I always thought that the word ‘luxury holiday’ and ‘family’ couldn’t go together in the same sentence. That was until I was introduced to the Luxury Family Hotel Group.
We are a family of 5 – my wife Dani and I have 3 boys all under the age of 4. Going on holiday normally involves packing half of our family home into the car and still forgetting something essential!
But what was nice about our recent stay in Moonfleet Manor is they literally have everything you need.
Do you need your milk bottles sterilised? Not only do they have a steriliser, but they do it for you! Pool towels. Check. Bed guards for toddlers. Check. As an infant sleep consultant, I was keeping a keen eye on the sleeping set up. The guys at Luxury Family Hotel’s provide lots of equipment to set up the right environment for sleep, and in this blog I’ll be offering you some extra tips that can help too.
We arrived on the first day to beautiful grounds and started to have that nervous feeling you get when you’re in a fancy place and know your kids are pure terrors! But it wasn’t like that. The entire hotel is centred around family life; offering lots of different activities for children to keep them entertained so us parents can have a bit of time to relax.
And that we did! You get 90 minutes of creche time per day included with your stay. My boys couldn’t wait to get into The Den and explore. This was the first time we had left our littlest one with anyone before, but we felt comfortable straight away. We did the creche straight after nap time each day which meant that as adults, we could get a little extra block of time to try and rest and recuperate, as that’s what holidays are for, right?!
The first night we had an early family meal with the kids. The staff are friendly, and they set out wee place names at the table for the kids, which my eldest boy Teddy loved. He also helped one of the staff with getting the kids sized cutlery which he was super proud of himself about.
Once we were back in the room the boys had a bath and it was time for bed. One thing I was particularly pleased about was that we were offered two different sized cots for our younger sons who were 2 years old and 5 months old. Safe sleep is critical when it comes to young children and the cots were exactly as I had hoped.
The hotel has a ‘listening’ service that you can use to keep an eye on the kids in the evening whilst you enjoy a bit of adult time in the hotel. Basically, it’s your own personal video monitors so you never feel like they are out of your sight, regardless of where you are in the hotel. You can also ask reception to listen in to which offers extra comfort. We weren’t sure if we would use the service in the evenings, but by the 2nd day, we were doing it for naps too! We felt very comfortable and it was reassuring to see everyone in the hotel doing the same.
Nevertheless, if that’s not your preference, there are rooms available with separate bedrooms for the kids if you want to stay in the room. We’ve done too many holidays where you are in bed at 7pm in the dark not wanting to wake the children whilst trying to watch some rubbish on Netflix on our iPad just so we feel like we have some sort of ‘adult’ evening!
The next day we hung about the hotel and enjoyed all of the facilities. The swimming pool is split into 3 – a baby pool, a toddler pool and an adult pool and so the older two could splash about in the toddler pool whilst one of us took the baby into the smaller pool. It just worked perfectly.
We also visited their games room and kids’ zone which wore the boys out before their naps. I took our youngest two up for their lunchtime naps whilst Dani and our eldest did an escape room. Dani and I also did the adult escape room during one of the boys’ creche sessions. We love an escape room and it’s great that the hotel caters for parental enjoyment too.
Dani and I had booked into the restaurant to have a meal ourselves one evening so the kids ate earlier around their normal dinner time. There are different sized portions to cater for varying appetites. The boys all had a bath in the stunning tub in our room which made them feel very grown up. The toiletries provided are sensitive for kid’s skin and they loved smelling all the different tubes and bottles.
We had a lovely break at Moonfleet Manor and will be visiting some of the other hotels in the Luxury Family Hotel Group in the future. So many families I work with worry about their little ones’ sleep on holiday but the Luxury Family Hotel team provide you with lots of home comforts to give your children the best opportunity to get some rest on holiday…so you can too!
