“It was great!”
A knee jerk reaction. The same reaction I make when people ask me “How are you?”
“Oh fine thanks”.
“We had a really great time thanks”
But then someone who knows better will ask “No really..?”
And really? It was like this.
The hotel
We stayed at Acti palace in Kos and the hotel, although advertised as a five star, was really around a three/four. It may have been a five when opened but years of wear and badly repaired damage in my opinion lowered this. However the hotel in its entirety made for a nice holiday. The staff were in most parts amazing and friendly but they were understaffed and it showed. The drinks (all inclusive) were plentiful and not watered down, with a good variety. The food was good albeit a little repetitive towards the end of the week. They needed more seating at the bars as most nights you had to loiter hoping someone left a table in order to sit down, so I dread to think what this would be like during high season. The rooms were comfortable, including the beds. The mini bar (which was free) was restocked every day with both alcohol and soft drinks. The hotel was located away from everything which although suited us may put a lot of people off and from what we gathered from others the local taxis wouldn’t come out. We overheard a lot of people cancelling their taxi after waiting an hour for it to take them into town to no avail.
The good
It was lovely to have a break. It was great to experience a country with the children that isn’t America and immerse ourselves in another culture. The children learned how to confidently swim and snorkel and loved having free access to the pool all week.
Regardless of all of the airport dramas that had been going on we were really lucky and faced none of these. Our flight delays were minimal, we had no problems getting our luggage (bar a slight delay in Greece) and due to staff recognising our children struggling in the airports we were fast tracked through check in and security, to which we are eternally grateful as I’m not sure we would have ever made it to the plane without this help owing to the fact that the children’s anxieties were extremely high.
We had the most amazing evenings. Every evening we would have dinner and find a seat outside at the bar area. We would then get ourselves a drink, the children would have an interesting coloured mocktail and we would chill in each other’s company. We would play cards (mainly Uno), we would talk about anything and everything and just enjoy each other. After a little while, the children would chill with their tablets (sometimes even choosing to do educational apps!) giving the adults a little more time to unwind and enjoy their evening, without having to be completely switched on. I think certainly for the adults this was our favourite part of the holiday.
At no point do we regret the decision to trial Europe, nor do we feel like we have wasted our money. The children again came on leaps and bounds in their confidence and we as adults felt that we got to relax, however minimal that was. As special needs parents we take and appreciate what we can get.
The bad
The Tuesday before we went we received a phone call from our dog sitter, she had been in very close contact with someone who had tested positive for covid that evening. We discussed our very limited options but quickly concluded we couldn’t risk exposing ourselves to covid again especially not with going to a foreign country. Next option was to then come up with who could look after Fidget whilst we were away. After lots of back and forthing there really was only one option and that was Richard’s parents. Unfortunately they live a four hour drive away. A quick rearrange of plans for the next day, Lela has a half day on a Wednesday so she could look after the kids, Rich booked an emergency half day with his boss and so on the Wednesday Rich and I drove Fidget the four hours up to his parents, stopped for a quick coffee, turned around and came home. It was a long, hellish day but Fidget was safe and happy with her grandparents for the week. The next day our friend (the dog sitter) phoned to confirm a positive covid test so we made the right choice.
When we first got to Greece the bus almost left without us and the staff were not very friendly, it left us with an instant feeling of regret. We had been mildly delayed with luggage but by the time we reached the bus, the rep griped that she had already completed her speech and the bus driver grumbled that we were late and he was about to leave and to get on the bus. Considering all we had done was get our luggage and leave the airport, it wasn’t really the warm welcome to Greece from our rep we were expecting. The rep then didn’t accompany us on the bus and the driver proceeded to literally kick people off the bus at every stop with no indication as to where to go for their hotel. Also apparently you no longer see your reps in person anymore either, everything is done through an app.
Toward the latter part of the week the children began to shut down. Riley needed his music (he needs his mp3 player on to reconnect to the world) and Samantha stopped eating.
They found being out of their routine hard and Samantha found the lack of choices available to her impossible (her PDA means she needs choice in her day). We ultimately found there just wasn’t enough to keep them entertained. Due to Riley not being able to maintain his own body temperature he couldn’t stay in the pool for long periods (it was so cold), same problem with the beach and ultimately there wasn’t anything else to do on a pool holiday. They did really well but lack of choice and routine did take its toll and by the time we had reached the airport to come home Riley had completely shut down and Samantha was flapping with stress.
Riley started to react badly to the mix of suncream, pool water and heat and broke out in hives. We struggled to keep him even throughout the second half of the week and are now trying hard to control the damage to his skin.
We are now home and the meltdowns are intense. Samantha has settled back into routine reasonably well. She has more choice at home and this has helped to ease the holiday anxieties. Riley has been less easy to settle. He has been averaging six meltdowns a day and they are very intense. We (the parents) are back to being covered in bruises again and he is at times non verbal. We are taking things slowly with him, lots of soft play, sensory slime play and down time with his tablet. It is helping but it will take time.
Several weeks on and the tensions are still there. Both children are still having several meltdowns a day. We have not been able to return to all our normal activities with our friends as the children are unable to fully ‘people’ at the moment. Riley is finding communication difficult and is still non-verbal at times. We have started to learn makaton again to assist him.The anxiety is still really high.
The takeaway
I don’t want you guys thinking we regret the holiday. We did enjoy it and we have some great take away memories.
Overall this type of holiday isn’t for us, at least not every year. We may do shorter city break holidays and maybe a pool holiday every five years or so but definitely not every year.
We have our Disney cruise in September and then I may have done something….. So we may be going back to Disney world in May next year (more to come on that soon). In terms of the Disney cruise this will be something new for us again as none of us have ever cruised before. We are hoping that given it is Disney it will help with the anxieties. In terms of Disney world, although it will be the childrens fourth time a lot has changed in the post covid world . We are hoping these are still the holidays for us but really we are going to have to see as they may not be the holidays we all remember and love.
The true take away from all of this is we are glad to have tried it, it was nice to do something new and we have some great memories but we did all miss Disney. We missed the cast members, the activities and the diversity of food. Our true passion and love lies with Disney and we are looking forward to our next holidays, experiences and memories with them.
