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How I changed my posh mum’s mind about all-inclusive holidays

Like one third of Britons, our writer’s middle-class mum claimed she’d never go all inclusive – until now

Truth be told, my mum was the last person I’d ever have expected to be pottering around a Greek all-inclusive resort with. 
Preferring flexibility over the wheres, whens and hows of spending precious annual leave, she’d brought me up on do-it-yourself holidays – booking budget flights, holiday lets in pretty villages, excursions to museums and hire cars. To this approach, there had only ever been two exceptions: a Sandals resort (the only place available for the required dates) during a work layover in Antigua, and a hotel in Tenerife a few years back, at the request of my sister. Neither were a success. “I hated both of them,” she said. “Sandals was full of couples, and there were cockroaches between the cereal and self-serve beer taps at breakfast in Tenerife.” 
She’s not alone in her distaste for the concept. A recent survey by CouponBirds suggests that nearly one in three Britons claim they would never go on an all-inclusive holiday – with 18 per cent having not actually tried one, and 13 per cent vowing never to do so again. Like my mum, many of us consign every all-inclusive to the same grisly box. “It was everything I thought it would be,” she’d said of Tenerife. “Sugary cocktails, rude people, queues for substandard buffets, ghastly entertainment – and the village itself was a strip with open-sided pubs showing football and advertising full English breakfasts.”
And yes, some all-inclusives are every inch the stereotype that many of us so studiously avoid. But not all of them. Over the last decade, the concept revolutionised by Gérard Blitz in 1950 – with the opening of Majorca’s Club Med – has evolved into something altogether different. The travelscape has developed, prioritising personalisation, eager to please discerning guests seeking authentic, localised experiences. The result is a slew of new lifestyle brands, like Ikos Resorts – which, as part of its all-inclusive rate, encourages guests to eat out at local restaurants – and BodyHoliday St Lucia, which caters to the upmarket wellness set; not to mention to whole host of excellent mid-range options. I was determined to show my mum the other side of the coin.
But by the early hours of the first morning, as I stood on a Cretan beach with my exhausted baby daughter Daphne in my arms, I had to concede that things were not going well. In the 3am gloom, all three of us having been awake just shy of 23 hours, I considered calling time on our mother-daughter-grandma holiday. 
Things had started off well: sauntering through each stage of our all-inclusive Tui package, we’d embarked on the two-hour drive to Manchester Airport, breezed through check-in, and been blessed with a fairly well-behaved one year old throughout the duration of the four-hour flight and 90-minute coach transfer. So far so fabulous. 
But the minute we arrived at the Grecotel LUXME White Palace in Crete, things went south. It started with a projectile vomit at lunchtime (the baby’s, to be clear), and only got worse from there. Daphne started coughing aggressively, signalling the beginning of an upper respiratory infection, and – perhaps understandably – was henceforth inconsolable, to the point a complaint was made by another guest about her continuous crying. I felt like I was playing a nightmare version of Baby Holiday Bingo, ticking off every square within a matter of hours. 
But then, the in-built support network of the all-inclusive package came into its own, swooping in to – and I don’t say this lightly – save the holiday. 
Desperate, at around midnight I went to the resort’s reception desk in search of help. Within 30 minutes, we were being seen by an out-of-hours doctor, with the resort’s reception team arranging for our prescription to be sent over directly for only a couple of extra euros. With a sick baby, we felt safe wandering around the grounds at 3am; we knew we didn’t have to venture far from the room for our next meal; and felt secure in the knowledge that we would be looked after if something went wrong on the way home. 
Mercifully, Daphne’s situation didn’t worsen, and soon she was starting to return to her happy healthy self. We slept. Impressed with the way our little emergency had been so efficiently dealt with, my mum now seemed ready to experience the resort with a reasonably open mind – and it did not disappoint.
An army of cleaners kept it spotless (a big tick from mother), and the rooms were simple but extremely comfortable. Spaced-out day beds meant Daphne could crawl around by the pool without disturbing anyone, and both the buffet restaurant and à la carte Italian far exceeded our expectations. The sommelier-led wine cellar, chocolateria, and gelateria were welcome additions, as were the swanky cocktails we enjoyed in the smart bar overlooking the sea. 
“People actually dress up for breakfast here,” my mum remarked one morning. Seeing my window, I asked what she thought of the resort. “Not bad,” was her reply. “I imagined all-inclusive packages meant you’d either be paying through the nose for a ski-in-ski-out hotel in the Alps or private island hotel in the Maldives, or joining what your grandmother would call ‘the Butlins crowd’ on the Costas, confined to the resort. This is quite unexpected.” 
Though it felt like we were blissful miles from anywhere, we were, in fact, only a 20-minute bus from the old town of Rethymnon on Crete’s northern coast, roughly halfway between the cities of Chania and Heraklion. So we spoke to our wonderful Tui rep, Mark, who helped us with the logistics. 
I’m so glad he did; with its little alleyways stuffed with jewellers and fashion boutiques and wide seafront promenade with bars and restaurants, pretty little Rethymnon was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. I studied my mum – she seemed, at last, relaxed; not having to worry about juggling all the pieces of a DIY holiday agreed with her. 
We spent our last few days dipping into the pool, fetching each other big cones of ice cream, and enjoying a bit of peace during nap times. Margaritas were a prominent theme. “You’d pay £13 for these back home, are you sure they’re really included?” mum asked suspiciously. I checked. They were.
“I might come back here with your dad, to use it as a base for exploring the island,” she remarked, offhand. Mission accomplished, I thought.
Tui (0203 451 2688) offers seven nights at the 5T Grecotel LUXME White Palace Hotel on an all-inclusive basis from £1,659pp, including flights departing from London Gatwick Airport, 20kg hold luggage per person and transfers. 

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