There’s nothing quite like a baby to dampen your enthusiasm for foreign
travel. Planning and executing the most simple of holidays suddenly seems as
daunting as organising a full-scale military campaign. For a start, there is
all the equipment without which modern parenthood would surely not be
possible — car seat, travel cot, buggy, bottle steriliser, bouncy chair,
cuddly toy, etc. Then, of course, there’s that wriggling, squawling, puking
little piece of lovable human baggage. How will it manage in the airport, on
the plane, in a hot climate?
Such concerns can be paralysing for first-time parents. When my wife was five
months pregnant with our first child, we went to Rome for a long weekend, a
trip tinged with sadness because we imagined it to be our last “proper”
holiday for years to come. After the birth, we were so exhausted and
exhilarated by the whole business of babycare that we kept putting off the
idea of travelling en famille. Embarrassingly — for I call myself a
travel journalist — we didn’t take Callum abroad until he was 14 months old.
When we had a second baby, eight years later, we were older and wiser and
determined to be less timid. So even before Helena’s birth at the end of
April last year, we had already booked her first holiday. She would be three
months and three weeks old when we set off in late August, and still on
formula milk.
Admittedly, we weren’t going to canoe down the Amazon or backpack across China
— we had booked a week at an all-inclusive Club Med resort called Kamarina,
in the southwest of Sicily. Cissy and unadventurous? Well, yes. On the other
hand, the resort had no baby club, so we would have to fit the messy
business of parenting between bouts of sunbathing and swimming. How relaxing
would that be?
After a lengthy exchange of e-mails with Club Med, we ascertained that our
room would be air-conditioned and have a cot, and that there would be a
fridge at reception where we could store bottles of milk. It was then a
matter of calculating the minimum amount of baggage we needed to take.
We decided to forget about a steriliser. Instead, we bought a travel kettle
(£6.80 from Argos), so we could boil bottled water to make milk.
We’d take the buggy and the cuddly toy but leave behind the car seat and the
bouncy chair.
D-day arrived. After the bedlam of Gatwick, we boarded our Britannia charter
flight to be greeted by a wizened crone in the row behind us who moaned: “Oh
no, we’re right next to a bloody screaming baby.” This made us feel really
good. Six hours later (three on the plane, one in Catania airport and two on
a coach), we were given an altogether more enthusiastic welcome, as our
arrival at the resort was greeted by several dozen members of Club Med staff
lined up on either side of our coach, all clapping and singing. I confess my
heart sank a little at this too; perhaps we weren’t really Club Med people.
One of the Gentil Organisateurs led us to our room in a part of the resort
built to resemble a traditional Sicilian village. It was tastefully done and
the walkways were cobbled — great for getting babies to sleep in their
buggies. The GO waited while we unpacked a few things then escorted us to
one of the restaurants and joined us for dinner, cheerfully explaining all
the facilities and what a great week we were sure to have. Tired and hungry,
we juggled the baby, taking turns at eating, barely listening to him. But it
was a nice touch.
Next day we made straight for the pool. While Callum dived in, we set about
preparing Helena for immersion. We had come equipped with waterproof pants
(for her, not us), a large floppy sunhat and a yellow inflatable baby seat
(£20 from Boots, or, in our case, £4.50 on eBay).
These proved invaluable, as Helena was able to spend a couple of hours a day
floating in the pool, smiling and gurgling with delight. One of us would get
in the water and grin stupidly at her, while the other lounged on a lounger,
head in a book.
Immediately we discovered something rather wonderful — our fellow
holidaymakers were mostly Italian and, rather than recoiling at the sight of
babies, they regarded them with wonder and delight. In the pool, both
children and adults would swim towards us and gaze adoringly at Helena. On
the few occasions when she cried they would look up from their magazines,
tilting their heads and smiling indulgently.
Mealtimes were even more extraordinary. Club Med operates a policy of communal
dining — at each meal you sit where you like on large tables and fetch your
food from a buffet. In Britain this would mean a family with a baby would be
guaranteed a table to themselves, but we found our fellow guests only too
eager to join us. Middle-aged couples, families and even groups of
twentysomethings would breeze past empty tables so they could sit with us.
We would then watch with pride and amazement as they asked Helena’s name,
cooed, grinned and waved at her. This alone was almost worth the air fare.
Maybe all this love and happiness was affecting my judgment, because I was
beginning to get quite taken by the whole Club Med experience. The ersatz
Sicilian village that formed the centrepiece of the resort looked, under a
certain light, just like the real thing, only better.
There were, for instance, no motorbikes or scooters buzzing around,
threatening to mow down the buggy.
Although the food was very good and the facilities outstanding, it was the
overall friendly ambience that won us over. Rather than feel burdened by a
baby, we felt privileged to have one. I was even warming to the GOs and
their irrepressible friendliness. In any case, who wouldn’t choose even
slightly synthetic charm and cheerfulness over dirty, gritty authenticity?
Just ask anyone with a four-month-old baby.
Travel brief
Club Med (0845 367 6767, www.clubmed.co.uk) has seven nights at Kamarina from
£543 per adult (from £397 per child aged from 4-11, and £77 for an infant
under two), including flights from Gatwick or Manchester to Catania, all
meals, drinks with meals, most sports and tuition, kids’ clubs for ages four
and above, insurance and transfers.
For other child-friendly holidays, try Mark Warner (0870 770 4227,
www.markwarner.co.uk), Esprit Holidays (01252 618300,
www.esprit-holidays.co.uk) or Neilson (0870 333 3356, www.neilson.co.uk).
Baby passports: all passengers flying out of the UK need passports, regardless
of their age. To apply for a baby’s passport you must have a copy of its
birth certificate, issued by the local register office. Once you have an
application form, the process of getting a passport usually takes about
three to four weeks. The fee is £25.
You can speed up the process by applying for a form online
(www.passport.gov.uk) and by processing your application through a
designated branch of the Post Office — you pay a £6 fee to have your form
and photographs checked before dispatch, and fast-tracked. The whole process
then takes about two weeks. For an even faster service you can apply in
person at one of seven passport offices nationwide; this costs £71 for
same-day service or £60 for a seven-day service, including the £25 fee.
Details: 0870 521 0410, www.passport.gov.uk.
The golden rules
1 If this is your first child, go to southern Europe during
the shoulder months of May, June, September and October, when it is cheaper,
cooler and less crowded. This is a luxury you won’t have when they reach
school age.
2 Go to a country where people like children. Italy is great,
but so are Spain, Portugal, Greece and Turkey. In fact, almost anywhere
outside the UK.
3 Don’t be afraid to go long-haul. Under-2s fly free and, if
you contact the airline well in advance, you may be able to secure a
bassinet — and the spacious bulkhead seats that go with it.
4 If taking a package holiday, check the length of the resort
transfer; this can often be longer than the flight itself. Also check the
flight times — day flights are much easier to handle than night flights.
5 Avoid any kind of touring holiday. The only possible
exception is a cruise on a family-friendly ship.
6 Consider organised childcare. You may not want to leave
your baby with strangers all day, but anywhere that has its own baby club
will have facilities you can use, often a dedicated room open all hours with
a fridge and a microwave.
7 Avoid trendy or grand hotels. Unless your child is so
perfect that it never cries or vomits.
8 This is not the time for a spectacular holiday — a safari
or a weekend in New York. Save it for when the children can appreciate it.
9 Discuss your needs with the hotel. Make sure there is a cot
waiting for you when you arrive. Does the room have air conditioning? If
not, can you have a fan? If the hotel has no lift, can you have a room on
the ground floor?
10 Try to acclimatise your baby. Borrow a travel cot for a
few nights so they are used to sleeping in a different environment. Get them
used to drinking milk at room temperature, then you won’t need to heat
bottles.
The kit list: what we couldn’t travel without
THE ONE piece of kit you won’t want to do without is a buggy with a decent-
sized fold-down sunshade and plenty of storage pockets. Don’t bother with
the detachable parasols — they are fiddly and provide minimal cover.
At airports, buggies can usually be pushed to the door of the aircraft, where
they are collected by luggage handlers and stashed in the hold.
Some airlines tag them at the check-in desk; others do so at the gate — ask
when you check in. You might also want to ask when you are likely to see the
buggy again: sometimes it will be retrieved from the hold when you
disembark; sometimes it will appear on the luggage carousel.
One choice that served us well was a pile of muslin cloths, which are lighter
than towels and can be used for mopping up, protecting the baby from direct
sunlight, and as a comforter. Best of all were the water nappies — we saw
one baby go into the pool wearing a regular nappy, which swelled to the size
of a watermelon.
THE BARE ESSENTIALS
For a week’s holiday with a bottle-feeding baby:
21 x nappies
14 x water nappies
14 x muslin cloths
4 x bottles
large tin of milk powder
travel kettle
bottle carrier
foldable changing mat
sunhat
sunblock
washing-up liquid
inflatable baby seat
nappy cream
wet wipes
nappy bags
two soft toys
