AKI Family Resort Plose: the best holiday I've had since becoming a parent

There comes a point for parents of young children, usually after an excruciating long-haul flight or tantrum in a fancy restaurant, when you realise you can’t keep trying to have the holidays of your former, care-free life. It dawns on you, slowly and then all at once, that actually holidays aren’t really holidays any more — they are simply wiping bums and tears in a different location.

I have found somewhere to help ease the horrors, though: AKI Family Resort Plose.

Sitting above the quaint Italian town of Brixen, on the pine-forested slopes of Mount Plose in South Tyrol, the resort was opened in 2024 by ADLER as the brand’s first family hotel. What it has created is as close to perfect for parents as it comes. You can only book if you’re travelling with a child, which creates a shoulder-lowering, judgment-free space. Has your child left a crime scene below their high chair at dinner? No worries, so has the child on the next table. Are your little one’s clothes smeared in grime and what you hope is chocolate? All good, that’s the look here. Despite the exceedingly relaxed atmosphere, it is luxurious and temporarily made me feel like I was one of the other chic European guests (rather than flying by the seat of my pants).

The big sell is the kids’ club. It’s open from 9am until 9pm for kiddies aged one month to 12 years, and is included in the price. You need never see your child if you don’t want to — but really the place is here to help you make lovely memories together. Stays are full board, so that means meals, snacks and an array of activities. For the kids, think alpaca hikes, cooking classes, wood workshops and skiing lessons. For adults, there are sanity-restoring offerings such as Pilates, yoga and forest bathing. The only things you may end up splashing extra cash on is booze (very reasonable — a decent bottle of local wine is £39) and spa treatments.

(Alex Filz)

All the pain points of travelling with little ones have been addressed. How many evenings have you spent creeping around your hotel room in the dark or watching Netflix under the covers hoping the light doesn’t wake the slumbering baby in the travel cot at the end of the bed? Accommodation here has been designed so kids have their own separate bedroom. There is also a cosy sofa area and a huge balcony or terrace for post-bedtime adult hangs (read: drinking wine and staring into the void). Monitors are provided. Can’t face lugging your pram through Gatwick? Just grab one at the hotel.

Mealtimes — which I find particularly challenging with a two-year-old — were verging on serene. The restaurant is filled with buffet tables laden with food for all palettes and persuasions. There are also platforms so curious tinies can peer into the open kitchens and watch the chefs at work. Stokke high chairs are provided and there is a little playroom for once you’ve run out of ways to bribe your offspring into staying at the table. Dinner is a mixture of buffet and à la carte.

It would be impossible to get bored within the resort but, this being one of the most beautiful areas on Earth, it’s worth extricating yourself for a few hours. Generously, the hotel provides you with a BrixenCard pass which gives you one round trip per day on the Plose cable car, free use of all public transport in Brixen and free admission to the town’s museums.

(Alex Filz)

There is also a free hotel shuttle to and from the mountain. The walks once you reach the Mount Plose summit are, I’m told, spectacular. I wouldn’t know; my toddler got a splinter and we spent our time begging and borrowing a pair of tweezers before we had to head back down. But it’s one of the prettiest places in which my son has screamed at me.

Even travel to and from the hotel is a breeze. SkyAlps flies four times a week direct from Gatwick to Bolzano. The clincher? Children under 11 receive a 30 per cent discount (and kids under two travel for free as is standard).

Holidays may not be what they once were, but as I sat with an agreeably strong Campari spritz, watching my son dissolve into giggles against the backdrop of the Dolomites, I found myself thinking that perhaps now they were even better.

Family suites from £640 per night per room in low season; £1,324 in high season on an AKI full board basis, resort.aki-plose.com; SkyAlps flies from Gatwick to Bolzano, from £129, skyalps.com