Our Week at the Mark Warner Levante Beach Resort, Rhodes.

First of all I must apologise for all the holiday spam. I realise that I’ve already posted two #MyCapturedMoment posts on our holiday in Greece but I haven’t really written much about our week with Mark Warner at their Levante Beach Resort – and why we decided on this type of holiday this year.

As a family we don’t normally do ‘package holidays’, we usually opt for a rented villa with a private pool and organise our own flights and a car to get around. For the last two summers we’ve used AirBnB to rent beautiful houses in the South of France. This has suited us perfectly, choosing houses with a swimming pool and plenty of space for the kids to run around. I also like the fact that we have plenty of space in the house, with all the comforts of home. But this year we have a little baby. We even considered not going abroad at all. Would it be too hot for her? Would the flight upset her too much?

After many discussions, we decided that we did want a holiday but that our usual choice might not work with our new family dynamics. The older girls now need more entertaining, while Iris takes up a lot of my time. For all these reasons, we started looking into package holidays that offer childcare and entertainment, and after some online searching and comparing we decided on Mark Warner.

Our top 5 of reasons for choosing Mark Warner

They have excellent sporting facilities included in the price; from mountain and road biking to tennis, sailing, snorkelling and windsurfing. You can also take part in a number of exercise classes including water aerobics and yoga.
They are renowned for their award winning childcare facilities and only employing British staff to look after the children.
Mark Warner also provide kids clubs during the evening, giving kids the opportunity to watch a movie and play with their new friends while the adults can relax and have a quiet meal.
They only schedule flight with British Airways. No budget airlines here!
The half board option meant we wouldn’t need to worry about breakfast or supper – and I’d read that the food was of the highest quality and plentiful. I’d also heard lots of good thing about the morning ‘omelet lady’ and ‘pancake man’. Who doesn’t like fresh pancakes for breakfast?

What we thought of our week with Mark Warner

The week really did work well for us! Dom loved going sailing at whim or grabbing a bike for a few hours in the afternoon – while the big girls were enjoying themselves at the kids club. This gave me time to relax next to the pool with a napping Iris. Everyone was happy because we all got to do what we liked.

Lili and Poppy got to make news friends, try new activities including; tennis and sailing, they got to play games, paint and have fun making crafts. Dom loves being active and there was more than enough activities to keep him happy and I got to do nothing! Ooh other than go for a massage in the Spa. Bliss.

I must mention the movie nights because they were a massive hit with the big girls. Every night there’s an early supper for the kids, followed by a movie that’s shown in the childcare area. This gave Dom and I the opportunity to have little date nights together (with a sleeping Iris of course), which was a real treat. Lili and Poppy were beyond excited to go every night, we’d drop them off at 7pm and collect them again at 9.30pm. Poppy was usually asleep in a her designated camp bed by this point, so we’d carry her back to our room while Lili excitedly told us about her evening.

At the end of the week both girls also took part in a little show that they’d been rehearsing in group all week. This was so sweet to watch and gave the parents the opportunity to see what they’d been up to through the week. It was such a lovely way to end the holiday.