As a family of four and the nature of my job we have been to some lovely places and had some truly amazing holidays. However, this year we wanted something a bit different and after speaking to a lovely friend at local tour operator Sardinian Places she recommended the gorgeous Le Dune Resort and Spa, located on the North West coast of the stunning Italian Island of Sardinia. After a lovely short 2 hour flight we landed into Olbia airport which is on the North East of the Island in the Costa Smeralda region. We were soon through the airport and met our taxi driver waiting in arrivals and whisked straight off on for the 90 minute transfers (which was rather windy and took in some great scenery!)
We drove up the short road to the arrivals point at the resort…one thing to note is that there are 5 hotels located within the grounds of Le Dune so once we established we were staying at Le Sabine we headed off to the reception area in a golf buggy which the kids loved! We wound our way through these little tree lined lanes past a piazza with a bar, shops and a stage, an amphitheatre and a spa and came to Le Sabine reception. The hotel is quite rustic, it’s a 4*, so no fancy contemporary designs just beautiful Italian charm and I loved it!
We settled into our room which was a lovely 1 bedroom suite, again not fancy but immaculately clean and loads of room for the four of us. The buildings are all low-rise and look out onto tree and shrubbery which to some may not be appealing but to us it wasn’t a problem. We decide to venture to the pool and wondered whether we might not get a space! We usually take our foreign holiday in the May half term when some resorts are quitter and were slightly concerned that is would be very busy……such a pleasant surprise to find the pool was really quiet and peaceful, sunbeds were plentiful and the bar served cold beers…what’s not to like!
The resort has 10 restaurants, mostly buffet style and some carried a small surcharge but most were included in the half board offering as was house wine and water. We ate at the restaurant situated in the Le Sabine hotel and the food was delicious, plenty of seafood, pasta and meat!
Our days were mostly spent in the same routine which involved Ava heading to kids club for a few hours, Archie doing an hour or so of football, Tony in the gym and me holding fort by the pool!
One of the reasons we chose Le Dune is because of its renowned kids facilities (whilst writing this I checked their Facebook page only to see they had won another award for their kids clubs) The kids club is split into babies, mini club, junior club and teen club so pretty much every age was catered for. The activities were varied and included arts and crafts, trips to the beach, horse riding and singing and dancing – Ava loved it! The beauty of Le Dune is that its clientele is mostly Italians from the mainland, a good few French and then Brits were the minority, meaning our children met lots of international kids and staff.
There’s tons of other activities here not just for kids, you can brush up on your tennis skills, do a spot of yoga up by the pine trees and even go for a horse ride with resort’s own stables.
What I think stands out at Le Dune however, is the Italian hospitality. They are so friendly and professional and super cool, I found myself mesmerised by the beautiful language they spoke and desperately wishing I’d studied a language!
One last thing that wowed us was the entertainment, almost every night we headed up to the huge amphitheatre where they put on a kids disco before the ‘real’ entertainment started. They were shows we saw there were wonderful and so well staged, the singers and dancers were a cut above and after seeing some pretty average (and totally hilarious) hotel entertainment in the last 10 years this was by far the best we had seen. But if shows aren’t your thing you could always sit in the Piazza and have a drink, listen to one of the many bands on the stage or watch the side shows often appearing on a theme night. They even had a nightly play park next to the Piazza where kids could go to play on bouncy castles, zip wires and pedal go-karts (all whilst parents enjoyed a G&T or beer of course!)
All in all we had a wonderful holiday and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Resort & Spa Le Dune especially to families looking for a fun, varied holiday in a beautiful setting.