This was not my first family holiday to Mykonos but my second – 18 years later! I have such fond memories of travelling to this windy Cycladic island with my parents and 3 siblings in 2001 that I decided to take my little one there for his first Greek holiday.
The internet wasn’t so sure about my decision. After booking a beautiful beachfront hotel, that ticked all the boxes and was just a short transfer from the airport, I started to do some brief research into where I could pick up baby supplies in Mykonos and found nothing but threads on why taking a baby to Mykonos is a bad idea. Well, internet, I beg to differ.
Having just spent a week in Platis Gialos (also written as Platis Yialos) with my 8-month-old baby I have nothing but good things to say about visiting Mykonos with a baby. Here’s why.
FYI Our trip was self-funded. This post contains affiliate links. Click here for more information.
Tips for visiting Mykonos with a baby
Where to go
Since my first visit to Mykonos in 2001 its reputation as a trendy party isle has only increased, but if you haven’t come to party or rub shoulders with glitterati it’s pretty easy to avoid them. We chose to stay in Platis Gialos, which is by no means the quietest of beaches in Mykonos, but was a perfect base for our family for a number of reasons.
Firstly, that short transfer. I think the driver did it in 11 mins on the day of our departure. The flight from London to Mykonos was just over 3 hours and it took about 3.5 hrs on the way back. If you’re looking for somewhere pretty in Greece to fly and flop this is one of the shortest journey times going. (Believe me, I looked into it.)
Secondly, the sand. Platis Gialos has soft, golden sand, which gently slopes into the calm bay and makes it a great place to dunk the baby or play with them on the water’s edge. Our hotel, more on that in a bit, had free sunloungers* and waiter service, so drinks and snacks came directly to you at the press of a button.
(*You need to pay to hire sun loungers and umbrellas at a lot of Greek beaches.)
Thirdly, the restaurants. The beachfront is lined with a mix of tavernas, restaurants and bars that offered just enough variety for us not to have to leave the area of an evening. A couple were a bit sceney (don’t go to DK Oyster whatever you do) but the beachfront couches at the likes of Yialo Yialo and Avli Tou Thodori were ideal for us to spend our low-key evenings with the baby. (Scroll down for more on what to order!)
Finally, the bus to town. Now, I’ve got to hold my hands up and say we didn’t catch the bus (we hired a car instead) but the bus to Mykonos Town from Platis Gialos takes about 15 mins and costs just Euro 1.80, so it’s easy to see the main sights of Mykonos from this location.
Click here for a guide to visiting Santorini with kids.
Where to stay
We stayed directly on the beach at the Acrogiali Beach Hotel which could not look any more Cycladic. We had a generous ground floor room with a patio that became our second home during nap time. A gorgeous spread of fresh fruit, yoghurt, eggs, pastries, pancakes, doughnuts, you name it.. was included for breakfast and even a freshly made frappe was thrown in for free. (I hate it when hotels try to charge extra for decent coffee.)
The beds were super comfy and the whole place was kept immaculately by a team of smiley ladies who combat the dust kicked up by the wind on a daily basis.
We loved having brekkie close to the sea and using the free loungers on the beach, but a big bonus we discovered upon arrival was that guests of the Acrogiali Beach Hotel can use the pool at their sister hotel, The George ,and my what a pool area that turned out to be.
The George had not one but 2 pools with sea views and a pool bar serving snacks and drinks throughout the day. There’s a lift up to the pool deck with its comfy loungers, so it’s not a problem to cart your buggy and baby paraphernalia up there either!
There were a couple of other families with young children staying at the Acrogiali Hotel and staff lavished attention on all of them. It was always a pleasure dining at the hotel as everyone was so good at playing with the children. We never felt like we weren’t welcome.
What to do in Mykonos with a baby
We have an 8-month-old baby so we did very little but parent him and get through as many books as we could while he was sleeping. (This is our idea of bliss now!)
We did, of course, head to Mykonos Town and check out those iconic 16th-century windmills and the narrow bars of Little Venice, but this was the only day trip we bothered taking.
Boats to other beaches leave from Platis Gialos on a regular basis but we were too busy in the pool to catch them. One day trip we would have liked to have done, and would attempt if we returned, is to Delos to dig into Greek history and mythology.
Where to eat
There were 2 places we loved to dine at in Platis Gialos – so much so we went to both of them twice.
One was Yialo Yialo which looks like a typical Greek taverna and has the hospitality to match it. Their crispy baked feta with mango marmalade was my favourite thing I ate all week, although their chicken souvlaki and crispy potatoes was a close second.
Our other favourite place to eat was Thea, which is right at the end of the beach and has sweeping views of the bay. Justin declared their moussaka the best he’s ever had. The house wine was tasty (reasonable too at 4 Euro a glass) and the staff were so wonderful at amusing Miles that it made it a pleasure to dine here.
Also worth eating at is Avli Tou Thodori – I particularly recommend you reserve their beachfront couches for a candlelit dinner close to the water. It’s the sister restaurant to the Argo Hotel (another place we considered staying) and guests of the hotel get a discount on their food.
To keep costs down we would grab a baguette from the delicious deli for lunch which costs less than 5 Euros. There are also a few mini marts in the resort where you can buy basic self-catering bits, but for a bigger shop you’ll need to walk approx. 20 mins out of town to the Denaxas Supermarket or catch the bus to Mykonos Town and head to AB Food Market. This was the most well stocked place we found for baby food and nappies. The mini markets in Platis Gialos had no baby food and only swim nappies rather than the regular kind.
Is Mykonos busy?
We travelled in mid-September which you might consider low season in other parts of Europe but is still a pretty popular time to go to Mykonos. Personally, we didn’t find it too busy at all. There were always spare sun beds at the pool and beach, and you didn’t have to get up at silly am to reserve them!
Because of the baby we dined early – around 7pm – and so never had to reserve a table. You might like to if you are dining later or at places that are a bit more popular but the hotel can help you with this.
We visited Mykonos Town in the morning and didn’t have a problem parking close to the bus station. (It was 10 Euro for 3 hours. The car hire was 49 Euro for the day arranged via the hotel.) As time went on the labyrinth-like streets got busier – I think there was a cruise ship in – but it wasn’t hard to wander off the main drag and find an alleyway all to yourself. We got a table for tea in Little Venice very easily around 11am and had lunch a bit later at the same restaurant I’d visited with my family in 2001. Very little had changed apart from a tree disappearing!
Is Mykonos expensive?
I find it hard to comment on price as what is expensive to one person may not be to another. For context, is Mykonos more expensive than other Greek Islands? Definitely. But it is far prettier? You bet!
I think you often have to pay more for a memorable experience and our time in Mykonos is one we won’t easily forget.
I’ve been to many Greek Islands over the years – Corfu, Kos, Zante, Santorini, Skiathos, Skopelos, Alonissos, Rhodes, Crete, Samos, Lefkada – and my memories of some of them merge into the other. There is no mistaking Mykonos though!
We booked through Thomas Cook and our hotel, flights and transfers for the week came to £1600 for the 3 of us. (Prices for September 2019.)
I did muck up slightly by booking the 6.30am departure from Gatwick and then later realising it was barely worth going to bed if we travelled from home. We ended up booking a room at the Bloc Hotel – directly inside Gatwick Airport – in order to get up at the latest time possible and this added another £170 (for a family room) onto the price. We did get a great deal for valet parking at the airport though, which was £55 when added onto the hotel, and premium security was included for free with that too.
Food-wise, as I said, we mainly dined on the beach in Platis Gialos and I would say that each dish was 1 or 2 Euros more than what we paid in Corfu last year. We spent between 55 – 65 Euro for dinner each night – that’s 2 people having at least 2 courses and beer or wine. We didn’t feel like this was expensive for what we paid as the quality was so high and the overall atmosphere and scenery was sublime. I can imagine that if you were a bigger family or were heading out drinking afterwards that this would soon add up, but we spent about £75 a day for us 3 and had exactly what we wanted.
See also: Where to go in Greece – 5 family-friendly alternatives to Mykonos & Santorini
What to pack
If you’re heading to Mykonos with a baby here is what I recommend you bring with you:
A clip on high chair – All the restaurants and the hotels I’ve mentioned had high chairs but our Mountain Buggy clip on chair came in super handy for feeding Miles outside our room. It can attach to pretty much any surface so anything from a granite table to the dressing table becomes a dining table for the baby.
Travel buggy and seat liner – Once again our Silver Cross Jet Stroller came into its forte – tackling the cobbles in Mykonos Town and the beach boardwalk with ease. The only thing I disliked about it was how hot Miles got on the shiny material but this was resolved by the addition of the Nowababy Cool Breeze Seat Liner. (Use code jayney20 for a 20% discount.)
Beach tent – We didn’t pack one of these as Miles crawls and would have spent the whole time trying to escape it, but we saw a younger baby playing and napping in one and thought it looked awesome.
A baby carrier – We didn’t take our ErgoBaby Adapt and regretted it. There was a bumpy cliff top walk to the next beach we might have attempted had we had it on us.
Baby food and snacks – Depending on where you’re at with weaning your baby I definitely recommend packing as much baby food and snacks as your luggage will allow as this was something we struggled to find locally. Only the supermarket in Mykonos Town stocked any kind of baby food and it was a very limited range at that. We packed a masher and boon pulp feeder to serve Miles the fresh fruit that was served at breakfast and managed to get a limited number of fresh things for him to eat (berries, yoghurt, cheese etc) in the local shops.
Nappies – With hindsight, I’d also have packed as many nappies as I could squeeze in as it wasn’t as easy as I thought to find some in Miles’ size when we arrived. We wasted a morning scouring local shops and Justin ended up doing a 50 min hike there and back to a supermarket buying something we have loads of at home.
Travel sterilizer – If you’re bottle feeding this cold water sterlizer from Milton is ace. You use a ¼ of a tablet per bottle.
Rubber ring – And finally, Miles loved his rubber ring we picked up on Amazon, which has waist and shoulder straps and lets them kick about like little swimmers.
Any questions about taking your family to Mykonos? Let me know in the comments!
Read next:
Chic (but fairly cheap!) guide to Skiathos, Greece
Where to go in Greece – 5 family-friendly alternatives to Mykonos & Santorini
How gorgeous! We’re currently planning baby’s first holiday, I think Greece is the perfect option.
I really think you can’t go wrong with Greece. The food, the beaches, the value for money and the locals are just so lovely to the little ones!
So glad you had a good trip! We are off to Greece in June for our next big holiday! The nappy thing is real, there is no Aldi, and Lidl’s are never where you need them!!
I’ve def learned for next time and we’re already booked for Skiathos in May. Where do you head to in June?