holiday Archives - Megan Taylor

HOW TO BOOK AN AMAZING HOLIDAY EVERY TIME

I am often asked by friends and family for holiday recommendations or even to find them a holiday. Finding a great holiday can be blooming tricky and time-consuming task. I don’t mean to brag (although I totally am ;P) but every holiday I have booked has been amazing!! Of course, a good holiday is what you make of it. Any holiday can be good or bad depending on your mood but I have always been thrilled with the locations and hotels I have booked for both summer and city breaks. I thought I would share my process in seeking out those gems and name the hotels that I have stayed at that I can remember off the top of my head in different countries where I have loved the hotel and the location.

TOP TIPS FOR HOLIDAY SUCCESS

TIME

It can take time to find your dream holiday but allow yourself that time, each lunchtime or evening whilst keeping half an eye on the Love Islanders latest antics. When it comes to booking a holiday you do not want to rush the task. I have heard rumours that the time of the week you book is imperative and that on Tuesday evenings the prices are often higher. I’m not certain if this is true with regards to the exact time and day of the week but I have found that the stored cookies thing is true. When I have been to book a holiday a few days after researching the price has gone up. I suggest you either delete all your cookies or do your research on a different laptop/tablet/mobile than the one you are going to book on.

5* BABY

It may be a bit cheeky but my first port of call once I have decided on the country is to go onto the Mr & Mrs Smith website and see which hotels they recommend in the country. They only recommend the most lush holiday spots, I always trust their opinion. Sadly I have always found much cheeper option on other holiday providers websites so I use them solely as a research tool. If I can’t find their recommendations anywhere at an affordable price I will then use the following 5* tactic. I go onto the typical sites including Olympic Holidays, Thomas Cook, TUI etc then input the country and dates I want and only search 5* hotels. If I can’t afford any of the 5* hotels I open up the search to 4* hotels. If I can’t find anything in those two brackets I move on to a different country of choice. I am a homebody and I need my creature comforts when in a strange and unfamiliar place, therefore I really need my hotel abroad to be lovely and a complete safe haven.

TRIP ADVISOR

I always check my hotel on Trip Advisor. I couldn’t believe it when I was booking our holiday in Zante at Zante Maris Suites and there was not a single negative review. This is totally unusual, some people are grumpy and have a cruddy holiday and write rather unfair reviews on trivial problems. I do however sometimes get sidetracked by these negative reviews. I do also quite like to have a look at the customer hotel holiday photos as they portray a much more realistic view of the hotel than the professional holiday snaps.

INSTAGRAM

Another place that I research my potential holiday is Instagram. Some hotels have an Instagram account and you can look at photos they were tagged in by real holiday makers. If they don’t have an Instagram account you are still likely to find the hotel through a hashtag or location where holiday makers have taken photos and geotagged their location. Our latest hotel we went to didn’t have an Instagram account but lots of Instagrammers and holiday makers had shared pictures of them swanning about drinking cocktails and hanging out on their balcony private pools and it all looked ever so dreamy and I could picture myself there too.

GOOGLE MAPS

A great way to check if you really want to pick a holiday spot is to use Google Maps street view. These images are often taken out of season and even the most dreamy holidays I have been on, such as our honeymoon at Bill & Coo in Mykonos looked a bit daggy on Google Maps even though it wasn’t daggy, even in the slightest. Use the street view to map your route to the local town, can you walk there? Is the beach near? Are there restaurants close enough?

HOW TO BOOK AN AMAZING HOLIDAY EVERY TIME | Megan Taylor

MY FAVOURITE HOTELS

GREECE

ZANTE – Zante Maris Suites

RHODES – Atrium Palace

CRETE – Insula Alba

MYKONOS – Bill & Coo

ITALY

FLORENCE – Continentale

VERONA – Palazzo Victoria

ROME – The Westin Excelsior

VENICE – Hotel A La Commedia (best places to eat & drink in Venice)

TENERIFE

(I stayed in these 3 hotels whilst filming a commercial, so I didn’t pick them but they were amazing, especially the one in the West)

SOUTH – Sheraton La Caleta (Adeje)

NORTH – Iberostar Grand Hotel Mencey (Santa Cruz)

WEST – Melia Hacienda Del Conde (Buenavista)

I hope my holiday booking tips can help you too. Have you got any other tips that you have used which I need to include? Or, any amazing hotel holiday hot spots that I have missed off my list?

WHICH BEAUTY PRODUCTS I USED ON HOLIDAY

It was all orange…hmmm…as I begin to write this post I realise that all of my most used products are orange! Wow, I honestly hadn’t meant for there to be a colour scheme to my post but hey-hoo how lovely 🙂 I am back from holiday now and 3.5 out of the 7 days were absolute scorchers. Seriously hot and with serious potential to burn both my skin and frazzle my hair. All of these products now smell like holiday to me and for those that still have a little bit of product left in them I shall have a little sniff on grey rainy English days.

VICHY & TROPIC

Okay…starting with these two products from Vichy and Tropic. They are both fairly high in sun protection factor. I grew up desperate to get tanned and wore oils under 15 all the time. I look back on this appalled (I talk a bit more about this and show you some great SPF here). Oh, how times have changed. Liam and I both used this Vichy factor 30 everyday except the last 2 which were mostly rainy days and I wore factor 20 and 15. The scent of this is incredible, it will immediately transport you to sunnier climes. What I particularly loved about this product is that you can spray it all over yourself without really having to rub it in. Once I am on that sun bed I really can’t be bothered to do much never mind get my hands dirty by putting lotion on someones back hehe. I used the Tropic factor 50 sun balm on my bigger moles and on points around my bikini where normal lotion may get rubbed off. Be aware that as you are moving about your swimwear may well rub away at your lotion and remove it without you realising. This is why you may get a bit more burnt around those areas. I actually put too big of blob on one of my moles and when I got in the shower that evening I realised that there was a big white non-tanned area…it really does protect you. Oh, also, we both used it every day and barely made a dent in the product. It will definitely last long beyond its best before date so would be great for a family holiday.

WHICH BEAUTY PRODUCTS I USED ON HOLIDAY | MEGAN TAYLOR

CLARINS & REVLON

I feel like I have talked about this Clarins factor 30 face cream for far too long now, so you may well be bored. Yet, if you are new, hi 🙂 My skin loves this face cream and my nose loves the scent. Since starting using this SPF about 8 years ago I have continually gone back to buy more each year and have never burnt my face or got spotty from it (this is a huge thing for me). The tube lasts longer than a year (used only on summer holidays and super sunny English weather days) but as sun protection on my face I feel I should buy new each year? Do you have an opinion on how often you should buy new SPF? This Revlon Equave sun protection hair product is dreamy in scent and lasts a very long time. I used this every other day (on days I was going to wash my hair. I covered my hair with a hat on the alternating days) and loved it. Liam even used it as a styling product some evenings. It is very light and doesn’t leave you feeling dirty but does give you a great texture. I had my hair dyed a week before I went on holiday so used this to help protect my hair from getting too much sun damaged. On one day where I had been doing roly polys in the pool (yes, I am actually 7) my hair was awfully knotted so I sprayed this in my hair and combed through to detangle it.

Are you planning on going on holiday? Which of these products are you most excited about?

Cocktail Of The Month: {Sundown}

I am a big cocktail fan and always on the hunt for the new hot drink. I think my love for cocktails grew from watching Sex And The City at a very young age and dreaming of hanging out in New York drinking Cosmos. Whenever Liam and I go on holiday we try to find out what the locals drink and have a taste. In fact we went to Venice for the first time together back in 2008 and found out that Aperol existed. Back then no one in the UK was drinking it and you definitely couldn’t buy it at your local supermarket like you can now. On a recent trip to Barcelona I drunkenly stumbled across a scrummy cachaca called Capucana, unfortunately I am still yet to find a UK seller so I can relive my Spanish cocktails.

I was recently sent a bottle of Soho Juice which is a new cocktail mixer created by two friends. For those of us trying to be a little bit healthier but still want to have a weekend tipple with their friends this may be your answer. It has a very fresh taste predominately of cucumber but with a citrus buzz. If you are a fan of Henricks and tonic which is typically garnished with cucumber I would highly recommend this mixer as your new staple. The Soho Juice company unfortunately aren’t currently selling their drink in shops yet those of you lucky Liverpudlians can drink The Soho in numerous bars across the city. Considering Zoe and Alfie aka Zalfie have spent a day vlogging in Liverpool recently I have a feeling this city is about to become even more popular.

I have a little booklet that the gents at The Soho Juice Company sent me and it is full of cocktail recipes that feature The Soho cucumber drink. One particular cocktail that caught my eye was The Sundown yet when I went to make it I didn’t have all of the ingredients so have made a few mini adaptations. Follow my recipe below for my take on The Sundown yet with some passion fruit. Liam and I adored this cocktail and I know everyone else will as well. Let me know if you try it and send me pictures 🙂
Head on over to The Soho Juice Company for a list of cocktail recipes.

Soho Juice ☆ Albury Vodka ☆ Glasses (similar)

Passionfruit Raspberry And Honey Sundown

35ml Vodka
15ml Lemon
1/2 Passion fruit
20ml Soho Juice
10ml Honey
6 Raspberries
Sugar and Water For Decoration

1. Half fill a cocktail shaker with ice cubes.
2. Add all of the ingredients to the cocktail shaker.
3. Shake until the shaker is frosty.
4. Dip your glasses rim’s in water then in a bowl of sugar.
5. Pour the cocktail in your glass and enjoy.

Where to find Soho Juice
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