As you may know if you follow me on my social media, we are thrilled to have been asked to be James Villa Holidays ambassadors this year. I got the email inviting us to be an ambassador on a very grey January day and at first I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I started my blog back in 2013 as a diary to document my girls early days and back then I never in a million years thought I would get such an amazing offer.

James Villa Holidays look simply stunning. There’s no other words for them when you have a peruse of their website, so I was so excited to choose where we wanted to go. This will be our first ever family beach holiday abroad. We went to Disneyland Paris back in November 2016 but it was a very different type of holiday indeed. I am so very excited about taking them to the beach without having to take wellies and coats which we usually end up doing when we holiday in the UK!

There are so many different countries with stunning villas to choose from, but my husband and I sat down and thought about what we wanted from our holiday. Here are our 5 top wants for our villa holiday.

1. Short flight
2. Temperature not too hot
3. Close to the beach
4. A pool
5. Things to do in the local area for families

After looking, we were torn between Cyprus and Portugal. I have visited both of these countries twice already when I was a child, and both hold absolutely fantastic memories. For me, the deciding factor was the heat. I know that in this day and age weather is so unpredictable but as a whole, the temperate in Cyprus is significantly higher than Portugal and I remember our visit in 1997 where the mercury hit over 40! I know that the girls in particular would struggle with this, as they aren’t good sleepers at the best of times and I worried that it may be unbearable for them. I also know the Portugal flight is around 3 hours whereas to Cyprus can be around 5, so this was the clincher for us and we are officially off to Portugal.

I am also really excited about staying in a villa. Villas offer so much more than a hotel or apartment and the kids think ours looks like a mansion. I will be doing another post in the next few weeks about the benefits of staying in a villa, especially when you have kids, so keep your eyes peeled for that. I am looking forward to having our own pool too meaning that we have everything we need there and the holiday will be at a really chilled laid back pace, as we aren’t getting up at 5.30am to reserve a sunbed next to the pool! Or fighting our way for a seat at breakfast.

I cannot wait for our trip to Portugal in July. We will be going after the kids have broken up from school and am looking forward to a week in the sun together. I will be sharing more about our trip as it draws ever closer. If you have been to Portugal, please let me know any places you’d recommend or any must do’s (or don’ts!) I love the planning aspect of a holiday and really enjoy sinking my teeth in to getting organised. Not long to go now!

B xx