Luxury family holidays you'll want to book for October half-term
October half-term runs 17 October to 1 November this year, and the family hotel landscape has shifted considerably since last season. A three-year, $40 million renovation has transformed Windjammer Landing in St Lucia into a Leading Hotels of the World property. South Tyrol's Sonnwies has rebranded as SAN SONNEA and added an adults-only Forest Spa. Dalaman has opened an 18-hole championship golf course built specifically to extend its season past summer.
We've rounded up eight of the best options for the week, split between long-haul and short-haul, and between resorts built around structured kids' clubs and quieter properties, like Cap Maison in Saint Lucia, that deliberately do without one. Whichever camp your family falls into, each has been chosen on the same basis: trustworthy childcare setups, restaurants worth reserving, and a level of detail that holds up beyond the glossy photographs.
Long haul destinations
1. The Ritz-Carlton Maldives, Fari Islands
For families who care as much about how a place is built as how it feels, this is the Maldives resort to book. Designed by Kerry Hill Architects as their last commission in the country, the resort is arranged in circles rather than the usual straight line of overwater villas, taking its geometry from the ripples that spread when something touches the water. There are 100 villas of one to three bedrooms, each with its own pool, and every family is assigned an Aris Meeha, the island butler who makes the logistics of holidaying with children much more straight forwards.
The sustainability credentials are worth taking note of - this was the first resort in Asia Pacific to run Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ambassadors of the Environment programme, and it is aimed squarely at children rather than retrofitted for them. Younger guests sample beach sand and examine it under a microscope for microplastics, collect plankton to see what actually lives in the water they have been swimming in, and take part in water science experiments designed to make the science stick. Older children can join drone-based ocean monitoring and real research work.
Ritz Kids takes four to twelve year olds through bike safaris, cooking classes, pottery and Maldivian Boduberu drum making, in a club that runs indoors and out with its own pool and playground. Teenagers get the better end of the deal, with a sports and gaming setup and The Shutterfish Studio, where they can borrow serious photography kit, book time at a daily genius bar and take weekly classes.
The detail: The resort sits in North Malé Atoll, roughly ten minutes by seaplane or forty-five by speedboat from Malé. There are seven restaurants and a ring-shaped overwater spa with nine treatment rooms. The wider Fari Islands destination it shares with Patina Maldives is also home to James Turrell's Skyspace Amarta, in the Fari Marina. ritzcarlton.com
2. Heritage Awali Golf & Spa Resort, Mauritius
Set in the raw beauty of Mauritius' south coast, Heritage Awali is an all-inclusive five-star hotel that strikes a rare balance between affordable luxury, family fun and an exceptional range of activities. It sits within the Domaine de Bel Ombre, part of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme, and that setting shapes everything the resort does. This is a corner of the island where biodiversity, landscape and tradition are preserved with real care, and where a family holiday can leave a lighter footprint than it arrived with.
The resort has revealed a new chapter in its evolution, with a refurbished and repurposed spa, a new category of Deluxe Beach View rooms and a rejuvenation of its much-loved Kids Club. Two children under 12 stay free when sharing their parents' room. The complimentary Timomo Baby Club offers a nurturing haven for babies and toddlers from 0 to 35 months, open 8.30am to 3.30pm seven days a week, while the complimentary Timomo Kids Clubs curate a myriad of activities for three to eleven year olds, designed to awaken the creativity of young minds and encourage exploration, learning and shared fun. The kids clubs run 8.30am to 5pm and again from 6.30pm to 11pm, seven days a week. No reservation is needed for either, with a simple registration on your first day, and the team of expert care givers are all qualified in childcare and first aid.
What lifts Awali above the standard all-inclusive is how much of the programme is rooted in the island itself. Three to eleven year olds can follow The Petit Écolo Passport, a guide that leads children and families through the treasures of Bel Ombre while raising awareness of environmental issues, taking in the parakeets at the Bel Ombre Nature Reserve and the Chamarel 7 Coloured Earth. There is marine education through the Yellow Submarine, recycling workshops, and Africa's largest seashell museum at the World of Seashells, where children learn the life cycle of shells and design their own. The newly opened Heritage Marine Education Centre goes further still, teaching families about the marine and coastal ecosystems of Mauritius and the roles they play.
Then there are the moments that make a holiday memorable rather than merely restful: idyllic picnics amidst the picturesque landscapes of Le Château de Bel Ombre, exclusive spa treatments for children, gourmet workshops, family bonding on the golf course, open-air cinema nights at the Boma and an introduction to Sega dancing. For parents, there are two golf courses, a wellness centre, a beach club, a gymnasium and a full range of classes and activities.
Prices start from £553/night for a family of three sharing a Deluxe Beach View Room on an all-inclusive basis based on a 24-31st October 2026 stay.
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3. Windjammer Landing Resort and Residences, St Lucia
If you looked at Windjammer before and passed, look again. The resort came out of a three-year, $40 million renovation in May 2026 and joined The Leading Hotels of the World off the back of it, and the work went well beyond a fresh coat of paint. The lobby has been redesigned, the main and children's pools rebuilt, and every category of room reworked, from the coastline rooms through the hillside and estate villas. New arrivals include The Perch, a rooftop lounge, Masala for Indian fine dining, and the Ocean Point Club House with its own private check-in for guests staying in that part of the resort. There is now a private helipad, which for anyone who has done the road transfer from Hewanorra will need no further explanation.
The family setup is the reason to come. The Jacquot Fun Club takes four to twelve year olds through sports and tennis coaching, performances, arts and crafts and beach games, with a VIP kids programme that adds turn-down service with cookies, milk and a bedtime story. Teenagers have their own schedule of land and sea adventures and themed events both on and off the resort, so they are not stuck choosing between the children's club and their parents. For babies and toddlers up to three, certified nannies are available alongside car seats, cribs and highchairs.
Accommodation is the other draw, and it is what separates Windjammer from a conventional beach hotel. Families spread out across villas with private pools and full kitchens, which changes the shape of the week: breakfast happens when everyone wakes up, and nobody has to be dressed for a dining room. The beach and watersports are a short walk or a shuttle ride down the hillside, and children under eleven eat free on the premium all-inclusive plan.
The detail: Windjammer Landing sits on Labrelotte Bay near Castries. Hilltop two-bedroom villas have previously started from around $978 per night on a bed and breakfast basis, or $1,436 on premium all-inclusive, though rates are worth confirming directly following the renovation. windjammer-landing.com
4. Cap Maison, Saint Lucia
Cap Maison is the anti-resort resort, and for some families that is exactly the point. Set on a private ocean-front bluff at the northern tip of Saint Lucia, it looks out over Pigeon Island National Park with Martinique on the horizon and the Caribbean glittering in between. It is the first hotel in Saint Lucia to be invited to join Relais & Châteaux, and it behaves like a Relais & Châteaux property: small, hacienda-inspired, villa-led, and more interested in feeding you well than entertaining you loudly.
There is no kids club here, and the resort is upfront about that being a choice rather than an oversight. What families get instead is space and things worth doing. Accommodation runs from one-bedroom suites with private plunge pools up to one, two and three-bedroom villas and the four-bedroom Saman House, most with their own pools and terraces. The beach sits in a sheltered shallow cove with its own watersports centre, so Hobie cat sailing, kayaking, snorkelling and windsurfing are all a few steps away. Beyond that, the concierge arranges the island properly: Piton climbing, rainforest ziplining, river kayaking, waterfall swimming, private boat trips and whale and dolphin watching. Smaller children get teddy bear picnics on the sand.
Dining is where Cap Maison spends its energy. The Cliff at Cap does Caribbean-French cooking on a terrace above the sea, The Naked Fisherman is the barefoot grill down on Smuggler's Cove, Cellar Maison handles tastings and private dinners, and Rock Maison is the outcrop where champagne arrives by zip line. Both main restaurants welcome children with their own menus, and under-12s eat free when dining with parents.
The detail: Cap Maison is at Smugglers Cove Drive, Cap Estate, in the north of Saint Lucia. The Family Time Offer gives up to two children under 12 free accommodation and meals alongside best available adult rates in a one-bedroom oceanview suite, plus three complimentary hours of babysitting, on stays of five nights or more between 3 January and 19 December. capmaison.com
Short haul destinations
1. Peligoni Club, Greece
If your version of a family holiday involves everyone doing their own thing all day and regrouping over dinner, Peligoni has spent years perfecting the formula. Set above the water at Agios Nikolaos on the north east coast of Zakynthos, it works as two halves: weekly membership to the clubhouse by the sea, and a villa, cottage or suite in the hills behind it. You book both. It sounds like admin, and it turns out to be the thing that makes the week work, because the club absorbs the days and the villa gives you back the evenings.
Childcare is split by age with real precision. The crèche takes babies from four months to three years, Rugrats and Rascals covers four and five year olds, TARKA runs for six to ten year olds, ‘Inbeteeners’ for eleven to thirteens, and Teens picks up from fourteen. Worth knowing before you book: the older three groups only run in the May and October half terms, July and August, which makes October half term one of the few weeks in the calendar when every age in the family is properly looked after at the same time.
The water is the other draw. Children are grouped into the Nippers for seven to ten year olds, the Salties for eleven to thirteens and the Beach Bums for fourteen to seventeens, with kayaking and paddleboarding included in membership. A full watersports pass adds sailing, windsurfing and wingfoiling for £120 per adult and £95 per child.
There are five places to eat, which is more than most clubs of this size manage. The Terraces cooks over open fire from a kitchen at the heart of the club, Tasi does coastal Mediterranean plates and wood-fired pizza under a bamboo roof, Mikro Nisi is a modern take on the Greek taverna a little along the shore, and The Deli Kitchen handles the sea-view lunch. Evenings belong to The Courtyard, home to long-table feasts and a Friday food festival. After eight years, the guest chef series has been retired in favour of At the Table, which hands the kitchen to independent restaurants, supper club hosts and recipe developers instead.
The detail: October half term runs 17 October to 1 November 2026. Membership is charged per person, per week, at £475 for adults and over 13s, £350 for children aged four to twelve, and free for under fours. Crèche places start from £465 per child per week, and four and five year olds can move up from Rugrats to full day care with the Rascals for an extra £330. Accommodation sleeps anything from two to twenty and is quoted at the time of booking.
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2. SAN SONNEA Family Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy
If you booked this hotel before, you may know it as Sonnwies. It has since been renamed SAN SONNEA Family Dolomites, the founding property in a new collection from the Hinteregger family that now stretches to an adults-only lodge and a lakeside address on Garda. What has not changed is the thing that made it work in the first place: this is still a farm at the edge of the Dolomites that grew into a hotel, and children are still handed animals to feed, vegetables to pull up and streams to fall into.
The childcare is the most convincing part. Baby care takes them from 21 days old to three years, with 60 hours a week and childcare professionals who follow the baby's own rhythm rather than a timetable. Older children get kids care from 9am to 9pm Monday to Friday, plus afternoon and evening cover at the weekend, which in practice means you can hand over after breakfast and pick up after dinner. There's a supervised children's table for over threes at both lunch and dinner, six days a week, and the kitchen prepares fresh organic purées for babies alongside the adult menus.
New for 2026, and the reason to look again if you have been before: a Forest SPA that is adults-only between 10am and 6pm, built around a warm onsen pool with a view straight into the trees, a fire lounge and a tea room. There's now an equestrian centre with Haflinger stables and an indoor arena, and a set of Forest Villas that opened in August. In winter, the ski lift and ski school sit at the resort itself and a ski pass for the whole family is included, with a shuttle to the wider Plose ski area when everyone is ready for more.
The detail: SAN SONNEA Family Dolomites is in Lüsen, South Tyrol, in the UNESCO Dolomites. Rooms start from around €830 per night with full board included, covering a breakfast buffet, a two-choice lunch with salad and soup buffets, and a five-course dinner with Alpine, Mediterranean and plant-based menus. sansonnea.com
3. Sani Resort, Halkidiki, Greece
Sani has been doing this since 1971, which is more than half a century of working out what families actually want, and it shows in the fact that nobody is ever obliged to be in the same place as anybody else. A thousand acres of protected pine forest on the Kassandra peninsula holds five hotels, a private marina and a stretch of beach long enough that you can always find an empty bit of it. Sani Beach and Sani Club are the family workhorses, Porto Sani is all suites and built around young families, Sani Dunes is the design-led one, and Sani Asterias is the small, expensive one that has just come out of a full renovation. There's also a Sani Suite Collection of one, two and three-bedroom suites for anyone travelling in numbers.
Childcare runs from babies upwards, split into Sani Little Explorers and Sani Explorers, with crèches, private nannies and beachside babysitting all bookable, plus Carol Mae Baby Consulting on hand for anyone whose baby has decided that holidays are for waking at 4am. Teenagers from twelve get Ozone, their own space down at the marina, where they can dive, canoe, cook or dance without a parent in sight. The academies are what set Sani apart, though: the Rafa Nadal Tennis Center, a football programme run with the Chelsea FC Football Academy, and the Bear Grylls Survival Academy, alongside sailing, scuba, water ski and KTM-instructed biking.
Dining is on a scale most resorts cannot manage. There are more than 25 restaurants, including one from Michelin-starred chef Ettore Botrini, and a Dine Around programme that lets half and full board guests eat across 24 of them rather than being tied to a single dining room. Donna Hay has designed the children's menus, which is a detail worth more than it sounds when you are eight nights into a holiday and someone has stopped eating.
The detail: Sani sits on the Kassandra peninsula in Halkidiki, roughly an hour from Thessaloniki airport, and free private transfers are included on direct bookings of five nights or more, worth more than €260 return. Children stay free on selected dates, and early booking rates for summer 2027 are already open. sani-resort.com
4. Hilton Dalaman Sarıgerme Resort & Golf, Türkiye
This one has changed more than most in the past year. It is now Hilton Dalaman Sarıgerme Resort & Golf, having dropped the Spa from its name, and the reason is an 18-hole par 72 championship course that opened at the end of August 2026. The Dalaman Golf Club runs through dunes, wetland and mountain terrain across three distinct stretches, and the region has been open about the ambition behind it, which is to pull Dalaman's season well past the summer months. That is the useful part for anyone reading this in September: October here is no longer the tail end of anything.
For families, the resort works because the flight is short and the transfer is shorter, at around four hours from the UK and twenty minutes from Dalaman airport. Children aged three to ten have Carpi Kidz Paradise, a supervised club with daily programmes split by age, and ten to fifteens get the Youngster Club, a separate social space with sport, games and creative sessions. There are ten outdoor pools across the site, some with waterslides and some for laps, a private beach along the Mediterranean, tennis courts and walking paths through the grounds.
Adults are looked after in parallel. The Elysion Spa runs to 6,000 square metres, there's a 24-hour fitness centre and Pilates studio, and the restaurants cover Italian, Asian and Turkish rather than defaulting to a single buffet. It is a large resort that manages not to feel like a compromise, which is a rarer combination in this part of Türkiye than it should be.
The detail: The resort sits at Sarıgerme on the Muğla coast, twenty minutes from Dalaman International Airport, with a private beach and the Dalaman Golf Club on site. Rates vary by season and room type. hilton.com
Read our full review here
5. Zafiro Palace Alcudia
Set in the heart of charming Puerto de Alcudia, the luxurious 5-star Zafiro Palace Alcudia has a modern Mediterranean vibe. An expansive property with 369 spacious suites, it feels more like a stylish boutique hotel, with clean lines and chic interiors. With a heated outdoor swimming pool, private rooftop Jacuzzi’s, as well as a gym, cycling area with Wahoo Kikr training bike, and a spa, guests will be well looked after here.
Ideal for families, the team is integral to the hotel, with each member acting as warm, friendly faces that children want to see again and again. The hotel has a kids club, so that parents opt for some peace and quiet should they so wish, and there is an impressive kids swimming pool with Zafiro’s signature pirate ship to keep kids entertained for hours.
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