Been to places like spain cyprus greece with my kids
health and safety will be a major concern to any parent where ever you take them ,and as good parents youll do everything you can to make there holiday a brilliant and SAFE one
co co beach is a very good beach for kids as the sea is very calm there and your able to walk way out without it going over your knees also whilst your there the dolphin trip is a must
The goans will welcome you and your children with open arms and
as long as you take the usual precautions i.e sun block , mozzy spray,sealed bottled water ect ect youll be fine
Enjoy
sharon
P.S just became a grandmother yesterday feel great

Wow thanks everyone for your input

We've been all booked up for ages and fly out on the 11th of Feb

The children are old enough to occupy themselves and have each other to play with, so I shouldn't think they'll be bored at all

I think we will err on the side of caution and insist on malaria drugs, see how we get on.

Am starting to get excited about going now, only a few weeks left!!!

Chrisandsara

good decision

We took our kids last year - aged 5 and 10, no probs with malaria tabs, no upset tummies particularily - only thing I would say to watch out for is the traffic, no pavements and with lorries overtaking cars, overtaking tuk tiks overtaking cows - you will need eyes in the back of your head.

i take my kids every year are 6 and 10 now and the goans love seeing them my kids like playing with the goan children on the beach i always take malaria tabs for the kids the one aweek ones we take gameboys for the plane and after dinner at night so the kids dont sit there moaning and we give the kids phenergan which is a sickness medicen which puts them to sleep on the plane on the way out as its a nighttime flight or they get so excited and talk nonstop all the way to goa and we been to places like spain and the kids moaned this is the best hoilday we have had and the kids smile all the time what more could you want

This will be our 5 yr olds 4th visit to Goa our only regret is that we never took her earlier.

We just adopt the common sense rules where she is concerned ie plenty of high factor sun creams etc...as regard malaria tablets we always try her with them but I must admit do have problems, last year was the most successful after expalining to her how poorly she could be she reluctantly took the tablets crushed in omega fish oil vitamins it wasnt easy!

Never had any problem with the food, there is plenty of variety and she tried most things, if all else fails someone will cook a dippy boiled egg and soliders for you.

As regarding trips I would definitely recommend the jungle book safari you get to ride feed and wash elephants it was great fun

Sorry if i have repeated this thread, but i have looked through pages and cannot find what i have previously read about taking children to Goa. What's a good day out for kids that's not too far and is there anything you can suggest we do while we are there, as it's our first time to Goa, i would like to just sit on the beach all day but think i should take them somewhere of interest.
thanks crystal xxx

It all depends on how old the children are. My toddler just likes to go swimming, get attention off the locals and eat and sleep, and my nephew whose 11 likes to go swimming, fishing, water sports eg jet skiing, and he loved the trip the crocodile trip and dolphin spotting. If you type trips into the search engine im sure youll find a lot more info

Nicola

Hi crystal, we went on the go wild trip its overnight and a long journey in the heat but it was well worth it. The kids can wash the elephants and vice versa and can ride them. Also included was a visit to the spice plantation meals on banana leaves, spiders as huge as your hand and climbing the palm trees. You can visit the young girls working in the cashew nut factory. We went to see children in their village and you can bring along goodies if you want to. The waterfalls is also a stop off which is beautiful and you can feed the monkeys. There is much more to the trip and you will be able to find it in some of the more recent holiday reviews. Iknow you said not far so i suggest you do just one at a time. Im sure the children will be amazed at just walking down the road. Have a great holiday.

when you arrive hook up with a taxi driver he will take you to all the right places much cheaper than organised tours, where are you staying ? if its Candolim i can let you have a number for Bernard (top guy ) the kids will make so many mates all the waiters ect shouting out to them as they walk down the street is a real joy

Hi thanks for your replys, we will be staying in Calangute, we have a Taxi booked thanks, have just Emailed Children walking tall to ask Rob if we can visit them, so that's a day out, i think we are staying near the Restaurant Little Italy, but not sure of the name m......... house i think, should be nice, heard good reports

Have a look here for some suggestions. I will also "up" the recommended excursions for you!

Thanks Fiona thats what i have been looking for i remember reading it a while back. I do hope my boys like Goa. One other question where is the trip where you can wash elephants, as we donot want to travel too far, as my 6 year old gets car travel sick.

I went to Candalim in November with a party of 8 adults. Would be interested to hear if anyone had taken children between the ages of 6 and 7 and if so how did they find find it (flight, food, jabs etc.)

Any information on this would be much appreciated

Hi Graham i took my 2 son's age 6 and 8 to Goa in March, we flew with First Choice which were great as we had a television on the back of the seats and they could watch a film or play the interactive games, they also had been given colouring pens and activity books on board so i can honestly say they were no trouble at all except they fell asleep 20 minutes before we landed and then i couldn't wake them up!

As for jabs, well we only booked last minute so did not have enough time for jabs, Maleria pills were a nightmare the 6 year old would not take it, so i got some in liquid form, which he still would not take, even mixed with ice cream made him sick. So i made sure he had lots of mozzie spray on in the evening.

I was a little worried about taking them that far, but it's the best holiday we have had, they loved just playing on the beach, they made friends with the beach sellers and went around helping them sell their stuff, they sat in the beach shacks with their game boys, ordering themselves drinks and thought it was great. They loved Goa and the Goan people love children. There are lots of trips you can go on for children, we planned to wash the elephants, but we ended up not really doing any of that, as they were quite happy around the pool or on the beach, they wrote a diary everyday about what they had done ( that's what the school wanted) and when we sat down to write it, they really had learnt so much, about wildlife, poverty, religion, and most of all how lucky they are, compared to their new Indian friends. When they took their diary's back to school they got a head teachers award as they were so interesting. So i would say to anybody, don't hesitate they will love it, like we did.

thanks crystalscan i can now imagine my boy enjoying himself. one of the problems i thought there could be was the fairley rough sea we were very close to the river princess at soudas shack also did the food go down well

Hi Graham yes the sea can be rough so i only let them play in the sea up to their waists, they borrowed a surf board and had alot of fun on that, if the sea was really rough i wouldn't let them near it.
Well as for the food my 8 year old will eat most things except fish, he tried chicken korma, hakka noodles etc and loved them all. A different story with the 6 year old he must be the fussiest kid when it comes to food, i took cereal with me so breakfast was sorted Lunch times we ate in Jonny's shack and he would have a toasted cheese sandwich or beans on toast or a toasted roll with jam, there was lots for him to choose really. Evening meal was a little difficult, we could not get him to try anything, so he stuck with pizza or fishfingers and chips, which most restaurants have something for kids. He loves fruit so he ate quite alot of that, so really if your child is not a fussy eater they will be fine. Must also add that they never once had an upset stomache and we tried lots of restaurants. but their favourite was Jonny's shack as they had lots of snacks to choose from.

Hi Graham,

I took my boy 15, and girl 5 to Goa in January. It's a lovely time to goa, it's cooler in the evening. I'd say make sure you have ac. We went for a month.

Jabs - They are fine, we got all ours in the one session, phone your doctors first tell them where you are going, who is going and there ages/complications etc and they'll make sure they have all the correct dosage of injections ready.

Flight - Yeah long but give them game boys (on silent so they don't annoy the other passengers, We also took a portable dvd player (went cattle class with Monarch) and cd players with stories on for the little one. Colouring stuff and snacks (although we didn't need those as the food wasn't as bad as we had read about)

Malaria tablets - They weren't too much of a trawl to take, but both kids got a case of the runs and vomitting for 24 hours while climatising so they were ineffective (advice from the doctor) Doc told us to smother them in mossie repelent Osmodos (is the local one) did this no problems, no bites and the hotel we were in sprayed mossie repelent around the whole complex and in the rooms every night.

Both kids enjoyed it immensly, and never got bored, try and take them on a tour into the National parks - The Go Wild Tour is a 2 day condensed going to loads of different places. There is more about it in my report
here (thanks for the tip on URL's fiona ). The restaurant and shacks we went to were generally family run and they also had children it was a wonderful experience to watch your kids communicating with the local kids even though they didn't speak the same language. Give it a go I'm definately not going mainland europe and staying local because of the kids anymore. Take them, give them the experience of a lifetime.

Edit
just glad you managed to follow my explanation!
Fiona

If you are worried about the kids in the sea, try one of the other beaches via a short taxi ride, I.E. Ashwem and Morjim etc.
the sea there is much safer, plenty of shallow water for little ones and still some surf for the older kids to splash in
all this and no hawkers....

del949

PS morjim beach is pictured on the left