, plus crazy golf. The kids’ clubs entertain young people from the age of six months.
Book it: Martinhal Sagres (martinhal.com) offers self-catering rooms from £186 per night.
Woolley Grange, UK
The subject of a million whispered conversations in soft play venues around the UK, the Luxury Family Hotels group had new parents at “dinner without my kids” (its baby listening monitors allow children to sleep while parents enjoy a leisurely meal). Go to Woolley Grange, a 17th-century country manor near Bradford-on-Avon, and children (aged three months to eight years) get 90 minutes of kids’ club included each day, with special activities laid on during school holidays, including scavenger hunts, archery, football matches, arts and crafts, dressing up, toys and outdoor games.
Book it: Woolley Grange (luxuryfamilyhotels.co.uk) offers rooms for two parents and one child from £162 per night.
Best for ages three to eight
Family Resort Moar Gut, Austria
At this resort in the Salzburg mountains, it’s all fun and games from 9am to 9pm daily for children from the age of 30 months. There’s a six-metre-high trampoline room, an on-site farm filled with patient, friendly animals, pony rides and excellent swimming lessons. A new spa for the very youngest guests (opening this summer) will offer baby floating and yoga, while parents get their own sleek spa, plus superb locally sourced food.
Book it: July and August have a minimum seven-night stay; single nights in September or October cost from £900 per night for two adults and a child, all-inclusive at Family Resort Moar Gut (moargut.com).
Grand Resort Bad Ragaz, Switzerland
Come to this spa for all for a masterclass in wellbeing. The Children’s Villa offers play, fun and entertainment (with qualified carers) for children of three years and up. A daily rotation of games, handicrafts and cooking projects is balanced with ample outdoor play, as well as a climbing wall, table tennis and the ubiquitous Playstation/Wii. The elaborate Heidi-themed children’s pool complex (for ages 12 and under) hosts mermaid-swimming lessons, and has both slides and adventure showers.
Book it: Grand Resort Bad Ragaz (resortragaz.ch) offers rooms from £569 per night, including B&B for two adults and one child.
Château Capitoul, France
If you like the idea of having your children entertained, but don’t fancy a big resort, try this boutique 19th century château, which rises out of the vineyards just outside of the city of Narbonne in the south of France. This restored vineyard features tasteful family-friendly self-catering options (some with their own pool), and plenty of space for kids to cycle or stroll through the rolling French countryside. The Monday-Friday bilingual kids’ club offers a programme focused on nature, art, sports and exploration. The hotel’s concierge can also arrange for kids to join local beach clubs and sailing schools, or to hire paddle boards, windsurfs and catamarans in nearby Gruissan.
Book it: Château Capitoul (chateaucapitoul.com) offers rooms from £187 per night.
Constance Halaveli, Maldives
Pretty much all Maldives hotels which accept children offer childcare options of some sort, but these can be remarkably uninspired. Between 9am-9pm each day, Constance Halaveli’s qualified and long-serving team lead children aged four to 11 through hands-on exploration of the natural world around them. Activities are designed to cultivate interest in sustainability without missing out on the action, which ranges from aqua gym classes in the main pool and water sports on the sea, to film nights, cookery classes, mini discos and crab races. The leaders also deftly work to foster friendships among children of a similar age, allowing them to come and go as they, or their parents, wish.
Book it: Constance Halaveli (constancehotels.com) offers water villas from £555 per night, based on two adults and one child sharing on a B&B basis. Alternatively, Turquoise Holidays (turquoiseholidays.co.uk) has seven nights in a water villa from £2,897 per adult (based on two adults sharing), including flights, seaplane transfers, Maldivian tax and half board costs. A child under 12 can share the room free of charge, so the only extra costs are international and local flights (£100 for children under two; £859 for those older).
Scott Dunn at Daios Cove, Greece
Scott Dunn offers age-targeted activities in its Explorers Kids’ Clubs, which it operates at hotels around the Med, the Indian Ocean, the UAE and the Alps. Daios Cove, set on a cliff backing a gently sloping beach in Crete, is particularly ideal for babies and primary-aged children. The club makes the most of its stunning location, taking regular trips down the funicular to the beach, and on Tuesday and Friday evenings, there’s a children’s Stargazers Club – a delightful opportunity for playtime with their friends, while their parents have a peaceful, romantic meal.
Book it: Daios Cove (daioscovecrete.com) offer rooms from £268 per night, including half board for two adults and one child. It has a separate complimentary kids’ club for children aged four to 12; book your holiday through scottdunn.com to gain access to its special activities.
Best for ages eight to 11
Club Med Magna Marbella, Spain
Whether beach-side or on the slopes, Club Med offers one of the most comprehensive and well-staffed all-inclusive kids’ clubs going. Activities include sports like Padel tennis, archery, and the spectacular flying trapeze, plus there’s an onsite playground, water park (complete with slides and water games), mini golf course and zip line. Club Med also caters to a broader age range than most: included in nightly rates is a club for ages two to 17 years (though do bear in mind that childcare for babies aged four to 23 months comes at an additional charge).
Book it: Club Med (clubmed.co.uk/r/magna-marbella/y) offers interconnecting superior rooms (which sleep families of four) from £595 per night, or from £5,557 per week, including return flights from London.
Forte Village, Sardinia, Italy
With its swish campus – featuring Barbieland, a giant aquapark, and a teen hangout zone – plus stunning white-sand beach on the southern end of Sardinia, Forte Village is an idyllic place to fly and flop. Stop there, however, and you’ll miss out on its extraordinary non-stop sports programmes, which include academies run by major legends from the pro sports world. These are open to children from as young as five, and cover football, rugby, rowing, netball, fencing, tennis and hockey. Check fortevillageresort.com/academies to see if your child’s favourite star is on the roster this summer or May half-term.
Book it: Forte Village (fortevillageresort.com) offers room and half board from £771 per night
How to holiday with teenagers
Holidays with tweens and teens can be fraught: the young people are highly focused on their friends and are starting to push parents away. We older folks, meanwhile, are in the midst of peak Sandwich Generation angst: our jobs are draining, we’re probably worrying about elderly parents, and we just want to spend quality time with the kids.
If this feels like a bit of a mismatch, it’s not just you: research from the late Arizona State University Professor Suniya Luthar, an expert on clinical and developmental psychology and resilience, found that parents – and in particular, mothers – typically find these middle years harder than the very early years.
So what does this mean for holidays? It’s time to change your game. The same routines that soothed the kids when they were younger now cramp their style, and have institutionalised echoes of school. Still, one of the biggest complaints from the youth is the risk of having nothing to do, so woe betide the parent who books a holiday without a smorgasbord of entertainment prepared.
Steer away from kids’ clubs with set hours at this stage, and towards specialist activities. If your child is sporty, hotels like Forte Village, in Sardinia, or Parklane, in Cyprus, offer bootcamps in football, netball and other team sports to help children really work on their skills, while offering plenty of fitness and games options for adults, too.
Scott Dunn’s Crew programme, hosted at Pine Cliffs in the Algarve, and Costa Navarino, on the Peloponnese coast in Greece, is aimed at kids of 11 and up who are after at least the illusion of autonomy. There are no strict timetables and no base camp, just arranged meeting points with the crew leader, and the freedom to have an adventure, whether that’s scuba diving, rock climbing, wakeboarding, tennis, bike tracks or paddleboarding. Another option for dipping in and out is the Peligoni Club, where families book elegant self-catering villas dotted around an unspoilt coastline in Zakynthos, Greece, with access to a teen clubhouse, and activities including sailing, windsurfing, waterskiing, volleyball, and mocktail making.
If, as my 12-year-old recently announced, your child has outgrown all kids’ clubs and organised fun, and you, as parents, are scrambling for a way to spend facilitated quality time together, it may be time for the Mission Holiday. Whether a cycling trip through Umbria (try freedomtreks.co.uk), or sailing through the Ionian islands on a yacht flotilla (check out neilson.co.uk/beach), the scaffolding of a group activity will foster cooperation, which leads to genuinely valuable and enjoyable time together.
