Every year, the process starts the same way. A destination is chosen. Then comes the research — hours of it — scrolling through hotel listings, reading descriptions that all say roughly the same thing, trying to decode what any of it actually means for a family with two children who want to have fun and two parents who want to feel like they're actually on holiday.
Booking sites are reasonable at the children's side of this equation. Kids clubs, pools, proximity to beaches — this information exists and is searchable. What booking sites consistently fail to address is the other half of the equation: does this hotel work for the adults?
Not just "is it luxurious" — but specifically: once the children are in bed, do we have our own space? Can we have a drink and a conversation without whispering? Can we be adults, not just parents managing children in a hotel room?
The problem with "family friendly"
Think about what "family friendly" actually guarantees. At minimum: children are allowed. Possibly: there's a pool with a shallow end, a kids menu at dinner, and some version of a kids club that runs for a few hours each morning. That's it. That's the bar.
It says nothing about the room. It says nothing about whether adults and children have separate sleeping spaces. It says nothing about whether the kids club runs long enough for you to have dinner together. It says nothing about babysitter availability, or whether there's anywhere in the resort that functions as adult space once the children are in bed.
We've spent eleven years searching for hotels that clear a higher bar than this — and we've found them. What strikes us is that nobody has named what they're actually doing differently. They're not just family friendly. They're parent friendly.
What parent friendly actually means
A parent friendly hotel has solved both halves of the family holiday problem. The children have what they need — activities, attention, a safe and engaging environment. And the adults have what they need too: their own space, their own time, the ability to be a couple as well as parents.
The specific thing that determines this, more than anything else, is the room. Is there a real door between where the children sleep and where the adults sleep? Not a curtain. Not a partition. A door that closes, that means when the children go to bed at 8pm, the adults can keep the lights on, top up their drinks, and have a normal conversation.
This sounds like a small thing. It isn't. It's the difference between a holiday that works for everyone and a holiday that's just parenting abroad.
But a genuinely parent friendly hotel goes further than just the room. It thinks about the whole day — and specifically the evening. The questions we ask now, before booking anything, are:
Does the kids club run late enough that we can have dinner together without children? Is there a vetted babysitter available so we can go out if we want to? Is there a concierge who can actually solve problems? Can we stay in the room on checkout day without being thrown out at 11am? Is there somewhere in the resort where we can sit as adults without being surrounded by other people's children?
These are the questions "family friendly" never answers. So we built a rating that does.
The Parent Friendly Rating — how it works
The Parent Friendly Rating
Scored out of 5. One point for each criterion met. No score awarded without the prerequisite.
A genuinely separate sleeping space for children — with a real physical barrier (door, wall, or separate room) between adult and children's sleeping areas. A curtain, a partition screen, or bunk beds in the corner of the same room does not qualify. Without this, no Parent Friendly rating is awarded regardless of other facilities.
A kids club that closes at 5pm is a daytime facility. One that runs until 9 or 10pm gives adults a real evening. This single criterion determines whether you can have dinner together as a couple.
Not a phone number for an external agency — an actual vetted service the hotel provides or facilitates directly, available in the evenings. This gives parents the option to leave the resort without the children.
Someone who can manage restaurant reservations, activities, and logistics on your behalf — ideally reachable via WhatsApp rather than a front desk queue. The Ikos model of a dedicated WhatsApp concierge is the benchmark.
Checkout at 11am with a 9pm flight means ten hours of managing children and luggage in a lobby. Hotels that solve this — late checkout, a day room, proper luggage storage with pool access — earn this point.
Somewhere in the resort where adults can go and be adults. An adults-only pool, a bar with evening atmosphere, a restaurant that doesn't feel like a creche. This is the point most family resorts miss entirely.
Why this matters beyond room configuration
The room configuration is the foundation — without genuine sleeping separation, none of the rest matters. But the Parent Friendly rating is really about something broader: does this hotel understand that the adults are on holiday too?
The best family hotels we've encountered have grasped this. They know that happy parents make better parents, that couples need time together even on family holidays, and that a child who is genuinely engaged and entertained means adults who can actually relax. The design follows from that understanding — in the room layout, the kids club hours, the concierge model, the adult spaces.
The hotels that haven't grasped it tend to have the same symptoms: a kids club that closes before dinner, no babysitter, a room where the only way to have a conversation after 8pm is to go and stand on a balcony. Technically family friendly. Not parent friendly.
Hotels with the highest Parent Friendly ratings
Corfu · Greek Islands
Ikos Dassia
Kos · Greek Islands
Ikos Aria
Mauritius
Tamassa Resort
Algarve · Portugal
Martinhal Sagres
Costa del Sol · Spain
Ikos Andalusia
Mallorca · Spain
Iberostar Albufera Park
Every hotel on this site carries a Parent Friendly score. The full breakdown for each property — which criteria it meets and which it doesn't — is included in the relevant destination guide.