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Travel to Lakitira for our Mark Warner holiday

Mark Warner, Lakitira – Sunday

5.00am checking-in at Heathrow means a luxurious lie-in, you think I jest? Not at all, this means getting up at 4am with the sun coming up, a 30 minute drive and to be met by a fabulous chap from meet and greet. Actually got all five of us into Terminal 5, before it opened at 5am. If this had been Gatwick we’d have been up at 2.30am – there you go, luxury in perspective.

Husband’s brill idea to have breakfast at Giraffe went pear shaped, decision made on the basis that:

“it’s child friendly and they have a huge selection of things the kids will eat”.

Hmmm…..medium sized girl poked at her waffle and declared that

“it didn’t taste right”,

Small boy looked at his toast (the only item on the menu that he ‘could’ eat), poked it and declared that

“it had bits and it was cold so the butter didn’t melt’,

We had granola and yoghurt which was ok but out of a packet and they didn’t have any skimmed milk to do me a skinny flat white. Ok I know I’m high maintenance but seriously the one thing I need in the morning to make me human is a skinny latte, cappuccino, flat white whatever, as long as it has two shots of espresso and skimmed milk it’s fine. The words “we don’t do skimmed milk” are not ones I want to hear any morning, never mind when I’ve been up since 4am.

My suggestion was going to Pret a Manger, which was overruled by husband, this was where we ended up anyway to get croissants and pain au chocolate plus orange juice with no bits, which is what the children wanted anyway AND they had skimmed milk……..husbands listen to your wives!

Also I have to have a moan about the shops in terminal 5. I’m used to Gatwick for charter flights and they have it right, Next, Fat Face, Accessorize, Body Shop, just what you need to cope with last minute panics. In T5, it’s MAC, Bobbi Brown, Ted Baker and Sunglasses Hut, great for us grown ups but pants for teenagers who need a mascara or a new pair of sunglasses or flip flops, well not pants, but flipping expensive.

British Airways charter was superb, loads of leg room, lovely reclining seat pitch so both small boy and I went to sleep, no horrid cartoons either or unsuitable film content like we’ve had on previous flights, such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall with a 5 and 7 year old who just want to watch a film……not this one, think that was Thompson, so good old Mark Warner have done us proud here.

Arrived on Kos, 15 min transfer and the luxury of having the lovely Mark Warner staff take our luggage to our rooms. In our case two gorgeous, very tall, blonde hunks. We followed them, that’s how I know. I figured they were beach crew and got all excited about windsurfing until they confessed that they were tennis coaches, I was very disappointed but big girl seriously thought about doing some coaching if that was a sample of the coaches!!! Phwaor!

Straight to the pool, I think I was the third one in out of our family, and first one into the sea, children can be sooo boring when they get older. Then we come to the club meetings, in the old days this was ‘meet the nanny’, however ours are now 11, 13 and 16 so it was a little different.

Indy club for 16 yr old -, the are three groups based on age as big girl was worried about having 14 yr olds in with her, no worries they were in a different group. Legal drinking age in Greece is 16, so Mark Warner have this sussed and have drinks cards for parents to sign which are dated and given to the Indys each day with their booze allowance. There is a choice of beer and wine card and a spirit card. Spirit card was not signed due to an overload of Waikiki last summer, beer/wine allowance was restricted to two small beers or glasses of wine a day. We were also warned of the local town Kardamena, and strongly suggested that we do not allow our teenagers in there as its a big 18-30 resort and party town. Apparently the bars will serve anyone so the advice is ‘just don’t let them go there’. Breakfast is at 9am and activities start at 10am with Indy supper at 8pm in a separate restaurant and supervision until 10pm.

Kids Club for our 11 and 13 year old – again split into age groups so they weren’t together, a relief for them both. Small boy didn’t want to go until he met another small boy who is now ‘best friend’ so that’s the holiday sorted for him. Again they go to their own supper so that means that we get to have grown up supper together, no shouting at children, no nagging them as to what to eat….we have no idea what they’re eating so can’t get stressed about it. We have time for each other and get to talk to each other over supper,almost like having a holiday on our own, scary.

At 10pm we went down to say ‘goodnight’ to the sea, the full moon cast a fabulous glow over the ocean and highlighted Turkey in the distance, the lapping of the sea made it even more magical, *sighs* we are on holiday.

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