NEILSON MESSINI BEACHCLUB REVIEW – A PERFECT FAMILY GETAWAY

A Neilson beachclub family holiday is a formula loved by active families. Having watched friends with older children go to one or other Neilson beachclub time and again we decided we needed another week of summer and this October half term we took our first Neilson beachclub trip. At the welcome meeting, 90% of people put their hands up to the question ‘who has been on a Neilson holiday before’ and 75% raised them again because they’d visited the Messini Neilson beachclub before. You know you’re in a good place with statistics like that!

A Neilson beachclub is different to our normal holidays. In a good way – no hire car needed, no forward planning, no need to think ahead at all in fact. You pay in advance for everything apart from the bar and two evenings of non-inclusive food. So the flights, transfers, accommodation, three meals a day, all the sports and tuition (insane amounts), and all of the childcare (best ever) is included. 

Neilson attracts a well heeled guest, but most notably those guests are there to relax in an active way and take advantage of everything on offer. Your suitcase needs to be full of gym kit, rash vests, board shorts, cycling and tennis bits. No need for any smart clothing, in fact not even a need for showers before breakfast(win).  Packing as if you are a decathlete will help!

There are alternatives to Neilson, Mark Warner being the main one, but staff loyalty (Mr P did summer seasons with them) and countless recommendations set us on Neilson.

If my mention of a ‘welcome meeting’ makes you shudder, don’t worry. Whilst yes you could argue it is a modern day version of the ‘Dirty Dancing’ family holiday, there thankfully isn’t a lot of that group stuff. It’s a high brow holiday! A welcome meeting is needed though – with so much on offer and so many staff on hand to support you in different ways it’s a great way to make sure you don’t miss out on anything during your stay.

Location

We chose to go to Messini in the Peloponnese – based solely on the flight time and ease of flying from Heathrow. The bus transfer from Kalamata airport to the club is just 20 minutes and 75% of the plane were going to Neilson! Kalamata is possibly the smallest airport I’ve ever been through – so it is quick, the flight even left for home early! Everyone is British at Messini as all the Neilson arranged flights are from English airports. It’s surreal as we favour being the only Brits, but it works.

Messini beach club is on a quiet stretch of beach, with no other hotels and it’s relatively sheltered. The views of the Peloponnese are spectacular. The neighbouring hotel – Buca – is another Neilson beachclub, it’s an adults only site and shares facilities with Messini. Neilson have a number of other locations across Greece, Croatia and one in Turkey for adults.

Kids club

Don’t expect to see your child – that’s not overzealous advertising, it’s true! For 5 days a week kids club runs from 9.30 to 5.30, and the other 2 days it’s 2.30 until 11pm! On your last day there isn’t kids club, but I did manage to get Bertie a spot which made us both happy! So good is the club, you don’t even have to eat lunch with your child which is a holiday in a holiday – you’ll spot them in the restaurant, but someone else is looking after the number of puddings they can eat! My child didn’t want to not be at kids club and looking at the blackboard schedules I can see why, we did manage to bribe him out one afternoon to sail in the regatta with us but we couldn’t convince him to go on a trip anywhere else with us. I suspect this is why there are 2 mornings off – for families to spend time together. 

The staff are incredible – definite hero/heroine/crush stuff for the kids. Bertie was in the ‘surfbusters’ for 6 and 7 year olds, and they did everything on offer in the resort, dressed in their yellow rash vests and baseball caps. He’s already excited to be in the ‘sharksters’ next year! To call it a kids club is a disservice – it’s closer to a high end school holiday camp, but with a manageable number of children and better staff. Even the 17 year olds want to be in their club ‘TAG’ which is impressive in itself – at all ages the nanny team have mastered making things age appropriate and engaging. Hotshots is a club for 8-13 year olds that focuses just on water sports and the RYA levels. Because everyone is English speaking it is very easy for the kids to settle in and form friendships. The confidence oozes at all ages. Many nanny’s are former kids club guests who come back to work for Neilson which speaks for itself!

The resort photographers are out and about with the kids clubs all the time so even if your child doesn’t tell you what they got up to the beautiful photos will!

Activities

There is everything, and more. Importantly you don’t need to be able to do any of it before you go. Sailing, windsurfing, stand up paddle, canoe, tennis, pickleball, fitness, yoga, pilates, road bikes, mountain bikes, hyrox, spinning, pool swimming, open water swimming, aqua aerobics, water polo, water skiing… I’m sure I’ve missed something! Apart from extra ski tows all these activities are paid for in your booking cost. Once you arrive it is up to you to do as much or as little as you choose.

Most people make a bid to ‘do it all’ in the first few days, and as the week progresses afternoons around the pool become more popular, before a last ditch focus on value for money on the final day! Neilson introduced an app to book all activities this year so you can book things pretty easily – no sign up sheets or getting out of bed early. The app was a bit slow, but it worked. Capacity is released through the week so that everyone gets a chance. There is also plenty of social sport, whether that is an introductory session or some of the more intense clinics. Pickle and Prosecco appealed, but sailing won me over! As good as it is for a family break, it’s also popular for people travelling alone too.

Mr P and I can’t both exercise at home at the same time, with kids club we could pick the classes or activities we wanted to do and it didn’t matter if he was 50km in one direction on a bike and I was out at sea in a Laser! I did chuckle, I’ve never seen a group of people that you can guarantee are late for every Teams meeting so focused on knowing their calendars and getting to their next sporting commitment on time! On the last day we joined the weekly regatta, taking Bertie dinghy racing for the first time and putting up a spinnaker. There is racing every day, although they stress it is non-competitive it is… 

To give you a flavour of what we did: Mr P did a few full morning cycles, one was guided by Neilson and then another time he used one of their Strava routes and rode out with someone he met on his first ride. When he was cycling I took myself off sailing, grabbing a boat from the beach team. I could have joined an improvers clinic but decided to pootle around by myself. One morning when there was too much wind so we used canoes and paddle boards. I did a fair few yoga and fitness lessons and had an introduction to pickleball which was a lot of fun. Spinning was fun and yoga at dawn by the sea was rather a lovely start to my day. Mr P had quite a few swimming clinics in the pool – tumble turns and front crawl focus – as well as joining one of the morning open water swims. On another afternoon we borrowed some mountain bikes and went off to explore the local area which is very pretty and unspoilt.

Pool and beach

The pool is 50 metres so you can get your lengths in, there’s also a shallow baby pool with sun shades across it! The pool area is peaceful apart from when kids club rotate through their activities, but most of the day apart from the little squads of kids passing through it is a peaceful enclave for parents to relax.

There’s a fair bit of swimming skills lessons happening during the day but given the pool’s length there’s never a lack of space. At midday aqua aerobics is quite a large gathering, just before the restaurant opens for lunch. As is the case with most pools in Greece, it isn’t heated – but once you’re in it’s fine! The pool is alongside the bar, so you can enjoy some R&R with a Mythos or a cocktail! Most people don’t stray down to the beach to sunbathe given the pool area is big, but there are also loungers on the beach.

Food and drink

Dining is buffet style and Neilson have mastered the buffet. I don’t like a buffet – but that’s when it is the lesser of the options! At Neilson, it is the option and it’s impressive – full of an incredible amount of choices of Greek food, changing meal by meal. There’s always a special dish on offer and the desserts (of which there are many) are something else. There’s plenty of salad and fruit too. Quite honestly this buffet offered the best vegan offering I have ever seen in a hotel (and excellent allergen labelling), including vegan croissants cooked to order. I challenge anyone, even with all the exercise on offer, to not put weight on during this holiday – those puddings are a problem!

You won’t catch anyone drinking at lunchtime – there’s too many sporting opportunities in the afternoon! Thankfully people tuck in at night, there’s a perfectly good and reasonably priced wine list and for the most part it is all Greek. The teabags everywhere are of course PG tips. 

Two nights a week food is à la carte, or you can head into a local town or out on a tour. We didn’t leave the resort and enjoyed menu dining as a change from the buffet! Aside from the main restaurant there is the pool bar – ideal for an après sail Mythos (and volleyball if you’ve any energy left) and some evenings food happens here instead. Bertie enjoyed the milkshakes here after we took him sailing.

Something that takes a bit of time to get used to is drinking from a sports water bottle all week. Everyone is given one on arrival so that you always have a bottle on the go for the activities. There are plenty of cold filter water taps around the resort to keep you topped up. Key is to remember to top up your bottles before bedtime, or grab an extra plastic pint glass of water on the way to bed!

Accommodation

Accommodation is simple and practical. There’s a mix of hotel rooms and larger rooms in smaller bungalows spread around the resort grounds.There are lots of adjoining rooms and looking at the number of multi-generation families I imagine there are all sorts of set ups that you can book. The accommodation buildings look a little tired, but to be honest they are not what you are paying for. It’s perfectly comfortable and practical and there are large balconies with airers to dry all your sports kit! We slept like babies all week, 10 hours sleep each night!

We had a premium garden room which has two balconies – this was good for the couple of dreary days we had as meant we could read outside undercover. Bertie’s bed was a spacious sofa bed and he was delighted to share a room with us. There’s plenty of storage and there is also a fridge in the room too. As you can imagine with so much sport and beach use the volume of sand in the rooms is high – thankfully housekeeping kept this under control all week. You’re given beach towels as well as bathroom towels – our only ask is that we could have done with more hooks in the bathroom as there were so many towels!

October in Greece

It was the perfect temperature for an active holiday, but it would have been an edgy time of year to do a fly and flop! We had 4 days of wall to wall sunshine, light winds and 25 degrees. We had a day of lightning which meant a day with our books, and then a day that was a bit dreary but since we weren’t on a sunbathing holiday it didn’t really matter – we pulled on our sailing bits and went on the water. We didn’t manage to leave the resort, but there are plenty of excursions scheduled so even though it is the end of season the resort has things arranged. We had light fleeces for the evening, but it wasn’t cold. Our week was the first week of October half term, the resort was full but it didn’t feel crowded.

The staff

I can’t write about our Neilson beachclub holiday without mentioning the staff. They make the memories. Even at the end of the season they were brimming with enjoyment and only too happy to help. The kids club and beach staff are young and British and they are a credit to Neilson. Hotel staff are local and equally friendly and attentive.

 

Without doubt, this trip will be our first of many to a Neilson beachclub, and Bertie already wants to work there when he’s older. It’s probably the most hassle free holiday we’ve ever taken and everybody was happy, all the time. At times I’m not sure I recognised myself doing three different sports a day, but what a treat as a mother to even be able to contemplate that level of me time! We all got to relax and we didn’t have to think about anything as it was all there ready for us. See you next year Neilson!