The Rosevine, Cornwall

For those that follow us on Twitter and Facebook, probably already know that we love The Rosevine.

It took a bit over 6 hours to drive to this wonderful white house by the sea. Luckily, the drive worked just as planned. Kids napped big part of the journey, the rest of the journey they were eating and happily chatting away.

Our rooms were just as nice as it looked on their website, if not even more so. Staff was very nice and friendly. All was very calm and welcoming.

Once we arrived, baby-sitter was arranged within minutes, and kids dinners ordered. Kids will all have dinner together in one of our rooms and play until it is bed-time.
We big people were left to relax with a drink in the lounge, until our dinner was ready in the restaurant. Duck salad, scallops, sea-bass, steak, risotto, chicken terrine....... it was all amazing. The Rosevine is incredibly child-friendly and the service and food is what you would expect to find in an exclusive boutique hotel.

Morning 1. After a refreshing swim in the heated swimming pool, we all had a hearty breakfast in the restaurant. Again, the food was brilliant. Kids finished theirs and went off to the play-room whilst we continued ours in peace.

First destination, St. Ives. but not until we had enjoyed some play-time in the lovely garden. Sun was shining, the sky was bright blue, as was the ocean..... we were all happy !

St. Ives was about 1h away from The Rosevine. Once we arrived, we parked at Park Avenue car Park, just a few minutes away from the centre. A short stroll and a bit of window shopping later, we arrived at the harbour. All kids charged straight down towards the beach and that was that, we didn't leave for the rest of the day. We were all having a great time. Lunch : Fish n' Chips and ice cream.

Sun-soaked and happy, we headed back to hotel. All kids ( + myself) napping all the way. Dinner in our room after a quick swim. Hotel provided us with prepared dinners that we could easily heat up in our room and wine. Chicken, mashed potatoes, chicken terrine, salad, apple crumble.....simple, basic and very nice. Early night for kids. Movie night in the lounge for mums.

Next was beach day. Well, we were supposed to just walk through the beach (Porth Curnick Beach, which is only a couple of minutes of walk from hotel) to get over to Port Scatho but ended up staying a bit longer than planned. The sun was beaming ! In fact, it was as hot as any British summers day. It was wonderful. We pretty much had the beach all to ourselves, apart from the one or two other families that were there. We even spotted some seals.The more skeptical of us think they were ducks....

Glorious sunshine. Fantastic beach. Buckets. Spades. A bunch of happy kids. Life was good and like that we stayed for several hours until hunger was sneaking up on us. With a bit of gentle persuasion, everyone agreed to leave our beloved spot and walk across to the other side of the beach to follow the scenic route to Port Scatho, a small fishing village in search of food.
Discovered some rather wonderful rock pools by the edge of the beach, filled with clear (very cold) water and living creatures. We spotted shrimps, crabs and even some fish in these beautiful "aquariums".

From the rock-pools to our feeding station (the one and only pub in Port Scatho), it took about 15-20 mins and that includes a few pit stops like, trouser changing, flower picking and photos.

Pub looked pretty old and average but food was surprising good. Mussels/chips, moussaka/salad, sausage/mash, fish/chips... and all washed down with Cornish cider.

The other place well worth a visit is a small vintage gift shop across the road, full of quaint crafts and wonderful vintage books, decorations and clothing. It was set-up by 3 local crafts-women that also have a small studio there where they make some of their own products,as well as hold workshops.

After lunch, comes the much anticipated afternoon nap for everyone. We were all happily full and tired.

Afternoon movie in playroom, out-door play and lots of pretend play with the toys provided by The Rosevine. It was all so easy ..... 4 toddlers and a baby can sometimes be quite stressful but not here ... they were all too busy having fun and playing/exploring to cause trouble.

This place is such a pleasure to stay at with kids, they think of everything ! Whilst the kids were in the playroom playing, one of the staff approached me to order kids dinners in advance, to ensure kids would get their food shortly after we all got seated at restaurant. In that way, they get to enjoy their dinner in our company while the adults then can continue to eat and chat long after kids finished and gone off back to playroom to enjoy one of the many DVDs and toys available.

After a long lie in, it was breakfast again.
There is something quite nice about waking up in the morning, making yourself some coffee, some toast... still in your pyjamas, so we decided to just get some breakfast food and have breakfast in one of our rooms in the mornings. There is a little kitchenette but to our disappointment, no hob.... we had 24 eggs and porridge to make ! So what to do .... use the microwave ?! None of us had really cooked in a microwave before but actually it worked quite well ! Porridge was just fine, as was the scrambled eggs (which strangely resembled the scrambled eggs provided on long-haul flights) but the boiled eggs.... we just couldn't figure out a way to make them soft-boiled. My kids will only eat "dippy" egg and not interested in hard-boiled, so saved a lot of eggs there ! I really enjoyed our breakfasts together, all of us in our pjs...

The 4 days that we spent there went way too quickly. Could do with perhaps another few days... or weeks ! We will definitely come back again.

If you are looking for a short family vacation in the UK, I recommend that you try The Rosevine.

We paid £495 for a suite, incl. 1 dinner in restaurant and 1 dinner in the room (ie. 4 dishes from the deli menu). Worth every penny.

Ps. One last thing I should mention . Although Wi-Fi is good at The Rosevine, mobile phone signal is not. So, just bear this in mind if you are expecting important phonecalls ! DH had to drive a couple of miles up the road to get good signals several times a day, to make sure there weren't any urgent messages left on his phone.