It has been stereotyped as a cheap-and-cheerful destination. But look in the right places and the Canary island can offer great family holidays. Former BBC holiday presenter Craig Doyle, samples a five-star resort while Shane Hegarty, puts together a more modest getaway
FAMILY HOLIDAY: surely it's the biggest oxymoron known to mankind. You're getting a break from work or the school runs, but let's be honest: the day job is often easier. Yet we still do it: pack up half the house in 14 suitcases, wake the kids at 4 am and head to the airport for a row with somebody . . . anybody.
With this in mind I choose my family trips very carefully indeed. Destination Doyle this midterm was Lanzarote and Princesa Yaiza Suite Hotel Resort. Yes, a resort. In my former life I detested them, slagging them off so much that the BBC stopped sending me to them. But, with young kids now, there is no time for such fussiness, what with kid's clubs to be tested, buffets to be bombarded and pools to splash around in.
I filmed at the Princesa Yaiza for the BBC in the five-star resort's maiden season, a good few years ago, and was very impressed with it. Three children and 1,867 sleepless nights later, it was time to really test it out.
Aer Lingus has a lunchtime flight to Lanzarote, so airport stress should have been at a minimum. I had my first argument with a bus driver in the airport car park. Then we encountered some difficulty on the flight.
I have always found Aer Lingus staff warm and accommodating - essential when you're travelling with kids. Sadly, the same could not be said for a few of the other passengers on our flight.
Families are usually seated in the first 10 rows, so, if you don't like kids on a flight, sit at the back. A couple in front of us had older kids, but it didn't stop them putting their seats back the minute they sat down, squashing my little ones in the process.
My children are used to flying and are well behaved during flights, but our neighbour had no patience, and my sons' impression of an aircraft landing tipped him over the edge. He started to get narky. I stepped in, had a word and, with luck, ruined his holiday.
So, after the stressful beginning, finally to the relaxing holiday. The resort is in Playa Blanca, the southern tip of Lanzarote. It's a quieter part of the island, a world away from the Puerto del Carmen resort, and is aimed at families rather than beer bellies.
The Princesa Yaiza complex occupies prime position on the beautiful Papagayo beach. In fact the hotel seems to occupy most of the land in the area. It is enormous. The lobby is a vast wood-and-glass affair, plush and sophisticated. It's a far cry from family resorts of old. That is what makes this a special family resort: kids and adults are catered for equally. No primary colours, no irritating resort reps. So how have they done it?
It's beautifully designed, so grown-ups feel they are being treated to a luxury holiday, and there is, of course, a spa, where they can be pampered. For the kids there are four pools of various sizes in the main part of the hotel, and then - and most importantly for stressed parents - there is a huge play area. It is essentially a kid's resort within the resort, with pools, tennis courts, football pitches and clubs for different age groups.
In the evening the children's theatre burst into life with a disco and a show. My lot loved it, and, to be honest, I did, too.
The hotel has four restaurants, but only a Japanese option was a la carte, so buffet fever reigned. You may be familiar with this illness, where the children take one bite out of everything on the buffet and you eat all the remains out of embarrassment. It wouldn't have been so bad if the food had been a bit better. Thankfully, the hotel has provided an escape from the buffet: a courtyard close to the beach with a couple of very good restaurants . . . with menus.
The promenade that runs along Playa Blanca is awash with shops, cafes and restaurants. It's handy for a post- dinner stroll or just for the little ones to crash out in the pram. Our favourite restaurant was Bodegón Las Tapas, about halfway up the promenade.
The chances are you'll be too tired navigating your way around the hotel to even consider a walk. If you are staying in the family suites area you will do a bit of mileage during your stay, so if you have younger kids always have a buggy with you.
It's surprising that a hotel of this size was built on an island with such strict planning laws; the local council are considering options following a supreme-court ruling that this and several other hotels were built illegally. That said, although there are some nasty-looking buildings in the area, Princesa Yaiza is not one of them. It's well designed, sympathetic to the area and wonderful for holidaymakers.
So did it work? I didn't row at the airport or on the flight home, and the kids loved it, so I'd consider it a success.
Craig Doyle
IT IS RAINING in Lanzarote. Again. We're on a coach that's winding its way along a cliff edge, through a lava field that poured on to a significant chunk of the island nearly 300 years ago. It's a heady mixture of big drop, narrow road and wide bus filled with gasping tourists. It is a little like being on a very slow roller coaster.
The man sitting opposite is broad and bullet-headed and has clearly lifted enough weights in his time that he could almost rival the landscape for toughness. He is trying to look calm, but his fingernails are dug into the seat in front of him.
It is raining in Lanzarote. And I never thought I'd have been so glad.
This was supposed to have been about a week of winter sun, and for the best part of it we have been lucky enough. It has been warm, bright, a little cloudy at times but more than good enough to get some heat into damp Irish bones. But when the rain comes, for our final two days, it turns out to be a blessing of sorts, because it means getting up and getting out, and a holiday that was supposed to be about anything but adventure gives us a chance to get a taste of it.
The first surprise of the week, though, had come when we arrived at the hotel, pulled our bags all the way through the complex and confirmed that we really had managed to book an apartment with a couple of metres of private beach.
We had stayed on a private beach before, but that had been in Mauritius, and it had been a few levels of luxury higher, but it also cost us a fair few euro more than this.
The plan had been to book a family-friendly resort - playground, pools, the usual but for a decent budget. We had examined a few options, facing the tyranny of sites such as Tripadvisor.com, where 10 good reviews are always outweighed by the lone negative one in which someone unloads their unhappiness about the weather, the flight and their life on to the hotel they stayed in. We spent weeks weighing up one against the other, examined their facilities, their rooms, their deals.
Then friends returned from the island's resort of Costa Teguise and told us that they had passed by a resort they had heard about. They had looked inside and decided it was where they would stay next time.
So we booked it.
Despite a private artificial "lagoon" to the front, it was never going to be five-star luxury, but we could sit outside the functional apartment while our two-year-old played on the shallow, clean beach out front.
Which is what we did for the first few days. Costa Teguise is a typical Canaries resort town, in that, despite a smattering of bars, restaurants and stalls, it is artificial and unremarkable to the point of being dull. But it has beaches and decent hotels and temperatures in the mid-20s in February. And, as it turned out, it's on an island that remains unfairly stereotyped as Lanzagrotty.
Costa Teguise has a modest but entertaining aquarium, with just enough sharks to keep any child delighted with terror. Farther north is Rancho Texas Park zoo. Although it appeared a little cramped compared with Dublin Zoo, it includes an impressive bird-of-prey show, in which hawks and eagles swoop low over the audience, thrilling the kids and worrying men with toupees. Also enjoyable was Guinate Tropical Park, on the northern tip of the island. Both animal parks, by the way, include almost identical parrot shows. Animals have been seen to do many incredible things in the wild, but only the wonders of domesticity can bring you a unicycling parrot.
It is the island itself that is the greatest treat. Formed of volcanoes, and still subject to their moods, Lanzarote has the most impressive landscape of the Canaries. Blasted, dark, intimidating, it has a desolation that takes a little time to appreciate.
But its size - only 60km from top to bottom - makes it an excellent place to travel around, even if cliff-edge driving means the passengers can appreciate the scenery while the driver concentrates firmly on not plunging into it.
Highlights include the spectacular Cueva de los Verdes, a lava cave whose acoustics are so excellent that concerts take place there, deep below the earth. The views from either end of the island are worth the short trips.
But it's the volcanic area - Timanfaya National Park - that must be seen. From a visitor centre somehow plonked on the top of a steaming hill, official buses wend their way around the area for the thrill and edification of visitors. It is a spectacular place. Go and explore it on Google Earth, because it looks like the surface of another planet. And if you go to Lanzarote, make sure to see it for yourself - whatever the weather.
Shane Hegarty
Lanzarote essentials
Where to stay
Craig Doyle and his family stayed at Princesa Yaiza
Suite Hotel Resort (
www.princesayaiza.com),
a five-star complex in Playa Blanca. A week's bed-and-breakfast
accommodation next month, for two adults and two children, starts
at about €2,400. Shane Hegarty and his family stayed at Sands
Beach, in Costa Teguise. A package of a week's bed-and-breakfast
accommodation next month, for two adults and two children,
including flights, costs about €1,375 with
www.Steintravel.ie. To
book accommodation directly, call 00-34-928-826095 or see
www.sandsbeach.eu.
Where to go
Timanfaya National Park, a must-see, is a stunning
volcanic area. Lanzarote's beaches have a lot of black sand. This
is why.
How to get around
Shane Hegarty hired a car through his hotel, at
€50 for two days, including a car seat. They dropped the car
at the airport when they left. The island is popular with cyclists,
thanks to good roads and a mix of plains and hills. If you are not
into lying on a beach, it is a great, if challenging, way to get
around.
Go there
Lanzarote is one of the most easily accessible holiday destinations from Ireland.
Craig Doyle flew with Aer Lingus ( www.aerlingus.com), which serves Lanzarote from Dublin all year round and from Cork between October and January.
Shane Hegarty travelled with LTE International Airways; they booked through Sunworld.ie for €199 per person return, excluding taxes, in February.
Numerous other tour operators, among them Falcon, Panorama, Sunway and Stein Travel, serve Lanzarote, with departures from Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Knock, Derry and Belfast.
Most tour operators also sell flights. Falcon, for example, has returns from about €270 next month.