Travelling with a Squeak - Part 2

At the end of part one, we'd survived the journey.  Now for the holiday itself.

We'd booked to go in May to avoid the hottest weather, and to avoid paying school holiday prices (cheap, yep, that's me!).  As it turned out, the weather was hotter than average, just like the preceding couple of weeks had been in the UK, so we were lucky.  Lots of sunshine, lots of factor 50 for Squeaky.

It took her a couple of days to settle, being somewhere different, I guess.  Some days she'd love the water, then others, you'd think she was being tortured, poor mite. But we just took it at her pace, let her decide whether she wanted to play in the water or not.  A set of beach toys helped (and they also helped at bathtime), but if she didn't want to swim, there was no point in forcing the issue and putting her off.

She didn't get the sandcastle building idea, but she's showing great potential as a demolition expert, knocking down our sandcastles, sand cows & sand turtles as fast as we could build them!  Well, it kept us all out of mischief.  The beach in Alcudia is HUGE, something like 8 miles long.  The sea slopes really gently too, making it great for kids.  The resort is established enough & big enough to have plenty of "real" shops, including a stonking great Lidl, and about 5 branches of Eroski (aka Spanish Tesco), selling brands you'd recognise from home.  No need to worry about nappies, wipes, formula, they're all there, so there's more space in the case for clothes!

The other really good choice we made was to go all-inclusive.  In our pre-Squeaky days we'd been on a few AI holidays to the Caribbean, and I was a little wary of AI in Europe, where hotel food isn't usually up to the same standards.  But I couldn't have been more wrong.  The food was fantastic, both for me as a picky foodie, and for Squeaky, who seems to only approve of protein.  There were enough fish fingers, burgers, chicken nuggets & unidentifiable things-in-breadcrumbs to keep her occupied, and more than enough ice-cream to fill any remaining corners.  I would have had a much more restricted diet if we'd been self-catering, as I'd've been picking food for us to share, rather than finding Squeaky-meals and Me-meals separately.

The hotel was wonderful for families, right next to the waterpark, with unlimited free access (SqueakyDaddy's holiday highlight!), the hotel's own kids clubs for 4yrs+, and the Thomas Cook kids clubs, and, wait for it... crèche!  Who thought up this wonderful idea?  We paid for a few sessions in the crèche for Squeaky, just to give us a bit of a break - very handy when you've got the packing to do!  She loved it, loads of attention, loads of toys, and lots of arty crafty activities, with British staff, all qualified (to a better standard than some of the nurseries I've seen round here).  Couldn't have asked for more.

We even managed to stay awake long enough for the evening entertainment some nights, though not many, I must admit.  A couple of glasses of wine & I just want to sleep now.  Squeaky, on the other hand, believed she was the evening entertainment - so long as you're entertained by a small child, some plastic cups, and spinning round on a dancefloor.

Would we go back to Majorca?  Yep.  To Alcudia?  Yep, a great family resort.  To Club Mac?  Definitely.