Recommended destination with 5 month old baby

Hi Ciars, sorry to hijack your post but will you tell me what apartments/hotel you are staying in in Portugal. We are bringing the kids in a few weeks and have been trawling trailfinders for weeks now trying to find somewhere appropriate.

Thanks,

MIchelle

Hello,
just to let you know our experience. We have been to Lanzarote and Turkey with our now six month old. While Turkey was beautiful and a great holiday, Lanzarote definately won in the convience factor. Firstly fights are usually day flights and secondly its all on the flat which is ideal for the buggy. Two things I would not have even considered before junior came along!

Just back from my hols and have to report everything was brilliant and had a fantastic time.

regarding the water issue after reading the other link provided (bottled Vs Tap water when abroad) we opted for ther bottled water. Local supermarket and mini market on site both sold specially branded baby bottled water. this is very low in Sodium (2.3mg per Ltr when Aptimil recomend anythnig below 20mg !!) Just bought a load of veg on arrival and made food up for the two weeks for our baby. Brought our own formula over. Could buy nappies and everything else you needed over there. I dont know why I didnt think this could be done - maybe just sheer panic of first time travelling with a 6 month old. Again thanks for all your advice.

Airport/Flights were easy. Benifit of travelling with a child was able to skip the long security Q's . Although it was a pain having to lift and wake our baby in order to put our buggy through the scanner. No problems with liquid/Water for bottles. She didnt cry once on the plane (over and back). Slept half the flight and played for the rest. She did well with the Heat. First few days took us a while to settle into our own routine and learn to relax and enjoy our own holiday.

milly123: I would recomend Portugal as a destination, Flights are short and same time zone which was handy - but Im not sure if Id recomend the apartments we stayed in - purely because I don't want to be responsible for your choice. They are good, Id probably go back to them for ease. We stayed in an area called Armacao de Pera. Its not as popular or big as say Albufura and is very quiet. The complex itself was very quiet - which suited us. No disruptions and anything from half a dozen to 20 people at the pool at any given time. Given the weather was really really hot it was great to be able to get sun loungers easy. Local beach was an alcove type beach and again was never busy. As apposed to the larger 'city' beaches.

The apartments themselves are very big and great value (€50 a night). Cleaned every day and the people/staff are exceptionally nice. The onsite restaurant isn't antyhing to write home about tho' - but would sufice as a last resort if you didnt fancy leaving the complex. BUT - there are some really nice restaurants locally. €40 - €60 was average for starters, main, a beer or two and a maybe a glass of wine in most places.

All the popular tourist attrations - waterparks and zoo marine are only 15 mins away from this area as well. Albufura is only 30 mins away. But Armacao has its own little town again only about 10 mins drive away with a larger selction of bars restaurants and a larger beach.

I'll PM ya the Apartment details anyhow. Best of luck.
Cheers and thanks again.

We brought our daughter to Portugal when she was 10 months. We brought everything with us to cover all eventualities. i bought a few of the big 5 litre bottles of water ina local supermaket which only cost about 3 Euro each. My wife just didn't want to risk boiling the local water. Anyway, the only item that we ovelooked was a plug-in Mosquito repeller. After the first night, our little girl was covered in little bites.

In Feb of this year, we brought her to Lanzarote along with her new brother [*proud Daddy*] when he was only 5 months old. Again we were prepared for everything and we had a lovely holiday.

Some folks enjoy a break away from the kids but I love going away with the kids. We will have plenty of holidays without them when they are in their late teens and are to cool to go holidaying with their Ma and Da.