Our family vacation…2016 (part 2-location and food)

Last year we stayed at a simple hotel called Piccolo Mondo. It’s part of the Valentini Village group. As I mentioned in the post (read here), these hotels are usually all inclusive. Some are small 3 stars, other 4 star luxury hotels. Either way, because they belong to this group, all patrons are able to enjoy some of the entertainment the other hotels offer.

We stayed here last year and really enjoyed the personal service we received so we made sure to come back. This time, I wanted to also share what the rooms are like.

Sadly, the room we used last year was unavailable. We loved it because it was huge. This time around, we had a small room but a bigger bathroom and balcony. The girls aren’t used to sleeping in bunk beds and Miss V has a tendency to have bad dream. We requested a guardrail but as you can see from that top picture, it’s kinda flimsy. The one and only night she slept up there, she had a bad dream and slams her body hard against it that she nearly fell off. Luckily, I heard her and had her moved to the bottom. Needless to say, it made for uncomfortable sleeping arrangements.

The one things that still gets me are these bathrooms. It supposed to be easier to clean sand off of you but I for one am not jazzed about having to shower in an open room. I do have to admit, it was easy to give the girls a bath all at once.

Last year, I used the bidet to soak/rinse off the swimsuits. Seeing as we were there for 10 days, I decided to up my game a bit. We packed enough clothes for 5 days and just washed daily. Even if it required a couple of minutes of work each day, it was worth it not having to stash away dirty clothes. All of the hotels will have a drying rack or a clothes line on the balconies. Don’t forget.. this is Italy… so no dryers! (Although there is a laundromat not too far from the city center)

These beach resorts tend all be the same. Family, Fun and Food! It’s generally customary to have all meals included which makes it easy. It’s truly a vacation when you don’t have to cook or worry about where you’re going to get your next meal. This year’s food at Piccolo Mondo was very good. I’m not sure what changes they made but it was better than last year.

Breakfast was probably the girls favorite meal because they got to chose their own food.

While having NOT to cook is great, it does get tiring having 3 course lunch and dinners. That doesn’t include the buffet of appetizers. We got to the point where we’d skip a course just to not overdue it. After all, it’s not like we were working off all of the food.

… after all of that, you still have to save room for fruit and dessert.

As I mentioned, there’s a pizzeria which is part of the Valentini Village family. We learned that instead of having dinner at the hotel, we could just tell them that we’d like to go out for pizza and they’ll make a reservation for us. It’s great knowing we could substitute a meal and it’s still included as part of the package.