Short haul options with childcare for under 2yo?

[AnotherUser]

Reading recent Maldives reviews here got me thinking about whether there’s anywhere nearer by with good quality childcare options for an 18m to 2yr old. Midrange is fine rather than luxury – we’ll often stay in indigo or voco hotels, so 4* types of place. Ideal would be a nursery type setup, so we could go for a week and leave him at the nursery for 2 or 3 days (he enjoys nursery when we’re at work).

Does this type of thing exist, or will we need to wait till he’s older? Ideal would be somewhere with a pool and within walking distance to a town/city or somewhere interesting to visit…we’ve enjoyed Spain, but flexible about location.

[NorthernLass]

I realise a lot of people use kids’ clubs without incident but I never left my son in one when he was little. It’s impossible to know how stringent staff vetting is in other countries or how robust health and safety measures are. Also there have been worrying reports in recent years of people behaving suspiciously and believed to be targeting these places.

[SamG]

We went to the H10 Suites Lanzarote Gardens earlier this year which offered it though only for a couple of hours and I wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving the hotel grounds. Nice small hotel and the restaurant was very well set up for families etc

There is plenty to find to do in Lanzarote but you need a car. Driving is very easy and Cabrera Medina supplies the car seats free of charge.

I was researching for next year for some winter sun and I couldn’t find anything else in the mid range category , Tenerife has some options but more than I wanted to pay

[Olly]

We stayed at the Almyra in Paphos when our eldest was young and it ticks a lot of boxes. If you want somewhere more points friendly then Costa Navarino in the Peleponnese is great too

[AnotherUser]

Thanks! Yeah – the ideal would be to find something like a good quality UK nursery (with similar health and safety etc) but at a holiday destination. Suspect that’s not a thing 🙁 That H10 and the Almyra look interesting, though!

[Froggee]

I frequently tout Martinhal Sagres on here although it’s nowhere near anything interesting and is 80 minutes drive from Faro Airport.

With a young kid you can avoid school holidays and get much better rates.

We have been too many times although I should add our kids have a pathological fear of kids clubs so they never got crèched here.

https://www.martinhal.com/special-offers/babys-first-holiday/

[aseftel]

Ikos claim to run their crèches and kids clubs to Osted standards. Not exactly midrange though.

[can2]

When mine was that age kids clubs back fired at us in a pretty funny way.
He like the clubs and all the toys etc, and insisted and cried that we should stay and play with him the whole day!
Not my best idea for a vacation!

[janed9388]

aseftel wrote:

Ikos claim to run their crèches and kids clubs to Osted standards. Not exactly midrange though.

not bad prices at the start and end of season if you aren’t tied to school holidays & the kids pool was bath temperature so it didn’t matter if it wasn’t as warm as mid-season. Or at least they weren’t 5 yrs ago. Childcare for under 6’s was extra but seemed good.

[SamG]

AnotherUser wrote:

Thanks! Yeah – the ideal would be to find something like a good quality UK nursery (with similar health and safety etc) but at a holiday destination. Suspect that’s not a thing 🙁 That H10 and the Almyra look interesting, though!

The issue is I suspect that once you get to the price level that would require then people likely have a nanny / au pair who is travelling with the family anyway

We tend to take granny along, means she gets a holiday and we get the chance to go for a meal out etc. Works well for us !

[Thegasman]

In a similar situation to OP. The problem we have is our £2.5k/month childcare bill has obliterated the holiday budget so considering sacrificing trips abroad for next 2 years rather than cutting corners.

Let’s be honest, babies/toddlers don’t appreciate being away from their familiar routine/surroundings & it’s no fun for adults being on holiday but unable to lie by the pool in peace or go out for nice meals in the evening etc. I find I spend the entire time trying to convince myself I’m having fun & it was worth the hassle/expense!

[SamG]

I think it depends on your kids to some extent, ours seem to absolutely love people watching so they found places like the hotel restaurant very interesting, enjoyed the pools etc and they’re very good at sleeping as long as we’ve got somewhere to put them down away from us. Not too fussy with food etc . We had an enjoyable time! It’s lovely to get a bit of winter sun and in January hotels/airports are pretty quiet so it’s a more chilled/less expensive time to travel

But friends did a trip recently and their daughter wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep, didn’t like the pool and they def said the same as you, they’d have had a much nicer week staying home and doing days out and using the not insignificant amount of cash for something else.

[AnotherUser]

Thanks. Yeah – part of the reason we’re looking at travel now is that ours is pretty happy travelling at the moment. Likes lots of new people to wave at and new places to crawl around…enjoys having lots of foods to try, etc. I know we’re lucky and that may not last, though, so there’s something to be said for doing things while they’re still pretty portable!