Last week we went on an adventure. I love being able to travel with my girls. I feel so grateful, every time we get to take them somewhere new.

Ok, so the flight there was difficult, Tabby screamed like a tiny psycho for 2 of the 4 hours, it rained for 3 of the 7 days we were there and we need a 2nd holiday to recover from the 1st holiday...

But honestly, how lucky are we to be able to up and fly across the world when we fancy a break from normality, with our two kiddos?!

Family holidays are some of my most treasured memories from my childhood and there's absolutely nothing I love more than watching these two unlock their own core memories, right in front of me.

Where We Went

This time we headed to Crete. We actually had a trip to Crete planned in May 2020 with my entire family, which got cancelled. So we decided to try again, as we love the Greek islands, we've visited before and were sad to have missed out.

We also decided to go All Inclusive, this time, as we really fancied the idea of not having to worry about how many ice creams Mollie could put away in a day, or having to work out spending budgets, etc.

So we booked a resort called Stella Palace. I had a friend who'd been there before (I actually didn't realise this until after we'd booked, but it was good to have that reassurance) and it had everything we needed from a family holiday.

We booked a family suite with direct access to a sharing pool. As we knew Tabby would want to nap in the day and this meant we could still sit by the pool and be close enough to hear her.

Travelling With Kids

You can find a lot of tips and ideas for travelling with kids and babies on my previous travel blog posts for our Menorca trip and our Boston trip.

We didn't do much different this time. The biggest difference for me was that Tabby was much harder on the flight, because she is more aware, more mobile and more stubborn. So we will definitely be booking her her own seat next time, as she was furious about the idea of being strapped to Mummy.

My biggest piece of advice is to make sure the kids have something to eat and drink during take off and landing, as sucking on a straw, swallowing and chewing all help with the ear pressure.

We also made sure we had downloaded their favourite shows and films on their ipads, in advance of the flight, so that they could watch these without an internet connection.

The time difference in Crete is only 2 hours ahead of the UK. So we just kept to UK time. This meant they stayed up later for dinner, napped later and then woke up later in the morning. It was perfect and hasn't disrupted their routines at all.

We flew from Stansted airport, into Heraklion, which was about 20/30 minutes from our resort.

We didn't hire a car this time, as we booked a package holiday with Jet2 (we've not done this before and found it very easy and convenient) and had airport transfers included. We got a coach from the airport to Stella Palace, which obviously meant the kids couldn't have car seats. But we felt safe doing this.

We took our umbrella style Ickle Bubba Discovery Max stroller for Tabby. And I've written all about taking a pushchair abroad in my Menorca blog post.

Food

Stella Palace has one main buffet restaurant, two restaurants that are buffets for breakfast and lunch and then a la carte for dinner, and two a la carte only restaurants.

Options include Italian, Asian, Mexican and, of course, Cretan. And you can book each a la carte restaurant once per week.

We didn't have any problems at all with feeding our kids. There were plenty of options for all tastes and appetites. And Mollie lived for the chocolate crepes for breakfast. She'd return to Stella Palace for that alone!

So many of you have asked about cocktails and drinks! Lol! I'm sorry to disappoint you all but I don't drink alcohol, so I can't comment. Mollie and I did enjoy a good few pina colada mocktails though, and the drinks menu was extensive.

Pools

The biggest disappointment for me was the weather. And obviously this is something that nobody could have controlled. But because of the unseasonably low temperatures, the fresh water pools were icy cold.

And I have a 4 year old who just wants to spend her entire holiday in the pool. So we had to keep coaxing her out after ten minute stints and warming her up, because she was shaking like a life, blue in the face and insisting she absolutely was not cold, whilst fighting off hypothermia.

The water park was fantastic, and once the weather warmed up, in the latter half of our week's stay, we loved spending time on the slides and in the splash park. I just wish we could have made more use of this.

Entertaining two small children when it's raining, in a resort that is centred around water activities, was no mean feat. But we survived! (First world problems, right?!)

The Resort

The resort itself was absolutely gorgeous. It was smart, clean, pretty, well laid out, spacious and the staff were incredible. Nothing was too much trouble and everyone was so friendly with our kids.

Stella Palace has an app that you download and log into when you arrive, to make all of your restaurant reservations. It also has a map of the resort on there, you can order room service from it, access the help desk and more. It was so handy and I was very impressed by that! Anything to make my life more efficient gets major brownie points from me!

One thing that sometimes puts me off of going All Inclusive is that I love to explore outside of the resort, wherever we are going. And we did have a little wander down to the sea front, along to the shops and restaurants and even grabbed lunch at a gorgeous little spot called Ocean Seaside.

But this time, we just really enjoyed the convenience of having everything included and on tap. Any drinks, snacks or ice creams that the kids fancied, they could just get it and we didn't have to limit ourselves.

Sometimes it's nice to explore. Sometimes it's just nice to be catered for.