A family holiday in the Algarve at Martinhal Sagres

Travelling to the Algarve, Portugal

Thanks for coming to read this post on A family holiday in the Algarve at Martinhal Sagres.

Sometimes you just need an ‘easy’ holiday don’t you? I think that can never be truer than when you have a 3 year old and an 11 month old. So Dave and I, on recommendation from friends, booked a family holiday in the Algarve at Martinhal Sagres. It coins itself as a luxury resort designed with parents in mind and I can 100% say it lives up to that tagline. 

Our trip was the last week of September, flying with BA from Gatwick, and were gifted with the most gorgeous weather – we’d been worried it might be a bit cold, but it was quite the opposite. We had 7 days of wall to wall sunshine. We shouldn’t be surprised though, with a reported 300+ days of sunshine per year, the algarve is quite reliable for a spot of sun! 

Martinhal Resort, Sagres

Only a short flight from the UK and a short drive from Faro Airport, a family holiday in the Algarve at Martinhal, Sagres is ideal. The Martinhal Resort is like a mini town perched on the extreme western  tip of the Algarve. It’s made up of a range of accommodation styles, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments, villas with pools and a hotel.

We stayed in one of the 2 bedroom, 2 storey apartments which are well equipped. If you can think of it, they have it – and if it’s not provided as standard then you can reserve it in advance. A big bonus for us was the stair-gates at the top and bottom of the stairs – with a fast crawling 11 month old, these are essential. We’ve so often stayed places where there are no stair-gates and it’s a constant worry. There was also a cot, bed guards for our 3 year old, a bath mat, children’s plates and cups etc etc.

Our friends who visited previously also hired a buggy and baby monitor (for free). So you really can lighten the load if you utilise what they provide. 

A bit more about the resort…

I don’t really know where to begin with what they provide. It’s ENDLESS. With our eldest only being 3, we could only benefit from a small proportion of what was on offer, but she adored exploring the 4 pools, trampolining in the main village square and hiring a bike and a scooter to go exploring on.

There’s tonnes of other things to do for older children and a spa and health club activities for adults. The choices go on and on. Most of these cost extra, so you could easily spend a fortune (it’s a cashless resort so you don’t know your total until you check out!) but we had a car so could shop offsite. There is a Deli and shop on site which were great for the odd thing but obviously much cheaper to do a big shop at Lidl etc. We generally only ate one meal a day out of the apartment. 

We paid 2,149 euros for the week (excluding flights). However, we have been given a credit back of 250 euros as we disputed the ocean view. It really wasn’t an ocean view – it was bits of ocean mainly covered by trees, which apparently are getting cut down. They were good about it and have, as I say, given us credit for if we book with Martinhal again.

And what to eat?

There are a number of restaurants at the resort, all of which go out of their way to be accommodating to children providing, for example, a little break away area with toys and colouring for children to go to whilst they wait for their food to arrive.

The restaurants vary from a hut serving delicious burgers and chips (The Wolf pop up Grill) to a fancy Portuguese restaurant overlooking the beach (O Terraco). It was really really nice to be able to eat at a variety of places with absolutely no worries about them having adequate facilities for children. It made it all very stress free.

For me, a big bonus for this resort (and something that puts it above the normal self catering places we stay) was the daily maid service. Every single day we’d go out and when we got back the apartment was sparkly clean. A HUGE bonus as I’m sure any parent to small children would agree.

Slide and Splash Waterpark, Lagoa

As there was plenty to keep us occupied within the resort we didn’t feel pressure to go out and explore (we get very itchy feet so this is rare for us) but we did go out at least once a day even if it was just to the shops. Being on the westerly tip it was a bit of a drive whenever we wanted to get to the main ‘hub’ of the Algarve but quite handy to have a little drive on the way to places as the baby usually fell asleep.

On Dave’s birthday we went to Slide and Splash waterpark in Lagoa which was about 50 minutes away. The girls were both free (under 5) and Dave and I cost 24.30 euros each by booking online in advance. It was a great day out and Dave and our eldest had a great time. I’m a bit of a wuss when it comes to water so I tended to sit and watch with the little one. We ate pizza on the lawn and enjoyed people watching. 

Fiesa Sand Sculptures, Pera

We also went to see the Fiesa Sand Sculptures in Pera which was something a bit different and ended up being a great way to spend a morning. The girls got in for free (under 6) and Dave and I were 9.90 euros. Over 40 thousand tonnes of sand is used to create the incredible sculptures, making up hundreds of different famous faces, films and objects in one ‘city’.

It was extremely hot the day we went and we were fortunate to be able to hire a golf buggy to get around (it was expensive at about 25 euros but worth it) – I think without it our experience would have been very different as carrying our youngest would have been a challenge. It also made it a bit more fun cruising around in a buggy 🙂 

A nice little town to visit was also Lagoa which had a lovely little old town to explore. We had pizza on the pavement and watched the world go by. 

Summary

We rarely want to go back to places we’ve been as we always want to move on and explore new areas but I most definitely would go on another family holiday in the Algarve at Martinhal Sagres – it has something special about it. 

For more on our travels to Portugal check out our blog on our visit to Porto, a lovely City in the north of the Country.

For more inspiration on a resort holiday with Children have a read of this post on the Holiday Village HL Rio in Lanzarote.