The Strandhotel

In the lovely seaside resort of Cadzand-Bad, the Strandhotel offers rooms but most importantly apartments. The pleasure of feeling at home and the comfort of staying in a hotel, the best of both worlds when traveling with kids…

At first sight, the Strandhotel is more couples or family of older children oriented. Neat decoration, a welcome drink, a fire in the lobby, cosy yet elegant restaurants, a swimming pool in the basement with softened lights, …

But the hotel grants access to about ten apartments totally made for the families. You are welcomed at the reception, just like you would be if you had booked a room. After a welcome drink, we were escorted to our apartment. We went out of the building to enter in the one next door. We push the door and discover a nicely decorated apartment and a beautiful sea view.

Where do we sleep?

The apartment is well-thought. Rooms are on the street side, living room/kitchen, on the seaside. In between, two bathrooms and a utility room (a washing machine can be a life saver). We sleep in super comfy beds. We don’t hear a noise and the curtains are really blocking the light. The perfect place to sleep well.
But we had an unpleasant surprise of our stay: the children bed is charged 15€/night. It adds a little something to the final invoice.

What do we eat?

In the morning, we enjoyed the great buffet in the hotel restaurant the Pine House. You can reach the restaurant through the garage if you don’t want to go out (the surface is perfect if you want to try your scooter skills like Colette). There is as much sweet as salty dishes. This buffet gives prominence to pastries and brad, but you can also find yogurt, granola, eggs, bacon, pancakes, salads, charcuterie, cheese, … We choose among several fruit juices and the coffee machine will make any kind of coffees. After five breakfasts at the Pine House, we were still pretty excited by all it has to offer.

For the other meals, we went to places in Cadzand or elsewhere (like the Zes Bochten). The restaurants in the hotel are clearly not made to welcome such young children. The most suitable one, according to the receptionist, offers gyozas to the kids; certainly delicious but not really appetizing for a 3 years old. And only by the atmosphere, we could tell that a bawling baby wouldn’t please everyone. Bad news: restaurants on the place in front of the hotel don’t serve quality food. So we took advantage of walking by a deli to get a few cooked meals to enjoy in the apartment. We could have cooked, since the kitchen is well equiped, but we were on holiday, weren’t we?

If you have the opportunity to go a bit further than the hotel area to eat, the Brasserie Loulou is great! It’s right next to the Blanke Top.

What do we do?

In the hotel, we can go to the indoor pool. A beautiful swimming pool with soft lighting, perfect to swim lengths (but don’t be too noisy, we can tell that people are in a relaxation mood here).

In Cadzand-Bad, we can walk in the middle of the sand dunes or on the beach and stop in one of the strand paviljoenen (the beach pavilions) to have something to eat. The closest one to the hotel, the Piraat, offers the advantage to have a ship that has run aground and that makes little pirates very happy. We can also rent a bike and go a bit further. These are the classics when at the seaside!

The hotel itself isn’t really made for families but the concept of the apartment is very pleasant with children. We enjoy the hotel services (daily cleaning, a great breakfast, an indoor pool, …) while having the pleasure to be at home to eat peacefully at night and avoid another restaurant with tired children, to have a fridge that can contains more than a couple of bottles of water, … In brief, it’s the best of both worlds. If you stay more than a weekend, this option is really perfect with children!

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