Parents Weekend Away Part 3! Reccomendations and Tips!

It was our last morning there, so we got up really early and went down to the beach, just a 5 minute walk from our hotel (Hotel Baltum), and watched the sunrise. IT WAS HEAVENLY! So beautiful and peaceful. The sound of the ocean hitting the shore was very relaxing.

Neither of us are morning people….but this certainly made the early start very worthwhile! Perfection!

After breakfast we headed back to the beach and spent the rest of our day there before having to go to the airport.

We played a few games of ‘uno’ (the kids packed it in our bag for us!) and we ate some yummy waffles!

We had to head back to the airport at around 5pm. It was pretty busy at the airport. Apparently there were a few flights that had been cancelled/delayed earlier that day. Luckily for us, our flight was ok. The flight home was good, a little bumpy at times, but not too bad. When we touched down we followed the crowd to passport control. Before we left we paid for fast track. MAN I’M GLAD WE DID!! Definitely recommend it. The queue was huge and we were the only ones who did fast track. £10! It cost us £10! Well worth every penny! We went in the fast track line and, I was spilt between loving walking past everyone and feeling bad that they were still going to be waiting there while we were long gone! We were very happy we did it though.

So, Would we recommend visiting Portugal? YES! Would we recommend  visiting the Algarve? YES! Would we recommend visiting Faro? YES! We think it’s a short stay place though. Would we recommend visiting Albufeira? Not if you have kids. Or at least the city centre anyway. I guess it depends on what you’re after in a holiday. It was fine for the 2 of us, but we both agreed that we wouldn’t take the kids there. There were so many people (mostly tourists…mostly British), and it’s loud and crazy until early hours of the morning. There were lots of hen parties and stag parties, etc. Not really what we want for our family holidays.

Things we found useful!

1. Luggage

We didn’t want to take a suitcase as we knew that we would be checking out Faro first. Walking around a fair bit. We got this bag from Mountain Warehouse. It was brilliant! You can fit a lot in it, the front bit comes off so you can use it as a small rucksack, you can cover all the straps and handles for when you put it on the plane, lots of pockets/compartments etc. Lots of great points!

2. Fast Track

Fast Track at the airport! We will be doing this every time now! It’s like having royalty/celebrity status! We landed just after midnight and thought we probably would have wasted our money. It was so busy though! We got through in no time! Worth. Every. Penny!

3. Plan

We didn’t have extreme rigid plans, but we looked a few things before we went, like buses and trains to Albufeira from Faro. The day we were in Faro there was a bus/coach strike! We went to buy the tickets and the lady said she wasn’t sure if there was going to be buses going there because of the strike. We got time tables from both buses and trains, so that if the bus didn’t go, we knew what time we needed to be at the train station. Luckily our bus did go. The bus station is a lot closer to Albufeira city centre than the train station is.

Have you ever been? Do you have any recommendations?

Thanks for reading!