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With little ones in tow and especially with weaning babies and fussy eaters (= most toddlers!) you may feel a bit apprehensive about how meal times will pan out while you’re on holiday.
One of the great things about holiday park holidays is that you can decide when and where you will eat as there are no hotel meal times to abide by. This can almost mean too much choice and freedom! Here is our lowdown on making the most of mealtimes on holiday and how they can actually become part of your fondest holiday memories.
Eating in: Make the most of your baby and toddler friendly accommodation and all its modern conveniences, relaxing outside enjoying a home cooked meal or a BBQ al fresco on your veranda or in your garden area. Accommodations are usually well spaced out and you have your own outside space too with room for the children to play. Holiday parks have well stocked shops and you are usually within easy reach of larger supermarkets so you can get everything you need.
Eating out: Let’s not forget that holiday parks also provide numerous catering options with restaurants, snack bars and take away services. On most of the holiday parks we feature, the restaurants and takeaways are perfectly located next to play areas where your children can play and explore and return to the table when their meals arrive. Children’s menus are always present and in some cases under 3’s eat for free. Many of the Landal parks have separate children’s buffet areas on a lower level where children can serve themselves. They also tend to have microwaves for heating baby food and milk. You can often eat out for breakfast on park too or get it delivered to your accommodation and preorder meals for collection later on. At Efteling Bosrijk Village you can even have pizzas delivered straight to your door.
Eating out out: You might fancy venturing out into the local town to try something typically Dutch or Belgian (the pancake houses in Holland are amazing with 100’s of sweet and savoury pancakes on offer!). We also love a good picnic here at Little Clogs and we always make sure that we can find somewhere peaceful, on the beach or in the woodlands, to lay out a blanket and enjoy a family lunch in the fresh air.
Holland and Belgium are extremely child-friendly countries and children are wholeheartedly welcomed in restaurants and cafes. Not only are the menus generally very healthy, with plenty of soup, fish, fruit, and chips made from vegetables rather than potatoes, the food is presented really nicely too. Nearly all restaurants have children’s menus and often there is something to entertain the children like a proper play corner, black board to draw on or colouring. Staff are always willing to let children order and chat to them and high chairs are also readily available. What we love about the eating out (and out out) options are that children are always free to roam around and play between courses or while waiting for the food to arrive.
Accommodations on holiday parks, typically bungalows, villas or holiday homes, come complete with high chairs and in the case of the many children’s themed accommodations found on the Landal parks and on Beekse Bergen they also come with toddler cutlery, crockery and cups (as well as a selection of toys and games to keep little ones occupied). So the only meal time equipment you really need to bring with you are bibs and perhaps your toddler’s favourite beaker (and a pack of wipes obviously!)
We know how it feels to take our excitable (and sometimes unpredictable) children out for dinner and one life saver we have found is the Tidy Tot bib and tray cover. The minute we take the tray out of our bag and place it on the high chair we love the glances of curious onlookers as we know that it won’t be us leaving a trail of food behind and we can reduce food wastage too as it doesn’t all fall on the floor! It’s great for holidays as can be folded really small and popped into any bag.
** As it’s well and truly summer now we’ve got together with our pals at Tidy Tot to offer a mini summer bundle to a lucky family. To be in with a chance of winning keep your eyes peeled for our competition launching soon on Instagram!**
