So hard to buy if you're in Dubai

Vanessa Feltz goes full on all-inclusive with her family

- 

HOW do you keep four children aged 11, nine, five and two happily amused on holiday without boring the big ones or excluding the baby?

And while you're about it, how do you amuse a grandma - me! - celebrating her 63rd birthday mid-vacation, while resting and reviving the kids' exhausted parents?

My family is used to simple bucket-and-spade, rain-drenched, anorak-wearing breaks at my house in beloved East Cork.

But desperate just for once to bask in the warming glow of routinely reliable sunshine, I decided to push the half-term/birthday boat out and schlep us all to Dubai.

Chronically deprived of screen-time by their cruel parents, the older three were enthralled by the glamour of Emirates airlines' in-flight entertainment. Rare permission to plug themselves in to films, shows and computer chess and backgammon catapulted them to instant bliss.

JOLLY

Cabin crew whizzed about snapping them on Polaroid cameras and handing out branded toys, backpacks and child-friendly meals. Six-and-a-half-hours in economy whirled comfortably by. Even baby Cecily was jolly and serene. So by the time we'd gazed awe-stricken upon the undulating marble acres of Dubai airport and been warmed by the balmy evening air, we were well and truly in holiday mode.

When I told my pal presenter Kate Thornton her where we were headed she messaged: “I do love a Rixos hotel.”

I hoped we'd feel the same. The Rixos chain bills itself as “luxury all-inclusive”.