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1 May 2015, Helena N

children, red sea

Travelling with young children? Read Regaldive team member Helena's top tips for a child-friendly holiday in the sun!

I’ve worked in travel for 21 years which should qualify me for booking my own holiday. . . .  Shouldn’t it?! However, throw a child of school age into the mix and it’s a whole new ball game.

Last summer was my first experience of ‘booking’ a family holiday during the school holidays. I say ‘booking’ as we ended up with three miserable days in the rain in a caravan on the East coast of England at August bank holiday. My boys’ requirements were:

Abroad – failed
Hot weather – failed
Nice food – does fish and chips count?
Swimming pool – the kind you swim in and not the puddle outside our door from torrential rain that required wellies I hadn’t packed.

Don’t fall into the trap like I did of believing it's possible to find a last minute ‘deal’ in the summer holidays. The flights and hotels are either full or so expensive that it simply wasn’t affordable.  After last years’ fiasco, I vowed to plan this year and right last years’ very big WRONG. So I booked early. Very early!

With children aged two and six, we wanted a family friendly holiday that was good value for money and had a kids club plus a hotel that could fit us all in one room.  The Continental Hotel Hurghada ticks all these boxes and so that's where we are off this year.  They offer family rooms so we are all in the same room – tick! They had a kids club for the six year old – tick! Nice food- we’ve booked all-inclusive as it’s hot in the summer so the children will need unlimited drinks and ice-cream is always on the list (mine, that is, not just the boys!), hot weather and swimming pool – tick! And for those of you that have time to get some diving or snorkelling in, Divers’ Lodge dive centre is on-site too.

I even managed not to take the children out of school by using EgyptAir via Cairo.  I know it means a connecting flights with two little ones but it worked out cheaper, flights are daily so you can tailor-make your stay and their luggage allowance is more than generous – 46kg each.  Perfect for divers or mums with 10 tins of lactose intolerant baby formula and more than one pair of hands to carry it all!

We’re counting down the days...

Helena's top three family holiday reccommendations in the Red Sea:

1.    Steigenberger Al Dau
2.    Movenpick El Gouna
3.    Continental Hotel Hurghada