Tenerife

Anywhere that has glorious sunshine with black sandy beaches make for great holiday fun!

Tenerife, one of the popular Canary Islands is a firm favourite for many families. There are many flights in and out and the island is big enough to explore for a week or two and not see or do the same things twice. It’s also got a lot more to offer than just the beaches although they are pretty special.

We went in November and had an all inclusive package at a family resort. It was nice to have meals provided but not essential as we much preferred eating out (the food is good and not expensive in most places). In our usual exploratory style when we arrived we ditched the bags, grabbed a pram (which we hired and I would seriously recommend if you have kids that may want carrying still) and off we went!

The beaches were something else and at the time of year we went it wasn’t busy or too hot (hovered between 18-25 degrees).

There are some great animal parks to visit and most have good reviews but in the end we went to Jungle Park which had some really good shows on throughout the day.

Some of our favourite shows were the open air bird show with eagles, the seal show and the parrots and there were lots more to choose from. The fantastic jungle landscape was also good for the kids to run around, ropeways to clamber through and even had a nice waterfall feature.

The restaurants also overlooked some of the show areas so even feeding time you didn’t miss anything! All in all; a good day out and most hotels either have a FREE bus pickup or you can get the FREE bus from certain bus stops around the island.

Everyone loves a water park and Tenerife has a few of these to choose from too; we tried Aqualand and were not disappointed! There was a good variety of rides and plenty of kids pools, play areas and rides. Max was 28 months at the time but was happy going on a lot of rides on his own.

Aqualand also had a couple of Dolphin shows throughout the day which was fantastic and the handlers were really great at getting the crowd going!