Sorry this is soooo late I’ve been trying to find time to finish it!

We went on our first family holiday on Wednesday 11th September 2019 to Alcudia for 1 week all inclusive. We paid around £1600.00 and we had a pool view room. This also included baggage & transfers. We flew with easyJet, I decided to choose our seats as it was our first time flying with Charlie. We also had speedy boarding which was an absolute god send. Going forward we will be doing this every time we fly, it made things so much easier! I paid around £80 extra to choose our seats, outbound we were in the front row which was great as we had loads of extra legroom, inbound I only managed to get the 4th row which was ok as we still got off the airplane quickly.

Transfers: we had originally booked with tui as the package deal, however the thought of being on a coach with Charlie after the flight was a no go, therefore I booked a private transfer. We booked with PMI Taxis Mallorca, they had great reviews on trip-advisor. It cost us €160.00 Round trip which is pricey, but they included a car seat for Charlie so saved us taking one and it cut the transfer time by around an hour! Again, 100% worth it and we will be booking private transfers going forward. The driver was waiting for us at arrivals even though we were late due to waiting for the buggy, they were on time to pick us up too so thumbs up from us!

We stayed at TUI Family Life Alcudia Pins Hotel, after reading a tonne of reviews this one seemed to fit us best. The hotel looked lovely as we pulled up and I was already pleased. Check in was super quick and easy, we had to give them our passports to take copies of but we could collect them then next day. We also had to pay €46.00 tourist tax, this wasn’t a problem as we’d already read about it previously again the receptionist said we could pay when we picked up our passports.

The hotel was huge! The reception backed onto the main pool area with lots of slides and fun things for the kids. We were in block B which over looked a toddler pool & a another medium sized pool. Our room was great, spacious with a little kitchenette & twin beds. I paid extra for the TUI baby pack which included a cot, steriliser, food warmer & high chair – perfect for us! I think it was around £45.00. Our balcony had a table & 4 chairs great to lounge on in the evening. The hotel was spotless, the staff were constantly cleaning and hard at work. Everything was well maintained.

The hotel had two restaurants & two A La Carte restaurants. We were given vouchers from reception to eat at both A La Carte restaurants free. The all inclusive was what you would expect, nothing amazing but it was average. There was plenty of choice so they did cater for everyone, no matter how fussy you may be! We ate at the main restaurant for dinner as we found the variety of food better as it was bigger than the other restaurant which was a short stroll from our room, we generally ate there for breakfast & lunch as it was convenient. The drinks were on tap so you could help yourself to beer, sangria, wine, coffee, soft drinks & ice cream. If you wanted anything else you’d have to go to either the pool bar or the bar next to the stage at the front of the hotel.

We had previously looked at the weather for the week which showed rain – all week! I was desperately hoping for some sun and luckily enough we only had one bad day! The rest of time we had boiling hot sun. We had read about sunbeds being an issue, well it wasn’t I don’t know if it’s because the kids were back in school and it wasn’t as busy (although it was still busy) but we always found one. The hotel backed onto a beautiful beach, we didn’t go on the beach because it would be too messy and Charlie puts everything in his mouth!

We were very lucky that Charlie settled really well. He slept in his cot the first few nights, and we had two rough nights with him where he had to come in with me but apart from that he was an absolute dream boat. Our general sort of routine would be:

6:30am – get up with Charlie give him his morning bottle

7:30am – head down for breakfast Charlie would have a little plate too

8:30am(ish) – Charlie would have his morning nap in his pushchair & we would catch some sun

Whenever Charlie woke up we would take him to the baby pool to play in the water which he absolutely loved!

12:30pm (ish) – this would change daily but we would normally grab some lunch – sometimes Charlie was awake sometimes he was asleep if he was sleeping we would give him some lunch when he woke or he would eat with us.

Charlie was amazing with his eating, we were so impressed. We would normally get him some scrambled egg,fruit,sandwiches, tuna, pasta he ate so much and didn’t turn his nose up!

If Charlie hadn’t napped before lunch then he would after and we’d grab some more time in the sun, then when he’d wake up we would take him in the baby pool. So he was going in the pool twice a day for around 30-45 min at a time depending on how tired he was.

We would head upto the room around 4pm and let Charlie crawl around and play. Then 5ish we would give him his dinner – we took sachets of food for his evening food. He would start to wind down for bed, he did develop this weird fear of the bath! Which was crazy because he loves the bath at home. So it was a super quick bath and he would have his bottle ready for bed. One of us would cuddle him off to sleep whilst the other had a shower and got ready then we would swap. We were lucky enough that Charlie would sleep in his Pram so we would go have dinner then for a few drinks in the evening.

We were so so lucky with Charlie he was no trouble at all we couldn’t of wished for better. So our first family holiday was definitely a success!