Head over heels in England

Go Advice:From touring Derbyshire to holidays for single mums and young children JOAN SCALESanswers your travel queries

Touring Derbyshire

My husband and I and two sons (14 and 12) are attending my cousin’s 60th birthday in Derbyshire this month. We hope to spend a week after the party travelling around. While Alton Towers is a must for the boys, can you suggest other places to visit and stay. Is two days adequate for Alton Towers?

OH, Dublin

Alton Towers is a must for the boys and two days should be enough to satisify them. Make the best use of your time at Alton Towers by staying at one of the theme park’s hotels where family rooms, which will sleep you all, cost £286 (€320) a night with park entry for two days. During the summer there are live concerts in the park, altontowers.com.

There are other hotels in the area of Alton Towers that would be less expensive, such as Holiday Inn Express and Travelodge. Stena Line and Irish Ferries also have packages with ferry crossing, hotels and park tickets that may work out better value (irishferries.com and stenaline.ie).

As Derby is in the heart of the Potteries area, the exhibition Titanic – History on a Plateat Royal Crown Derby may be of interest. It produced the first class dinner service on Titanic. The boys may also enjoy a visit to the hilltop park Heights of Abraham at Matlock Bath in the Peak District. It is accessed by cable car and an all-in ticket gives entry to the caverns, exhibitions and paths within the grounds, heightsofabraham.com.

Derby, real capital of the UK, is also one its most haunted cities. Maybe the adults would enjoy a pub crawl/brewery tour and the teenagers some ghost hunting, derbytourism.com.

Explore Derby’s railway history on a tour of the Roundhouse, the engine shed and carriage shop built in 1839 by George Stephenson of Stephenson’s Rocket fame.

For accommodation details, events and activities phone Derby tourism information centre 00-44-1332-255802, see visitderby.co.uk or visitpeakdistrict.com.

Single mum in the sun

I am mailing for a friend, a recently divorced mother of two kids (nine and 10). She wants to find a single parent type all-in resort in southern Europe or the Caribbean where she can relax, hang out in the sun, not worry about entertaining the kids, meet other single parents (preferably bright divorced males), eat well, and swim in the sea. Can you recommend a few places or agencies that cater for this for one week this summer? Something in the mid-to-higher financial range would be fine.

GH, Kerry

A UK company specialises in breaks for small families and single parent holidays. Most of its offering is in Europe and many are all-in. Two that may suit your friend are the Club Cala Barca in Majorca which has lots for everyone. You can try your hand at scuba diving there. The other is Iberostar Hotel Albatros in Cavtat, Croatia where the kids are well catered for with clubs and activities all day. Check out smallfamilies.com. Flights can be arranged from Ireland.

For the Caribbean, try the Beaches Resorts on Turk and Caicos and Jamaica. These are all-in resorts with almost every type of water sport available. The resorts offer weeks in August/September specially for single parent families, with no single supplements. There are kids’ clubs and organised events for most of the day. See beaches.com. Also try Cotton Bay Village in St Lucia – a child-friendly resort with plenty of rest for mum. It’s a five-star all-in resort and the facilities are great, cottonbayvillage.com.

Wife won’t go to Turkey

I would love to see Turkey but my wife is reluctant as she heard the toilet facilities are unlike our own. The toilet paper is put in a bin and possibly other differences. Can you point us in the right direction if there are options.

BC, Waterford

I can understand how your wife feels. I travelled around Greece 20 years ago and had some horrible toilet experiences. The good news is that things have improved but you will find places in Turkey where, due to the water system, you will have to put the toilet paper in a basket or use squat toilets.

Her are some hotels and resorts that have full European-style sanitary systems and your wife can feel comfortable. Kusadasi is a large resort that is popular with Europeans. The majority of the restaurants and bars have Western-style toilets. It is also a good base for excursions to places such as Ephesus and Pamukkale.

Sunway Travel uses the four-star Palmin hotels in Kusadasi and seven nights in June is from €349pps with flights from Dublin, Cork and Shannon. Tel: 01-2311888 or sunway.ie. For excursions Sunway uses only rest stops with Western-style facilities.

New to the Irish market this year is Wings Abroad, a Turkish holiday company that renovated two resorts in the Kusadasi area to western standards. These are the Golden Day Wings Hotel and the Pine Club apartments. A week in the hotel is from €319pps and the self-catering apartments are from €299pps for a week in June. Wings Abroad has flights from both Dublin and Cork, 1890-929939, wingsabroad.ie.

Also have a look at turkeytravelplanner.com which outlines facilities in Turkey.

Go ask Joan: E-mail questions, with your name and address, to jscales@irishtimes.com