Family Holidays in Tenerife | Summer Vibes with a crying Eye

2568 views since June 30, 2017

When you look at these images you might think our holidays in Tenerife must have been amazing. Unfortunately that is not the case. We hardly could wait until the day came when our holidays ended. I started to write this blog post while we were sitting at the airport waiting for our flight back home, after receiving the note during check-in that our flight is THREE hours delayed. Waiting additonal three hours at the airport with a little kid - oh yeah, really funny. I was totally pissed off and had to cry, wouldn’t it be enough that our holidays itself weren’t that great? Gosh! I had to wait a few days until I finalized this post otherwise it would have been a bit too harsh. Now we are back at home for one week, my opinion regarding our holidays has not really changed, but it’s viewed a bit more from a distance. All the photos of this post were created within 30 minutes on one single day. It was a beautiful evening, great light, a healthy kid for a day, a wonderful sunset, we explored the calm corners of the hotel area and enjoyed the few good times we had during our holidays. That is what we want to remember the most and hopefully by and by all the hiccups drop off. I want to sum it up right at the beginning: we know that all these little things could have happened at home or somewhere else too, but why did they all happen to us within one holiday? If some hiccups occur here and there, that’s no problem at all and absolutely normal, we are really realistic. But gathering up all these difficulties at once made our trip to Tenerife not really great. We had additional four days off after our flight home and these days where the greatest. We don’t need to travel somewhere else as we have a wonderful home and such a beautiful country where we live, but our unstable weather has scotched holiday plans at home not just once. As we wanted to have a bit of summer for certain we chose to travel, maybe next time we have more luck. If you would like to gain insight feel free to read all the details below, but it’s also fine if you just want to see some pretty pictures - enjoy it ;)


Here are all the details:

This was our fourth holiday abroad as a family and this year we chose - for the first time in our life - a family hotel with all-inclusive service. With a little kid and with our travel experiences within the last three years, we thought it is worth a try. We did not know before if we would like such a holiday as we are more the explorers, but our travel attempts with a little kid within the last years did not work out so well, so we tried a mainstream holiday. Traveling by car is a no-go with our girl, almost impossible, it’s already hard to visit our families across Austria once or twice a year due to her travel-dislikes, does not matter if we travel by day or by night. We traveled by plane once as Lea was half a year old and to be honest, if we would not have been booked for a wedding at this destination, we would have cancelled our flights in short-term as we had such a hard time with an almost constantly crying baby for NINE full months.

This year we chose to travel by plane again and give it a try. Lea was really motivated - already some weeks before - and the five hours flight worked out really great. We are so so proud of her. Also our car ride to the airport and the car ride to our hotel was totally ok. So the start of our holidays was great and we were more than positive to have a great time. We knew that there will be lots of families with kids and also some kids-entertainment at the hotel. What we did not expect was, that the stage for these events was right in front of our room and that the noise was between 80 and 90 decibels until 11pm in the evening. That’s more noise than most discos are allowed to use and in our case a no-go when there are sooooo many little babies and kids in the hotel. I'm absolutely ok with the entertainment part - even if I don’t like it personally - we knew that this will be part of the deal, but so extremely loud, that is really not necessary and more than unhealthy. We also cannot keep our three year old girl awake until 11pm because it’s just impossible to sleep with this noise. Enjoying our terrace and sipping on a glass of wine was impossible, you just got a head ache and could not hear each other’s words. After a few days we requested a room change and thankfully it was possible. We could not get rid of all the noise, but we received a room at least a few more meters away from the stage. The room itself was nice and with our room change we also received a room that was even more cozy - a wonderful side effect.

The fridge in our first room was not working, usually not a problem as we don’t need it that much, but we had to store some medicine during our stay, a bit on that later. The technicians could not make it work, so we had a useless fridge with 20 degrees temperature inside. The drain of our shower was blocked but this could be repaired. On the second day our door lock striked. We know that key cards sometimes get broken due to several reasons, but we did not store them near any mobile devices, etc. - we received new cards for three times, everytime we had to walk back to the reception - quite a distance. Finally we had to wait until the technicans came again. Explaining them that we already tried new cards, that we did not store them colse to our phones and that probably the battery of the door lock is dead. That was really the case and of course we had to wait again until someone came back with some new batteries. In our new room we did not have these problems, there was „just“ the main switch for the power supply not working - so no electricity in our room - as no technician came and we did not want to dig deeper again we bypassed it. When you read this it must seem as we booked a really sleazy hotel, but that was not the case. We did our research, as always when we travel and we paid quite a lot of money, but we know that this is no guarantee.

We had a rental car to be more flexible, not just to explore the island during our stay, also to be independent when it comes to hotel-airport-transfers. We booked a known company and it was key for us that the car rental center is directly at the airport, so that no additional shuttle bus transfers are necessary. Well, that was what we booked and what was andvertised, but at the airport it was different. We had to walk through the whole airport area for several times as we were referenced from one counter at one end to another at the other end, carrying some suitcases, a buggy and a child car seat (because renting a child car seat on-site costs more than the rental car itself for 10 full days - hilarious). Finally we received the information that we have to take a shuttle bus (something we wanted to avoid), walking to the shuttle bus station - of course this station was again at the other end of the building - and waiting in the heat. But thankfully our girl was so excited and so this laborious path was no problem for her.

We also wanted to explore the island a bit, but the possible days for such an adventure were really limited. After the first two days our girl catched-up a stomach upset and she had to throw up at hourly intervalls for some nights. Then she was fit again but a car ride was not possible for these three days as we did not want to risk a disaster - vomit in your rental car in the heat, no thanks. That would not be fun for Lea and for us. Two days later she felt better again and then the next bad news came, our poor little girl got diarrhea. So another two days were gone and obviously our girl was weak and tired. These sicknesses were much likely caused by some chlorine problems in the pool area in our hotel, because every second day they closed the pool area early due to additional chlorine routines. Of course we know that this could also have happened when we stayed at home as well, but with so many kids around it’s not difficult to pick-up some bacteria at the pool, with food, at the tables, with baby chairs, toilets, etc. - lots of possibilites. We were prepared with some medicine and so thankfully no doctor appointment was necessary.

We had the most beautiful days when we left the hotel and explored the nearby beach with black sand. Phil created sand castles with Lea and our girl enjoyed her first time at the sea. We did not create professional photos at the beach as we left our big camera in our room but these two days escaping to the beach and finding a lovely café with perfect cappuccino and selfmade ice cream was a lottery win and made us extremly happy.

In walking distance we could not really find great restaurants or bars nearby, so we had to stay in the hotel for this part and of course when you book and pay it, you would like to use a bit of the offered service. It was known that there will be buffet, but it was hard to receive warm/hot dishes. They really tried to offer something special and for the eye it was nice, but the taste was not really good, everything tasted the same or sadly of anything at all. Our girl is the hAngry kind of person, she gets hungry within seconds and then she is really, really angry too. So going to an a-la-carte restaurant is not the easiest, at least within the last years, we try it every now and then, so we thought we try the buffet and all-inclusive-thing this year, as you can get something to eat really fast the whole day. Sadly the basic dishes for kids, like plain noodles, were cold and when your kid doesn’t like the offered sauce and wants plain noodles, you had to warm them up with a microwave yourself, what? They offered delicious stuff like tuna filets and these were prepared directly for you, but it was so sad to see how such a filet was cooked to death - we asked to receive it medium, but no chance, you always had to wait at the counter next to the cook and we tried it several times - no success. Their self baked bread was really delicious, but you don’t want to eat bread alone for ten days in your holidays. For me 80% of all offered meals are most likely always a no-go when I go to a restaurant as I am intolerant to lactose and fructose, but as long as there is meat or some noodles or rice that’s ok for me. Thankfully they offered Paella for lunch, that was the most delicious hot meal we could receive and it was something typical for this area. That’s also important to us, we don’t just want to eat things we have at home, we want to explore a bit of the culture and we thought when there is buffet they will provide some more traditional meals too or we can at least go to some restaurants nearby - nope.

On our delayed flight back home it was also really warm and Lea got a feeling of sickness due to the dizziness occured by the heat - so I was lucky that she had to throw up on me twice just before leaving the aircraft - great end of a great trip back home ;) Of course I had a change of clothes in our hand luggage for Lea, but for me? Nope. I tried to clean me with some wet wipes and then we had to wait additional 45 minutes (yes, because it was in the middle of the night due to the flight delay and so everything took even longer with reduced staff at night) until our suitcases arrived and I could change my clothes. Then we could drive with our own car back home, thank God that we chose to travel ourselves and that we did not have to take another bus or train. Another family with a little kid had to stay an additional night in Munich because they missed their last train to Salzburg.

What do we expect when it comes to holidays? The only thing we wanted was a bit of stable weather (yes), relaxation (no), a nice hotel (yes, as you can see the hotel area itself was really beautiful, but so much noise) and a variation of good and warm food (no) as well as some great drinks (no) in the evening. Of course it would have been great if our girl stayed healthy as well (no), but some sickness can always happen. Traveling can always go along with delays, but in such a dimension and with no service provided by a well-named airline? Jackpot, we are the lucky winners!

Well, all in all we are really happy to be back, that our girl is healthy again, that we have a business we love and we poor all our heart into and so working is more relaxation than such a holiday. We are hoping your are having a greater time in your holidays and we wish you a wonderful summer.

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