“A big thank you to Alastair Campbell, his wife and their two children, aged 14 and 12 for sharing their holiday experience.”

Outside the snow was actually up to my armpits, inside, my wife and I were surfing the net looking for some much needed holiday inspiration for our next summer holiday.

We had decided we didn’t want to stay in a hotel because we wanted space to chill, have plenty of room for our luggage – so we weren’t tripping over them all the time! We also wanted food our way – when we wanted it and without the forced entertainment!

We also wanted a private pool with a terrace and above all a haven of tranquillity. This meant one thing, a villa holiday. Due to the turmoil in the travel markets we had decided not to do a self-made package, but instead find a villa holiday company that was ABTA and ATOL registered so we could, in effect, outsource the hassle and the worry. 

It was while we were looking on the Internet that we found Villa Parade. To be honest we had no fixed idea of where we wanted to go; our criteria was somewhere that was one flight from Scotland, walkable to the beach and shops, yet private enough to give us the quiet we were looking for. 

Having worked our way through countless websites from major operators downwards, we came across Villa Parade, which proved to be the site we kept coming back too! The information found on their site provided us the details we were looking for. The fact that they gave accurate map references meant we could also check the villas out on Google Earth, just to make sure there was no motorway or railway line at the bottom of the garden! This gave us increasing levels of confidence in the accuracy of the information and the company.

We had settled initially on Majorca when for some reason we thought of Menorca, and once we found the Villa Galdana in Cala Galdana it was game over. The video reference convinced us and the pictures just reinforced the ‘wow’ factor. Once we found the villa on Google Earth we knew it had the proximity to the beach combined with the privacy we were looking for. It does have 4 bedrooms, which is one more than we needed but at least we would have plenty of space to store the cases!

The booking process was very simple – just a few clicks, select a flight based on the times we wanted, car hire – didn’t forget the car excess waver and minor damage waiver – we do have kids after all and that was it – job done. The email can back confirming everything and an invoice with full details followed shortly afterwards. The only problem was this was December 2010 and we had to wait till July 2011. I did want to check something about the car hire so emailed the admin contact and got a reply on the Sunday, even thought their office was shut, answering my questions – a good start in my book.

As they say time passes, we paid the balance and our tickets arrived. Our bags were packed and off we went. We landed at Mahon airport, on time, only to be confronted with a massive scrum at the car hire – nightmare! Then I noticed there was no queue at the Avis desk – big smiles as we were with Avis. We were in our car and on our way with no delays – dream start to our holiday. We drove to the resort – following the instructions we were sent and found our villa – this was about 13:00, a couple of hours before we should have been allowed in. We asked the cleaners if it would be okay if we just dumped our cases and put some food in the fridge – “no problem” they said. We came back to the villa at about 16:00 to find it immaculately clean – just jumped straight in the pool (after changing first of course).

The villa pictures didn’t do is justice, it had a real ‘wow’ factor – the descriptions and video were accurate representations. The gardener appeared some days, the pool cleaner on others and the towels were changed twice while we were there.  Our stay at the villa was brilliant, it was a nice walk downhill to the village on a quiet shady path – takes longer to get back as it is uphill.

We settled into a routine of wandering down first thing for some bread and croissants, lazy breakfasts followed by swims in the pool and a trip to nearby towns for shopping (better range and much cheaper than the village). We would then eat lunch by the pool, walk down to the beach in the late afternoon for a swim, followed by a drink at one of the beachside bars. We would then wander back up for a BBQ, or we would wonder back down for dinner in one of the local restaurants, intersperse this with a trip to Mahon, a walk to find a cave or another beach and that sums up our very relaxing and fantastic holiday.

The four of us had a great time and we were all sad to leave. Would I recommend Villa Parade to anyone else?  Well I just booked us into the same villa next year – trouble is its now September 2011 and we have to wait till July 2012! At least this time we can look at our own pictures and revel in our memories – Asta la vista Villa Galdana – we’ll be back!

You can follow Alastair on Twitter: @alastairdfc