1. First Time Flyer

It’s an early morning start for us. 4:10 Becky’s alarm goes off. It’s another 20 before I set mine. For once I have to agree with her - we’re a bit pushed for time. We’re still out the door by five and the roads are clear. We make it to Gatwick with next to no problems (there’s the occasional mad early Saturday morning driver, but we managed to keep our distance).

We’re a touch late and so just about miss our shuttle bus from the car park to the airport. We have to wait in the cold for about 20 minutes for the next one. Not ideal. The bus drops us off at a sign that says “5 minute walk to North Terminal” before proceeding along the road that drives past North Terminal.

Once in the airport we have to queue to check in our own luggage. The line is longer than the physical check in - it’s got to a point now where online check in is sadly no longer beneficial. Fortunately we get special treatment as parents to an infant and get ushered to a much quieter security station and we manage to get through in a matter of minutes.

We make a couple of pit stops at Starbucks and Boots to collect hot drinks and milk for baby respectively. And then our gate is announced and we are on the move again.

Getting on the plane with Lily is fine. Settling down into our seats is not. It’s chaos trying to find everything we need and getting in the way of other people. Fortunately a kind air steward takes pity and moves us into some spare seats where we can spread out. I don’t know if we’ll get the same treatment on our return.

The flight itself isn’t as bad as it could have been. Lily fell asleep on take off and managed to drink a bottle on landing. In between was touch and go, but she never got to fever pitch.

It’s warm here in Cape Verde - about 24 degrees. But people weren’t lying when they said it was windy. It certainly takes the heat out of the air.

It’s a 15 minute bus ride through volcanic desert to the resort and it looks huge. A rose cream complex topped with detailed parapets, towers, and surrounded by palm trees. Inside is just as vast and spacious. As nice as it all looks though, you can’t help but feel like this is a bit like Disney’s version of Africa. It’s very camera friendly. But might not exactly be an authentic experience.

After getting set up with a prep machine and steriliser in the room, we reserved our seats for three of the more exclusive restaurants and we headed out to the poolside restaurant for a snack, not truly realising that it was coming up to dinner. I scoffed down a burger and then we went for a wander around the resort.

It’s one of those places where the vastness of the complex is largely owing to the amount of rooms here, and not down to the facilities. The central square is packed with so much stuff that it’s hard to see the different bars and restaurants. And because it isn’t spread out, you see everything at once. So our little wander wasn’t too revealing. Although we did find the children’s pool.

Our dinner was a buffet and both Becky and I found that it was good, but hard to put together an actual meal - all the different foods were from such disparate places that it made for a strange plate of food.

Exhausted from a long day, we retired to the room where it took me a further hour and 20 minutes to get Lily to sleep - over tired, we think!Read more