Extra special
Forte Village is a near-perfect family activity venue, says James Delingpole k re akfast and dinner are pincluded but for God's sake watch out for the extras,' said a friend who'd been to Forte Village — the near-legendary Sardinian family seaside resort for trainee plutocrats.
She was right too. Take bike hire. Because Forte Village's complex of interlinked fourand five-star hotels, leisure parks and international restaurants is so large — the site is spread out over 62 lush acres — lots of guests rent bikes, the more quickly to scoot from apartment to beach to tennis court to gocart circuit to gourmet dinner. This sounds tempting until you check out the cost: for a family of four, you'll be paying £50 per day. So by the end of your week you'll have spent the price of a brand new bike each.
Then there's the drinks. A small bottle of beer will set you back a fiver. A 750m1 bottle of water — which you'll drink lots of, Sardinia being jolly hot — will cost you three quid. A can of Coke £3.50. When you scan the wine list at dinner you won't find a single bottle for much less than £30. Then there are the watersports, the massage therapies, the cappuccinos, the ten-pin bowling, the tennis, the putting — none of which is included in the package.
Some readers may be wondering why I'm banging on about money in this vulgar way. If you're one of them, then Forte Village is for you. As its resident PR told me — just after she'd shown me one of the premium minimalist apartments with the huge picture windows looking straight out over the azure sea (a snip to you, squire, at €2,000 per person per night) — None of our guests even looks at how much things cost. They just pay.'
Actually this isn't completely true. Some of the guests I spoke to felt rather as we did and had worked out all sorts of clever budgetary ruses: stocking up at the supermarket on the way in from the airport; snacking at the cheap° shack at the far end of the beach rather than in one of the posho lunchtime restaurants; only going to the buffet restaurant where a bottle of table wine, two bottles of water and soft drinks are thrown in free.
Most, though, didn't One Englishwoman I met had flown straight in with her family from Lake Garda because the weather wasn't good enough and seemed not to understand the question when I asked whether this last-minute change hadn't been rather expensive. Another chap I met sat by the pool all day with his BlackBerry and admitted, yes, he was co-partner of a hedge fund. There were also rather a lot of beefy, slightly sinister-looking Russians who weren't much good at eye contact. Roman Abramovich loves coming here with the kids, apparently. As do all the top footballers — David Beckham, Didier Drogba, you name them — and also the dressy Italian set and the glitzy Euro-rich generally.
So what's it like? Very upmarket Center Parcs — but not necessarily in a bad way. If you have kids, they will totally, unreservedly love it. Mine (boy nine, girl seven) rated the week we spent there as the best holiday they'd ever had. They particularly loved the waterslides, and the brilliant mini-club, where delightful, enthusiastic young Italian childwranglers keep your brats royally entertained from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day.
The food — both the pig-out exotic-fruits pastries and cooked-to-order breakfast and the gobsmackingly cornucopian evening buffet spread — is wondrous. The chalets (like the woodland one we slept in) are comfortable. The thalassotherapy course at the spa is amusing and addictive. The sea off the (slightly windy) beach is crystal clear and lovely to swim in. And the service throughout is first-rate: warm, attentive but never stiff or smarmy, which is a lesson smart English hotels could learn but never have.
Do definitely go to Forte Village if you are: a hedge-fund manager; the wife's into exotic massage therapies (e.g. chocolate) in ritzy spas; you love your kids but would rather not see them for more than half an hour each day; you don't want your beach work ruined by the threat of any form of cultural activity; you like sun.
Otherwise, think carefully.
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