“I don't want to go to boring old Malta,” said my 14-year-old son Giles. I
could see his point. Since his birth, Giles has been used to having two
older siblings around. But now that William and Lucy were 21 and 19, they
didn’t want to come on a family holiday.
It’s a situation that parents of only children know well. “Now you know what
I’ve been dealing with all these years,” said a close friend, who has one
daughter aged 12. She and her husband have solved the problem by taking Club
Med holidays for the past three years, but I’d found a four-star hotel in
Malta, the Dolmen Resort in St Paul’s Bay, which had promising activities
for teens, including a diving school.
Giles was unimpressed. “Don’t try to make friends for me,” he warned me on the
plane. “And don’t start chatting to parents of other children. It’s just me
and my iPod on this holiday — my real friends are at home. You can forget
that teen club, too.”
The said club would have been perfect for Giles, if only he had given it a go.
It runs a variety of activities ranging from waterpolo to football but my
firm-minded son, clearly destined for the bar or worse, remained unmoved. He
spent the first three days texting friends before his credit ran out and
then turned to Anthony Horowitz’s latest on the sunbed. However, when Giles
finished Raven’s Gate on day three, trouble loomed.
“There’s nothing to do,” he moaned, as we sat by one of the hotel’s beautiful
five pools. “Rubbish,” I replied. “How about that free scuba-diving lesson
the hotel offers for beginners?”
Giles wasn’t interested, but a light glinted in his eyes when I found a
different spot to sun
“No you’re not,” I said weakly.
“Everyone else is doing it,” he replied sturdily.
Heaven help us, they were, too. Unsupervised children of all nationalities
were hurling themselves over the cliff and into the sea. With sinking heart,
I agreed, knowing that he would probably do it without my permission anyway.
From then on, cliff-jumping became a daily activity. At first, I took to
hiding behind rocks to supervise him unseen. But then I hit on the idea of
swimming nonchalantly below so, after his leap, we could swim across the bay
side by side — a real mother-and-son bonding experience.
Another success was a boat ride to Gozo and Comino, two of Malta’s main
islands, with an entertaining captain, Jimmy. We learnt that St Paul’s Bay
was named after the apostle, who was shipwrecked there in 300AD and
converted the island to Christianity (Malta is now the second most densely
populated Catholic country in the world). Paul also astounded the local
populace by surviving a snakebite.
Another highlight was the speedboat trip to the caves. This went down a treat,
especially when we were drenched by the waves. “Look, stalactites,” he
pointed out when he reached the caves at Comino. Hopefully, he’ll remember
that in his geography GCSE.
Giles would have been perfectly happy to have hung around the pool and hotel
computer but, like most well-mean-ing mothers, I forced him to “do the
sights”. No taxi for us — when abroad, it’s much more fun to
explore public transport and Malta has a comprehensive bus system.
Our first stop was Mdina, known as the Silent City, because cars are banned.
It had a Knights of Malta exhibition with a gory film which Giles was mildly
interested in, although the magnificent cathedral next door was dismissed in
favour of the ice-cream shop. On another day, we caught the bus to Cirkewwa,
from where you can take a ten-minute ferry ride to Gozo. This was fun
because, unlike the boat trip, you can get out and wander round the island.
There was also a citadel to climb up and — yes — another
ice-cream shop below.
Back in the hotel, Giles discovered a couple of good areas for skateboarding.
The staff were very good about this and no one asked him to stop. He also
met other grunting teens at the hotel computer in the lobby — this had
become an informal adolescent meeting point.
And that’s when I had my brilliant idea. We traded internet time with
activities. He was allowed one hour on the net if he played table
tennis/joined in waterpolo/took the hotel diving lesson. It worked, up to a
point, although he tried the waterpolo only once. And he had a scuba-diving
lesson with a tanned instructress, whom he declared “fit”.
All the food met with Giles’s approval. For lunch, we ate at one of the
outdoor bars that served mouthwatering shrimps. In the evening, we had
supper in the dining room, which served local fish such as lampuki.
Afterwards, there was a night programme of events for all ages, including
kids’ mini-discos, family cabaret and jazz evenings.
We also went on evening strolls through St Paul’s Bay, with its plethora of
shops and stalls. And guess what we found? An internet café, stuffed with
other teenagers, all MSNing their friends at home. At the front were tables
and chairs for long-suffering parents, together with a giant screen for Sky
Sports. It also meant I could phone my older children to make sure the house
was still in one piece.
When it came to settling our bill, there were several unexpected entries for
ice-creams and computer charges. That’s the one thing about taking a
teenager on holiday in a hotel where it’s relatively easy for an adolescent
to sign a chit. Still, as I told myself, a boy has to have some vices, and
it could have been worse.
“Next year,” said our son as we drove to the airport, “can we go somewhere
modern, like New York? And can I bring a friend?”
Jane Bidder also writes fiction as Sophie King. Her most recent novel is Mums@Home
(Hodder Paperback, £6.99).
Need to know
Getting there: Jane Bidder and family travelled with AirMiles (0870
5577777, www.airmiles.co.uk).
Flight costs can be calculated as a combination of airmiles plus money, or
money only. For example, summer fares from Gatwick to Malta on BA start at
1,000 airmiles plus £62 tax, or from £114 “money only”.
The Dolmen Resort Hotel (www.dolmen.com.mt)
can be booked from 680 airmiles plus £160pp for a week’s B&B
in summer, or from £203pp “money only”.
Top tips for travel with teens
Check their passports... five-year children’s passports run out sooner than
you think.
Make sure they have their iPods. They never want to listen to the radio in the
car and always moan about your choice of music. And make sure that you have
suitable adaptor plugs and chargers for their iPods and phones. They won’t.
Games that teenagers don’t touch at home — chess, Scrabble —
come into their own on holiday.
Make sure you know where they are going at night, that they have their phones
with them, and that they know the address of your hotel or villa by heart.
Always agree a return time for evenings out (and assume 30 minutes’ leeway).
A portable DVD player will fill evenings in lodgings without television.
If they really don’t want to visit the museum, art gallery or hanging gardens,
leave them at home.
Everyone will be happier. Once at the apartment or villa, try to establish
some ground rules. “Can you please try to get up before midday?” is usually
the first and hardest to apply.
On camping holidays get them to pitch their tent a good distance away from
yours if you want a decent night’s sleep. Find somewhere with plenty of
activities.
