"I wanted every decision to be made for me": Corfu vacation package

During the pandemic, I sat in my house and dreamed of a vacation. I sat in my house, the same chair, the same view, the same fights over the same toys, and over the months I refined that dream. Some people fantasized about trekking through the Himalayas. Some talk about exploring the jungle, paddling a secluded beach, or dashing through Manhattan. I wanted a place where I wouldn't have to cook. I wanted a holiday where every decision was made for me, where we could make up for some of the panic of lockdown by laying carefree in the sun, some of the lack of childcare of lockdown by sending the kids to play in a room which also did not contain us. I wanted an all-inclusive family resort, in a cozy place, and I really wanted it.

So after starting to scroll through options in 2020, two treacherous years more late, I was there, on a package for Corfu. We hadn't been on vacation for three years: a lot depended on that. I was traveling with my family, including a toddler born at the start of the first confinement, who had never taken a vacation in his life. We were curious to see what he would think of swimming pools, other people, what he would think of the sea and being lifted 31,000 feet in the air while next to him a stranger watched Friends without headphones. Turns out the answer was: I liked it.

The resort was called MarBella (pronounced with a hard L) and it was located on the south coast -east of Corfu, a vast complex of buildings surrounded by various lavenders and rosemary and crowned with a colorful water park. Every 10 minutes or so, a giant bucket of water would tip over and pour down from the top of the water park, soaking those below the slides, whose delighted cries raced down the hill to the other two pools, one quietly placed at arm's length from all shenanigans, where only adults were allowed. My partner and I glared at it.

The morning after we arrived, we were introduced to the hotel's "catering concept", i.e. the buffet.I had experienced the joy of a life changing buffet breakfast in the past but never had my family had the chance to go all inclusive before which meant we had no never done a 'buffet dinner' too. It's hard to come back from that, I'll be honest. And despite all the kid-friendly entertainment - a kids' club, pottery sessions, water slides, robotics lessons Lego - for my kids, the prospect of independently sliding through three aisles of potential dinner parties beat everything in. Those early days for them weren't only have surveillance between the buffets. There was a piece of do-it-yourself sundae and a whole aisle of desserts – the big kid waddled the little kid into the restaurant and held him up to gaze at the puddings. They came back with a tasting menu of cold things in s...