Going on holiday wouldn’t be the same without the traditional silly o’clock flight from Gatwick. This year there was a pleasant surprise….no queues to get airside, they’ve improve the passport control – electronic now, plus the screening was a lot more efficient….more time for breakfast and shopping.
Flight left on time. I make a rule about writing only positively so I’m not going to mention the food on Thomas Cook Airlines save to say that the air crew gathered up a lot of full cartons of food, we’ve learnt and went to Pret a Manager and took breakfast on board.
Arrival at Portomyrina Palace in Lemnos and greeted with lovely smiley Neilson staff, checking us off and writing our room numbers on the luggage as this is all delivered to our rooms by the lovely smiley Neilson staff. A short, 30 minute, transfer to the hotel, welcome drinks on getting off the coach and straight to the restaurant for some decent food.
Our rooms are lovely, garden rooms on the ground floor with hammocks on the patio, fab idea Neilson. Sun tan lotion and cossies on straight into the massive pool, I was in first…children are wusses! I was also first in the sea!
5pm was the welcome talk, essential for info about the children’s clubs and also to book into tennis, windsurfing and sailing lessons.
They did a brilliant talk on the ‘we don’t serve under 18s alcohol, if they look under 18 and they are 18 or older they can have a band so they’ll get served, otherwise they won’t’. They also warned us that if they went into town there wouldn’t be any restrictions – so be warned.
Big girl and I came here, same resort, two years ago, just the two of us so we knew how good it was, husband was a little more dubious and so were the littler ones. Didn’t take long to convince them. The food is amazing, haps of salads and fresh fruit, grilled meats and fish, jelly and ice cream, pasta with a choice of sauces and chips for the desperate parents with kids who won’t eat anything else (essential for holiday happiness, I know!). Pancakes for breakfast means happy children, pool bar opens at 9am for the best coffees, and the most awesome cappuccino freddos on the planet…..I’ve tried explaining to my local Costa how to make these like Neilson and they don’t get it, pure, simple, espresso over ice, topped with frothy milk and sugar if you wish, delicious….I’ve had to wait two years for these, dammit they’re good
The milkshakes are just as good as big girl remembered and despite her younger siblings declaring that they wouldn’t be as good as ‘Me-shakes’ they’ve agreed that they are, if not better.
Chess, draughts and backgammon are available in the pool bar and a great way of chilling out with soothing chill out music in the background during the day
Food is ‘club board’ meaning that breakfast and lunch are included every day with dinner 3 nights a week. On the other three nights you can either eat a la carte at their bistro evenings or beach BBQ or walk into town. It’s very easy to stay in the resort without seeing anything of Lemnos and without putting anything back into the local community which I think is a shame. This way you get out and venture into real Lemnos. The local town Myrina is very pretty, with a colonial feel and beautiful buildings, a castle on a hill, harbour and pretty white church on another hill overlooking the town.
Everyone is just so nice, smiley and welcoming, even in high season when they’ve all been out for a quite a while. Loving being back, so are the kids, we’ll check out the beach front activities tomorrow and see how kids club goes